That is the (altered) mind of 29-year-old George Clinton in the winter of 1971 when Funkadelic recorded their third album Maggot Brain, which was released 50 years ago today. Clinton says that he and the late, great guitarist Eddie Hazel were trippin’ on acid when he told Eddie to play the song like his mother had died. Of course, Eddie’s mother was very much alive at the time, but still, the screaming, wailing, mournful solo is thought of to be one of the best of music history, regardless of genre.
Some production tricks from George give the solo a more haunting sound, including fading out other instruments and “Echoplexing it three or four times to give it an eerie feel.” It worked wonders as the title track is one of the quintessential tracks in the P-Funk catalog.
It’s a helluva way to start an album and it only gets wilder from there. Maggot Brain is an exercise of being high as hell with something to say and no matter how bizarre or garbled, the essence of the message somehow gets to the listener, stoned or otherwise.
“Can you get to that” is a retooling of an earlier Parliament jam, “What you been growin.’” Its endearingly lazy tempo is the proverbial coming down off of Maggot Brain’s trippy high of an intro. Ray Davis and Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul trio (sisters Pat and Dianne Lewis and Rose Williams) share vocal duties for a quick three-minute frolic through a park of altered states.
“Hit it and quit it” is a showcase for another P-Funk member that has since transitioned, keyboardist Bernie Worrell. It’s not easy to play and sing about all manners of filth and freakery, but Bernie manages to do it on “Hit it” with a groovy organ solo break in between.
More studio wizardry is present on the Sly Stone-influenced “You and your folks, me and my folks.” The drums and bass are comb filtered and echoed all to be damned, giving the bottom a menacing thunder that was maybe five to 10 years ahead of its time.
Bassist Billy Bass Nelson is the lead vocalist on “You and your folks,” pleading with folks of all stripes to pull together during a dark time in American history. The refrain of “The rich folks got a big piece of this n’ that/the poor got a big piece of roaches n’ rats” is as relevant today as it was in a Nixonian world.
Another piercing Eddie Hazel guitar riff punctuates “Super Stupid,” an early 70s D.A.R.E ad about the dangers of mixing cocaine and heroin which is likely at least 75 percent of the band failed to heed while recording or otherwise.
“Back in our minds” is a set up for the absolutely weird, Sid and Marty Krofft-esque conclusion that is “Wars of Armageddon.”
“Wars” is 9 minutes and 42 seconds of, to quote the late Macho Man Randy Savage, complete mental insanity, featuring farting, bombs bursting in mid-air, declarations of “Pussy to the power” and other assorted goofiness. The music is a jam session that easily could be confused with War’s earliest stuff, if not for the WTFness of the vocals and sound effects.
Seems like that was the point of a song and album that was recorded in what was then the latter stages of the Vietnam conflict – war is dumb as hell and if we keep engaging in it, we won’t be around much longer.
50 years later, Maggot Brain is considered by many to be Funkadelic’s magnum opus, a trippy mindfuck of an album that set the stage for an incredible run of music and is also the beginning of what the band themselves would declare on 1978’s One Nation Under A Groove: a funk band could indeed play rock. And play it well.
