Ep 26: Jay Double You! [SLIGHT RETURN]

Ep 32: Linda Shider [P-FUNK/GARRY SHIDER]

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When singer/musician/songwriter LINDA SHIDER met the folks in Parliament-Funkadelic, she was working as a stewardess for Pan Am. A friend of hers had just moved to San Francisco, so she invited Linda to come visit. That friend in turn introduced her to a woman who was dating Bernie Worrell, wizard of the boards, and from there she became acquainted with the rest of the funk family, including GARRY SHIDER, whom she wound up hanging out with at a party in L.A. Linda “Legz” had a boyfriend at the time, but she had already been an admirer of the band. “To me, they were like the black Rolling Stones,” she says. “Their aura… their vibe… They were just so intense, and you know they were real sexy onstage.” 

Garry kept making comments about Linda and trying to make moves, but she would always rebuff him. Then one day, when the band was at a hotel, some guy came rushing in with a gun, looking for George Clinton, who may or may not have been with his girl. Garry swooped in to protect Linda from the ensuing gunfire by pushing her into a phone booth. He was her hero, and they decided to be a couple soon after.

She went on the road with him–following the tour bus in her car, or flying in for certain gigs. Then she joined them onstage for the first time–at Madison Square Garden. She even wound up on the cover of Rock & Soul magazine. But she wasn’t just some random hanger-on in the entourage. She was a leader with a deep background in civil rights advocacy who had fronted her own band, Legz, belting out heavy rock tunes like “Back in Black” by AC/DC. They also released the epic single “It Don’t Come Easy,” a impressively intricate and gooey deep cut which exhibits her complex compositional chops.

Indeed, this particular skill led to her becoming one of the very few credited woman songwriters in P-Funk history. It all started with a baby grand which lived in a hallway at United Sound in Detroit, where most of the P-Funk stuff was recorded. A gifted pianist, she just sat down and started playing. Somebody’s ears perked up. “George came by and he said ‘Hm, I like that,’” she recalls. “And he said, ‘Garry… figure out the chords and stuff and let’s go record that bad boy… I think Ima use that for Parlet.’”

Garry and the fellas did just that, and a unique track of music began to take form, a mid-tempo, haunting yet poppy combo of funk and prog rock. “Once I heard the whole musical thing gelling,” she continues, “that’s when I came up with the lyrics.” The tune sounded like it was coming from outer space, but she didn’t have to look far for inspiration. “It was a love song,” she says. “A lot of stuff that Garry and I did [was] that kind of material because we were so in love with each other. You know, we were hot and heavy and we just kinda like shared it with people.” The song was called “Are You Dreaming?” and arrived to the world as part of Parlet’s classic debut, the Pleasure Principle.

Mrs. Shider was also part of another momentous event in P history: the birth of Garry’s iconic stage outfit, or perhaps we can call it a uniform: the diaper, man. But was it an actual diaper? “It was always a towel,” reveals Linda. “They’d stay at the Holiday Inn a lot, so it has the Holiday Inn logo down the middle.” The story goes that Garry decided to give it a try after seeing George put one on that one time. Garry chose to combine the diaper look with a pacifier and some thigh-high boots. Everyone responded so positively that the simple ensemble stuck thereafter. But did Garry wear underwear under there? “No he did not,’ laughs Linda. “Sometimes the willy would kinda pop out if the diaper was too small… It was kinda scary sometimes as well, you know what was gonna happen… ‘Oh, god. Here we go.’ All the groupies would be like ‘Yes!’”

 Like his lovely spouse, Garry Shider was a particularly loyal funk soldier, the only one who stayed with George while all the other members were coming and going–from the day he and Boogie Cordell Mosson left United Soul to join the P, until the unfortunate day that he passed. And as bandleader for (at least) 35 years, Mr. Shider was the herald of the P, the one who would kick off every show, sometimes just playing a little guitar first, then taking the crowd to the highest heights with his golden voice.

Even after saying all of that, it is hard to describe what Garry has fully done for that band and its history. “In the studio, he was the vocal arranger,” says Linda. “He’d produce. Most of the time George was off doing drugs somewhere or sleeping with some chick.” But despite her husband's massive contribution to the history and songbook of Parliament-Funkadelic, he always remained humble. As Linda explains, “One of his favorite sayings was ‘I’m no better than my surroundings.’ He said that all the time… He was like ‘I can’t do what I’m doing unless there’s people around me who are keepin up.’’ This philosophy tied in nicely with another one of his trusty sayings: ‘Get in where you fit in.’ To his wife, this meant: “Don’t oversing. Don’t overplay… Just kinda blend, go with the flow. He knew how to get the best out of people.”

