Funkadelic's Maggot Brain

by Matt Rogers

Published 9 December 2016
George Clinton, like his idols James Brown and Sly Stone, was a genius at getting the most out of his fellow singers and musicians. Maggot Brain was in many ways Funkadelic's attempt to combine Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Electric Ladyland and Cloud Nine. Matt Rogers has interviewed many of the surviving "original" members of P-Funk, including Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas, Billy "Bass" Nelson, Bernie Worrell and George Clinton in an attempt to better document the group's oral history. He has access to many of the people who actually had a hand in the making of the album, and whose stories haven't really been told. The earlier segments of P-Funk's evolution are often overlooked, with Maggot Brain being the pinnacle of this work.