No discussion of great guitar solos is complete without “Maggot Brain,” the title track off Funkadelic’s third album, released in 1971. George Clinton is remembered as the mastermind of P-Funk, but those first three Funkadelic records are heavily influenced by guitarist Eddie Hazel, and “Maggot Brain” was the capper to that early burst of creativity. [...]
As some of you folks may have figured out by now, I am a huge fan of both funk and black rock. Funk gets quite a bit of attention and credit, but not nearly enough attention is given to black rock. Consider this my small, but heartfelt contribution to the cause of black rock and [...]
One Nation Under A Groove Part 1 (Clinton, Shider, Morrison) - Funkadelic c/w One Nation Under A Groove Part 2 1978 Probably Funkadelic's best known single, written by George Clinton, Walter Morrison and Garry Shider. Funkadelic as a band included at any given time: George Clinton William "Bootsy" Collins Mickey Atkins Harold Beane Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey Ron Bykowski Catfish Collins...
Liner Notes: Funk emerged in the 1960s, a scorching sound that amped up the spirit of R&B and became the precursor to hip-hop. While major artists topped the charts with funk hits throughout the '60s and '70s, What It Is! celebrates the smaller ones—the heady, groove-monstrous strain of gutbucket funk that remains a major force in American music. A four-CD, 91-track compendium that would...
PLAN A: Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin & Buddy Miller @ Humphrey’s Concerts By The Bay–Nearly three years ago, when I couldn’t score an interview with Emmylou Harris, I ended up writing a rather rushed and inane article about how Harris is beloved in the straight-male alt-country scene (you can check it out here [...]
Without doubt the worlds greatest guitar track is Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, a garage rock inflected acid funk band who sounded like a cross between the Stooges and James Brown. Maggot Brain is the classic solo even outdoing Hendrix because: Guitarist Eddie Hazel had the biggest "fro this side of The Chi-Lites Band Leader George Clinton fed Eddie loads of acid before hand and then when he was...
The arrival this week of a new live album from Mark Kozelek , “Lost Verses – Live”, has prompted me to go on something of a Red House Painters / Sun Kil Moon binge (a contrast, for sure, to that concurrent Funkadelic trip ; thanks, incidentally, for the recommendations – must check that Eddie Hazel solo album out). Read more...
When you put the needle on the record, George Clinton’s baritone voice speaks through an echo machine. He is all authority: Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time Cause y’all have knocked her up I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe I was not offended For I knew I had to rise above it [...]
The Posies — Jon Auer, Ken Stringfellow, et al. — have been an important part of the Seattle (and national) indie-pop scene for over 20 years now. While never as huge as some of the other bands that came out of the Northwest onto major labels in the early 90s, they have certainly left [...]
This week in New Reviews, we have not one but three new albums from Prince: LOtUSFLOW3R, MPLSoUND and Elixer by his protégée Bria Valente. First, LOtUSFLOWER finds the Purple One embracing his inner-guitar god. “Whether it’s the spare funk of ‘Wall of Berlin,’ the metal grind of ‘Dreamer’ or the hazy cover of ’Crimson and Clover,’ [...]
because quite frankly it would be rude not to. interesting maggotbrain fact number 1. eddie hazel was told to remmeber the saddest he had ever felt and improvise a guitar solo based on that memory. he chose when his mother had died, and this is the resultant piece of music.
An excellent, high quality SBD of Eddie Hazel era P-Funk featured here. Below is a version of Eddie playing “Maggot Brain” with Michael Hampton in Landover, MD , from ‘83. Download