R.I.P. Junie Morrison

[supremebve]

Junie Morrison from The Ohio Players and Funkadelic has died.  You may not know his name, but I guarantee you know his music.  The following songs were written and produced by the late Mr. Morrison.

 

 

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

The Landover concert from '79 was tremendous just because George Clinton (no surprise of course) was higher than a mink coat and was on the verge of his voice going to shit so that forced everyone to be at their best. 

Also, a reminder that P-Funk in the late 70s had Bernie Worrell AND Junie Morrison on keys. In terms of pure musical ability when it comes to fusing funk w/ other genres, that's like having 1 and 2 in the NBA all-star voting in the backcourt of your actual team.

 

[supremebve]

3 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Also, a reminder that P-Funk in the late 70s had Bernie Worrell AND Junie Morrison on keys.

I don't know if there has ever been a band with as much legendary talent as Funkadelic.  Bootsy, Worrell, Morrison, Hazel, etc.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

2 hours ago, supremebve said:

I don't know if there has ever been a band with as much legendary talent as Funkadelic.  Bootsy, Worrell, Morrison, Hazel, etc.  

Granted I'm not sure how many people will tell the truth about that time period and Clinton's troubled history w/ publishing rights, you can do a pretty lengthy documentary or film about the group. George Clinton parlayed a mediocre doo-wop group (when doo-wop was pretty much dead) into one of the biggest acts in the entire world and influenced a whole host of people who they themselves would become big acts. The fact he was able to siphon late era James Brown (basically taking the JBs and teenager William Collins) and turned that a funk/R&B megaforce was incredible because he was dissing James Brown at the same time of making that type of music and doing it well. Then, GC survived his own exodus/implosion in his group including original Parliament members leaving (they basically didn't have shit do because the musicians became vocalists), Hazel going to jail, record labels issues, various drug issues w/ everyone else, and Glenn Goins leaving (see: the Mutiny on the Mamaship album w/ Jerome Brailey which Goins assisted in before he died). The band still was producing hit albums before Clinton himself fell off the cliff before re-emerging w/ Computer Games. There is no way any band and musician short of acts that were ALREADY going into the Rock & Roll HOF can survive all of that NOW. No fucking way. Not in an era where the surviving members of TLC are using crowdfunding to do albums now.

 

[supremebve]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The fact he was able to siphon late era James Brown (basically taking the JBs and teenager William Collins) and turned that a funk/R&B megaforce was incredible because he was dissing James Brown at the same time of making that type of music and doing it well.

I have a minor gripe with this sentence.  Funkadelic is perhaps the greatest American ROCK band.  Honestly, the only other band in the running for that title is The Isley Brothers.  After the British Invasion, rock music made by black bands was pushed to the side, re-categorized, and/or discarded.  There is nothing R&B about Funkadelic, and funk is just a new name for rock music made by black people.  The music of Funkadelic, James Brown, The Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, etc. is ROCK music.  What we generally categorize as rock music is music that is trying to sound like British bands who were trying to recreate black American music.  If The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the rest of those British bands didn't exist, all of those black bands would be what we called rock music.  Black people invented rock music, and the evolution of rock music should include all of the black bands that came after the British Invasion.

[Elsalvajeloco]

49 minutes ago, supremebve said:

I have a minor gripe with this sentence.  Funkadelic is perhaps the greatest American ROCK band.  Honestly, the only other band in the running for that title is The Isley Brothers.  After the British Invasion, rock music made by black bands was pushed to the side, re-categorized, and/or discarded.  There is nothing R&B about Funkadelic, and funk is just a new name for rock music made by black people.  The music of Funkadelic, James Brown, The Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, etc. is ROCK music.  What we generally categorize as rock music is music that is trying to sound like British bands who were trying to recreate black American music.  If The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the rest of those British bands didn't exist, all of those black bands would be what we called rock music.  Black people invented rock music, and the evolution of rock music should include all of the black bands that came after the British Invasion.

I am more or less talking about Parliament-Funkadelic (or P-Funk) because Parliament started off with GC, Fuzzy, Grady Thomas (the genie Rick Ross looking dude), Stingray Davis, and Calvin Simon (who I'm not sure actually contributed anything post doo-wop quintet). I'm treating Funkadelic almost as it's own entity before GC unofficially officially combined the two. Funkadelic itself was the backing band w/ all the young musicians damn near kids from Plainfield (i.e. Shider, Goins, Hazel, Lampkin, Tawl Ross, Tiki, Billy Nelson, etc.). Basically, it ended up as an experiment because all those dudes from Parliament would look out of place with a bunch of kids on the stage.  They just happened to have someone like Worrell, who would basically serve as a glue between the two. Listening to early Parliament w/ Funkadelic backing them, you can tell they're trying to find their identity. They're basically playing proto-metal while George is screaming, cursing, and rhyming his ass off. It didn't sound like anything anyone had ever heard before. It was chaotic and all over the place. The initial problem was George wasn't that great of a vocalist so they couldn't just do the early 70s pop funk, but he was plenty charismatic enough and was an incredible talent scout. When Bootsy came into the mix, that's when they began to structure everything much better. Parliament and Funkadelic were able to have two separate identities but still co-exist in a way where everything made perfect sense. Yeah, early on you got the original Funkadelic album, Free Your Mind..., and Maggot Brain. Yeah, you got George being insane and dancing around in like Klan robes and Native American garb. However, that shock rock shit was going to have a short shelf life considering what music as a whole was evolving into. Also, I dunno if black people were really going to except it on a certain level if George didn't eventually make alot of that cool by way of the Mothership Connection tour later. Between having people serve many different roles and having so many great vocalists (IMO their best pure vocalist Belita Woods didn't come until the P-Funk All Stars years), they could cover the entire gamut on any given night. You listen to some to that P-Funk 76-77 live stuff and some of the improvisation, they could be the best gospel (Goins' voice was fucking amazing and versatile so it's a fucking shame he was gone at 24), funk, hard rock, jazz, progressive rock, and R&B on the SAME night. Hell, even within the span of 3 or 4 songs. So if someone wants to say they (Parliament and Funkadelic as P-Funk) were the best _____ band, I dunno if I could argue against it because I can't say what they couldn't do.