 Alas, Garry’s humility was perhaps his greatest weakness. Linda was constantly trying to get him to stick up for himself, but always to no avail. “I could make deals for Garry with other people, but he would never let me confront George about maybe a pay increase or something like that,” she laments. “He’d say, ‘You’re gonna turn him off, and it’s gonna probably blow up in your face anyway, so just leave that alone.’” Case in point: Garry was once offered $1 million to replace Lionel Ritchie when he left the Commodores! (George was paying Garry $150 a show at the time). “I said ‘Garry, he just offered you a million dollars,’”she remembers. “‘And you’re gonna turn that down?’ And he would do that every time someone else came up and offered him another option.”

 Still, Garry lived his adult life doing exactly what he wanted to do, and not a lot of folks can say that. “He loved being in that group,” says Linda, “and he had a thing for George, like a father kind of relationship –  even though it was one-sided… When he first met Garry, Garry was like 16. He wined and dined him… And once he got into the group, he just used him like he used everybody else.” In the end, Linda begged her husband not to go on the road, but he was there to the very end.

Nowadays, since Funk doesn’t really have a retirement fund, Ms. Linda still keeps busy. She paints, makes jewelry and is part of annual the Funkateer’s Ball in Bethesda, MD every September. She also continues to write, going so far as to create the funky comic book, DIAPERMAN, featuring Garry as the far-out titular superhero. “I always remembered when Garry was floating on that thin wire over the stadiums and coliseums and stuff, how scary it was,” she says, explaining how she came up with the concept. “I felt like, since he was the one that volunteered to do it, that he earned some credit for that… And it was his 70th birthday in July, so I figured it was a good time to do it.”

In this wide-ranging and extremely candid interview, Mrs. Shider talks about her days as a preferred extra in Robocop and other Hollywood movies, her work with Stokely Carmichael and run-ins with the Klan, and how much she loved to sing “Red Hot Mama” onstage. She also reveals details about her husband’s final days, her efforts to preserve his legacy, why ladies have always been important to P-Funk, and how badly George ruined that one song they did.

 

Produced and Hosted by Ace Alan

Executive Producer Scott Sheppard

w/ Content Produced by Linda Shider

Website, Merch & Graphics by 3chards

Sound Engineered by Grace Coleman @ Different Fur Studios – SF, CA

Filmed by Domenique Scioli w/ Don Scioli for ZAN Media

Sound & Video Editing, MIxing & Graphics by Nick “WAES” Carden for Off Hand Records – Oak, CA

w/ thanks to Christian Low, Shaunna Hall, Dawn Silva, & Chris Lander

 

  

Featuring:

“It Don’t Come Easy” by Legz w/ Linda Shider

“Desert Flower” by Children of Production feat. Linda Shider, Garry Shider, & Gary “Mudbone” Cooper

“I Remember” from Tale of Two Funkys feat. Garry Shider & Linda Shider

“Glory of Love” from Tale of Two Funkys feat. Linda Shider

“V.I.P” by the Neon Romeoz

 

Copyright © 2023 Isaac Bradbury Productions

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Episode 31: Dawn Silva [FUNK QUEEN]

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When DAWN SILVA – (Brides of Funkenstein, P-Funk, GAP Band, All My funky Friends] – shopped her autobiography, The FUNK QUEEN to book publishers, they didn’t exactly grasp the entire vision. “Everybody said the same thing,” she says. “‘You can’t do it.’” This is because the OG funkateer had created something you don’t see on shelves every day. “Mine is not only a table book with classic photos,” she explains. “It also has an autobiography, and there‘s about maybe five books within that one book.” Gathering the photos was a tale unto itself, starting with a man by the name of Steve Labelle, an ex-police officer turned photographer who traveled with Parliament Funkadelic from 1976 to 1981. “He was a fanatic,” she recalls. “So he went out on the road with us for all those years and he took all these photos… His health took a turn for the worse and he had been sitting on those photos for about 30 years… So he asked me to make him a promise that, if he sent those photos to me to me, I would put them in my book.”

 

So she raised the capital and had it manufactured herself—a seven pound (!) hardcover masterpiece in the form of a beautifully printed, glossy package containing over 500 pages of rich funk history, way more than knee deep with amazing and tragic tales, as well as brushes with funk and soul greatness that will inspire ladies young and old while imbuing the fellas with a greater respective for Dawn’s legacy. And just like everything else in her storied career, she had done exactly what the powers that be had said she couldn’t do. “I took a chance because everyone said I couldn’t do it and it wouldn’t work,” she confirms. “And it’s working.”

