December 15, 1975: George Clinton, under the name Parliament, releases the album Mothership Connection.
One of the albums in what became known as "The P-Funk Empire" has to be considered the best, the zenith of Clinton's work. I chose this one. Writing for UltimateClassicRock.com in 2020, Michael Gallucci ranked this one Number 2 behind One Nation Under a Groove; but admitted of this one, "Almost everything you need to know about P-Funk can be found in these seven songs." So, even if he can't bring himself to call it their best, that sounds, to me, like a good definition of their definitive work.
Despite being 2 different bands, they had many of the same members, including lead guitarist Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton, bass guitarist William "Bootsy" Collins and his brother the guitarist Phelps "Catfish" Collins, saxophonist Maceo Parker, keyboard player Bernie Worrell, drummer Jerome "Bigfoot" Braley, and Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns. Clinton hired Walter "Junie" Morrison away from The Ohio Players, to become P-Funk's musical director.
Yvonne Stevens, a.k.a. Taka Boom, was a frequent backup singer, and would later join the Motown vocal group The Undisputed Truth. She is the sister of Yvette Stevens, a.k.a. Chaka Khan. Other backup singers included Dawn Silva and Lynn Mabry, together known as "The Brides of Funkenstein."
Clinton explained the difference between the 2 bands: Parliament was a smoother, rhythm-and-blues-based funk ensemble; while Funkadelic, as the name suggested, merged funk and psychedelic rock.
Say what you want about Clinton, but he knew how to title an album:
* Funkadelic albums include Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow (as in, once you learn how to think, you will be able to dance better) in 1970, Maggot Brain in 1971, America Eats Its Young in 1972, Cosmic Slop in 1973, Standing on the Verge of Getting It On in 1974, Let's Take It to the Stage in 1975, Tales of Kidd Funkadelic and Hardcore Jollies in 1976, One Nation Under a Groove in 1978, Uncle Jam Wants You in 1979, and The Electric Spanking of War Babies in 1981.
* Parliament albums include Up for the Down Stroke in 1974, Chocolate City and then Mothership Connection in 1975, The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein in 1976, Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome in 1977, Motor Booty Affair in 1978, and Gloryhallastoopid in 1979.
Pedro Bell did the artwork for most of these albums, and was as much a part of the P-Funk Empire as any of its musicians.
"Chocolate City" was Clinton's name for Washington, D.C., which had a majority black population by that point. He even called it "C.C." instead of "D.C." Because of this, any city with a majority black population became known as "a chocolate city," especially Atlanta.
On tour, even after the tour for Mothership Connection, a mockup of a flying saucer would be lowered onto the stage, and Clinton would step out of it, usually wearing some kind of weird outfit. Sometimes, it would be only an adult-sized diaper. On April 17, 1981, at the Capital Centre in the D.C. suburb of Landover, Maryland, George stepped out of the mothership, and he wasn't wearin' nothin' but a smile.
(This might have been a reward for past love from "C.C." On September 16, 1977, onstage at the Cap Centre, George decided he wanted to get high in public, and asked the audience for a joint. Hundreds of reefers were thrown onto the stage.)
So, why a spaceship? George explained: "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."
I don't know if black Star Trek actors Nichelle Nichols, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Avery Brooks, Tim Russ, Anthony Montgomery or Sonequa Martin-Green liked Mothership Connection, but it's a hell of a lot better than the TV series Homeboys In Outer Space turned out to be.
In 1980, launched aboard the Soviet capsule Soyuz 38, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban pilot, became the 1st black person in space, and also the 1st Latino. In 1983, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, Dr. Guion "Guy" Bluford, an aerospace engineer, became the 1st black American in space. In 1986, Dr. Franklin Chang-Díaz, a Costa Rica-born physicist, became the 1st Hispanic American in space.
As of December 15, 2022, George Clinton is still alive and performing. Prince, Rick James, De La Soul, Digital Underground, Arrested Development, OutKast and the Black Eyed Peas would not be possible without P-Funk. Without them, both Michael and Janet Jackson might have had very different songs. Given their theatricality, it's likely that, without P-Funk, white acts such as the Beastie Boys, Eminem and Pink would have turned out very differently, if they made it at all.
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December 15, 1975 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. On ABC Monday Night Football, the San Diego Chargers beat the New York Jets, 24-16 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).
There were no games in the NBA, the NHL, or the World Hockey Association. In the American Basketball Association, now early in what turned out to be its final season, there was 1 game: The Denver Nuggets beat the Virginia Squires, 131-110 at The Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.
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