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Parliament: Mothership Connection

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Casablanca Records
Released: 1975.12.15
Time:
 38:06
Category: R&B, Funk
Producer(s): George Clinton
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address:
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] P. Funk [Wants to Get Funked Up] (G.Clinton/B.Collins/B.Worrell) - 7:41
[2] Mothership Connection [Star Child] (G.Clinton/B.Collins/B.Worrell) - 6:13
[3] Unfunky UFO (G.Clinton/B.Collins/G.Shider) - 4:23
[4] Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication (G.Clinton/B.Collins/G.Shider/B.Worrell) - 5:03
[5] Handcuffs (G.Clinton/G.Goins/J.McLaughlin) - 4:02
[6] Give Up the Funk [Tear the Roof off the Sucker] (J.Brailey/G.Clinton/B.Collins) - 5:46
[7] Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples (G.Clinton/B.Collins/G.Shider) - 5:10

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


George Clinton - Lead Vocals, Producer
Calvin Simon - Lead Vocals
Fuzzy Haskins - Lead Vocals
Ray Davis - Lead Vocals
Grady Thomas - Lead Vocals
Gary Shider - Lead Vocals, Guitars
Glen Goins - Lead Vocals, Guitars
Bootsy Collins - Lead Vocals, Bass Guitar on [2,3,5,7], Guitars, Drums & Percussion

Fred Wesley - Horns
Maceo Parker - Horns
Michael Brecker - Horns
Randy Brecker - Horns
Boom - Horns
Joe Farrell - Horns
Cordell Mosson - Bass Guitar
Michael Hampton - Guitars
Tiki Fulwood - Drums & Percussion
Jerome Brailey - Drums & Percussion
Gary Cooper - Drums & Percussion, Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Bernie Worrell - Minimoog, Wurlitzer Electric Piano, Arp Pro Soloist, Hammond Organ, Grand Piano, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet D6
Debbie Edwards - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Taka Kahn - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Archie Ivy - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Bryna Chimenti - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Rasputin Boutte - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Pam Vincent - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Debra Wright - Backing Vocals & Handclaps
Sidney Barnes - Backing Vocals & Handclaps

Jim Vitti  - Engineer in Detroit, Michigan
Ralph (Oops) - Engineer
Jim Callow - Engineer in Hollywood, Caliiornia
Allen Zentz - Mastering
David Alexander - Photography
Gribbitt! - Art Direction & Design

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1975 LP Casablanca NBLP 7022

Recorded in March–October 1975 at United Sound, Detroit, Michigan, and Hollywood Sound, Hollywood, California.



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 (Michael and 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-Funk stable. 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.

Jason Birchmeier - All Music Guide



With the "Parliafunkadelicament thang," leader George Clinton has succeeded in creating two distinct identities for one band -- the mystical voodoo of the Funkadelics and the stabbing, humorous funk of Parliament. While Funkadelic has no discernible influence, Parliament is more closely attuned to the post-Sly wave. But unlike the Ohio Players or Commodores, the group refuses to play it straight. Instead, Clinton spews his jive, conceived from some cosmic funk vision, under titles like "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication," "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" and "Mothership Connection (Star-Child)."

Mothership Connection is patterned closely after last year's tongue-in-cheek success, Chocolate City. With little regard for theme or lyric development, Clinton weaves a non-stop rap of nonsensical street jargon ("Sombody said, 'Is there funk after death'/I said is seven up") like a freaked out James Brown. And oddly enough, former Brown sidemen, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, make up Parliament's horn section, along with Joe Farrell and the Brecker Brothers. But this album refuses to be taken seriously, except as Clinton's parody of modern funk. After all, it was George Clinton who renamed James Brown the "Grandfather of Soul."

Ken Barnes, 3/25/76
Rolling Stone



Mothership Connection is the fourth album by American funk band Parliament, released on December 15, 1975 on Casablanca Records. This concept album of P-Funk mythology is usually rated as one of Parliament's best. Mothership Connection was the first P-Funk album to feature Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, who had left The J.B.'s, James Brown's backing band. "Mothership Connection" became Parliament's first album to be certified gold and later platinum. The Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry in 2011, declaring "[t]he album has had an enormous influence on jazz, rock and dance music." Describing the album, George Clinton said "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. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang." Dr. Dre prominently sampled the songs "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" and "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" on his album The Chronic. In 2003 the TV network VH1 named Mothership Connection the 55th greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 276 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Rolling Stone (5/1/03, p. 59) - 5 stars out of 5 - "The masterpiece, the slang creator, the icon builder, the master narrative--or 'the bomb,' as Clinton succinctly put it before anyone else."

Vibe (2/02, p. 87) - Included in Vibe's "Essential Black Rock Recordings".

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Wikipedia.org
 

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