[Death From Above]

One of my takeaways from the 70's music poll listening was how cool a hard rock act Funkadelic could be when the urge struck them. That's really not a thing they get a lot of credit for but they did some very cool hard rock tracks that still had soul.

[supremebve]

10 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

 You listen to some to that P-Funk 76-77 live stuff and some of the improvisation, they could be the best gospel (Goins' voice was fucking amazing and versatile so it's a fucking shame he was gone at 24), funk, hard rock, jazz, progressive rock, and R&B on the SAME night. Hell, even within the span of 3 or 4 songs. So if someone wants to say they (Parliament and Funkadelic as P-Funk) were the best _____ band, I dunno if I could argue against it because I can't say what they couldn't do.

I think that is kind of what the orgin of rock music is though.  Rock music was invented by musicians who were talented enough to do any damn thing they wanted, and started just mashing it all together.  At its core rock music is the next logical progression of jazz and blues.  Jazz took familiar sounds and riffed until they created something new.  The blues basically took gospel music and turned it secular.  Rock took the blues and made it more secular and then riffed and improvised even further than the jazz musicians.  The first rock song is essentially a blues band playing with a broken amp, liking how it sounded and deciding to have fun with the new sound they created.  Rock was about taking the talent and resources of the band and pushing it to the creative limit.  The current music we call rock is a recreation of a recreation.  The improvisation was translated into guitar solos, but they were fit into more traditional song structure.  The rules that currently define the genre were put into place to recreate something that had no rules.  The new Funkadelic didn't follow any of those rules, because they were following the tradition of maximizing their talent through endless creativity.  Rock music is all of the things you list above, and damn near anything else.  If the band is good enough to incorporate those different genres.  That is why either Funkadelic or The Isley Brothers are the best American rock group of all time.  They can take so many desperate styles and incorporate them into a cohesive sound, and that is what rock music was built on. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

3 minutes ago, supremebve said:

I think that is kind of what the orgin of rock music is though.  Rock music was invented by musicians who were talented enough to do any damn thing they wanted, and started just mashing it all together.  At its core rock music is the next logical progression of jazz and blues.  Jazz took familiar sounds and riffed until they created something new.  The blues basically took gospel music and turned it secular.  Rock took the blues and made it more secular and then riffed and improvised even further than the jazz musicians.  The first rock song is essentially a blues band playing with a broken amp, liking how it sounded and deciding to have fun with the new sound they created.  Rock was about taking the talent and resources of the band and pushing it to the creative limit.  The current music we call rock is a recreation of a recreation.  The improvisation was translated into guitar solos, but they were fit into more traditional song structure.  The rules that currently define the genre were put into place to recreate something that had no rules.  The new Funkadelic didn't follow any of those rules, because they were following the tradition of maximizing their talent through endless creativity.  Rock music is all of the things you list above, and damn near anything else.  If the band is good enough to incorporate those different genres.  That is why either Funkadelic or The Isley Brothers are the best American rock group of all time.  They can take so many desperate styles and incorporate them into a cohesive sound, and that is what rock music was built on. 

As your reply came up, I was listening to Into You (from "One Nation") from a 78 concert on Youtube. I had no idea Junie even wrote it with Bootsy and George. I knew he did vocals during outro on the studio version. However, the live version itself is a slow jam (basically very different from the studio version) with Junie doing vocals throughout the performance with Ray Davis doing leads alongside Ron Ford and whatever Bride of Funkenstein was doing the main female vocals for them at that time.

At no point does it feel forced or like a throwaway filler track to give the rest of the members something to do. Everyone shines without it being incredibly out of place, especially when George wanted to get away from the Mothership concept at that time and go to something else.

Take "I'll Stay" for example. You can't really put that song in any one category. Hazel's guitar, the vocals, the beat, and the bass line are all on different wavelengths but it still manifests into a great classic track. I remember listening to Crucial Conflict when they first hit with "Hay" and being like, "Man, no disrespect to them but who AND what the fuck is the music in the background?"

My little black mind was blown.