It’s time to TEAR THE ROOF OFF THE SUCKER with The Vinyl of the Day ‘Mothership Connection’ by Parliament, 1975. IMHO the Magnum Opus of the Prime Minister of Funk, Dr. Funkenstein; George Clinton. There are many valid choices for the BEST P-Funk album: “Funkentelechy”, “Maggot Brain”, “One Nation Under a Groove”, “Standing on the Verge of Getting it On”, “Motor Booty Affair”, “Cosmic Slop”, and “Lets Take It To The Stage” are some of the obvious choices. But which of these albums is the FUNKIEST from start to finish? Gotta say Mothership out-funks them all pound-for-pound! Or kilogram-for-kilogram….
This album features the definitive Parliament line-up: the original Parliaments (Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas) augmented by lead singers Gary Shider and especially the powerfully-voiced Glen Goins. The bulk of the songs are composed and produced by the “silly serious” triumvirate of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Bernie Worrell with Worrell handling the horn and string arrangements.
The best way to describe this album, just as any classic, is for you to experience it for yourself. But special attention should be paid to the jazzy break-down of P Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) featuring solos by Michael Brecker and Fred Wesley, Glen Goins’ vocals on “Mothership Connection” & “Handcuffs”, the liquid grunge of Bootsy’s bass and keyboard commentary by Bernie, and the absolute magical blend of funk, jazz, gospel, and rock throughout. The chants on “Supergroovalisticprosifunksication” and “Night of the Thumpasorus People” work and cook that gumbo of funk percolating underneath.
Parliament & Funkadelic would both take that type of musical formula to incredible levels and produce some of the most gut bucket, down home, nasty Funk to ever be put down on wax. Mothership Connection was their first truly “crossover” album to mainstream America, and became a platinum selling smash hit. So important was this funktastic LP that the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2011, declaring “the album has had enormous influence on jazz, rock and dance music." In 2003 VH1 named Mothership Connection the 55th greatest album of all time, and it was ranked number 276 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Mighty high, fine and completely appropriate praise for this game changing LP, as George would later say when describing the making of the album, ”We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn’t think black people would be was in outer space.“ Mr. Clinton, you took us to the White House, Outer Space, and to Other Realms beyond description and I would like to personally thank you for the ride! Funkin’ A-right.
AllMusic Review by Jason Birchmeier
The definitive Parliament-Funkadelic album, Mothership Connection is where George Clinton’s revolving band lineups, differing musical approaches, and increasingly thematic album statements reached an ideal state, one that resulted in enormous commercial success as well as a timeless legacy that would be compounded by hip-hop postmodernists, most memorably Dr. Dre on his landmark album The Chronic (1992). The musical lineup assembled for Mothership Connection is peerless: in addition to keyboard wizard Bernie Worrell; Bootsy Collins, who plays not only bass but also drums and guitar; the guitar trio of Gary Shider, Michael Hampton, and Glen Goins; and the Brecker Brothers (Michaeland Randy) on horns; there are former J.B.’s Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker (also on horns), who were the latest additions to the P-Funkstable. Besides the dazzling array of musicians, Mothership Connection boasts a trio of hands-down classics – "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),” “Mothership Connection (Star Child),” “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)” – that are among the best to ever arise from the funk era, each sampled and interpolated time and time again by rap producers; in particular, Dr. Dre pays homage to the former two on The Chronic (on “The Roach” and “Let Me Ride,” respectively). The remaining four songs on Mothership Connection are all great also, if less canonical. Lastly, there’s the overlapping outer-space theme, which ties the album together into a loose escapist narrative. There’s no better starting point in the enormous P-Funk catalog than Mothership Connection, which, like its trio of classic songs, is undoubtedly among the best of the funk era.