 

Taking chances is what made Dawn a professional singer in the first place. As a young lady, her first major singing gig was as a member of a latterday version of Sly & the Family Stone. Then she jumped ship—mothership that is—and, along with other funk queens whom Dawn calls “thoroughbreds”—she appeared across all P-Funk platforms, from Parliament’s Motor Booty Affair and Funkentelechy vs the Placebo Syndrome, to Funkadelic’s One Nation Under Groove and Uncle Jam Wants You. Her voice can also be heard all over such essential, stanky classics as Eddie Hazel’s beloved solo album Game, Dames & Guitar Thangs, and the Sweat Band and Horny Horns albums. Even more importantly, she took center stage to co-lead the BRIDES OF FUNKENSTEIN, whose funktastic albums Funk or Walk and Never Buy Texas from a Cowboy are still much admired today.

 

Dawn did eventually break away, however, recording and touring with artists such as Ice Cube, Roy Ayers, the GAP Band, and even the Platters. But her best work was not behind her. She decided to put the album out herself on her own independent label. She also expanded her reach by being an early adopter of online forums—where a million plus fans could follow her directly—and entered into indie licensing deals in places like Holland, Germany, France, Japan, China, Thailand, and Sierra Leone. “I ended up selling over a quarter of a million CDs out of my kitchen,” she says, “from a ‘dead’ market, supposedly.” If all that weren’t impressive enough for a woman in funk, her promotional activity overseas led to a headlining gig (!) at the mammoth North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands alongside Chaka Khan, Herbie Hancock, and the Yellowjackets. And by the way: Funky Friends is still selling today. “I proved to the naysayers, to corporate record companies in the states that here was a very viable market for the funk,” Dawn surmises proudly. “Actually, it’s even bigger today than it was then. That’s why I continue on.”

 

In this thoughtful, revealing, and illuminating interview, Dawn promotes the legacy of other fem funk legends, from Malia Franklin to Gail Muldrow, and how they were instrumental in pushing P-Funk to the top of the heap despite not getting the recognition they are still due.  She also reveals how the Sly Stone Fam paid more and was better organized than the Clinton camp, and recalls how the late, great Glenn Goins taught her to sing funky lyrics with character. On top of all that, Dawn discusses why her friend James Baker’s New Birth was one of the most influential self-contained Black bands in funk history, exciting news about her plans to finally put out certain unreleased material, and the importance of her African-Indigenous-European lineage.

Produced & Hosted by Ace Alan

Executive Producer Scott Sheppard

w/ Content Produced by Dawn Silva

Website & Graphics by 3chards

 

Recorded & Filmed @Different Fur Studios, San Francisco

Engineered by Grace Coleman

 

Video shot by Cedric Letsch w/ Jarrett Rogers

 

Video & Sound Editing + Graphics by Nick “WAES” Carden for Off Hand Records, Oakland

Intro song “Inertia” by Ace Alan (feat. Stymie, Mojo Powell, Chris Powell, and Steve Krchniak) from the album A Wiggle In Time

 

Also featuring “I’d Rather Be With You,” “Break Me Off,” & “All My Funky Friends” by Dawn Silva from the album All My Funky Friends

 

Xtra special thanx to: Shaunna Hall, Henry Mayers, Chris Campbell, Larry Dominoe, Tracy ‘Alan,’ and New Rising Publishing

 

an Issac Bradbury Production © 2022

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Episode 30: Rickey Vincent [HISTORY OF FUNK]

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As an undergrad at Cal Berkeley in the early 80s, RICKEY VINCENT— (History of Funk show and book/ Party Music/ Phool 4 the Funk)— stumbled into a music history course. It was quite dense with Black culture, but on the very last day of the 2nd semester, the teacher came to class with his scratchy James Brown 45s, including “Superbad.” Young Rickey found this to be exciting yet problematic. “‘If I taught a class like that,’ he thought to himself, ‘I would start with James Brown!”

 

This proved to be a good call, because there seemed to be a certain point on the timeline where all pontification on Black culture inexplicably stopped. “There’s all this writing about blues and soul and the 60s and civil rights,” explains Rickey. “I got no problems with that.” But the 1970s brought a new priority that had yet to be expounded upon. “It’s about the Bomb!” he declares. “It’s about the funk… Where’s the chapter about putting it on the One? Where’s the chapter on James Brown changing the language and the rhythm and putting it all down? No one had written about that.”

 

Ultimately, what we got was a lot: the HISTORY OF FUNK radio show — a celebration of all things stanky which is still going strong every Friday on KPFA.org — and FUNK: The Music, The People, and the Rhythm of the ONE — an essential tome which should be required reading in any self-respecting household. Indeed, thanks to Rick’s reflections, interviews, and vinyl archeology, we learn about the Five Dynasties of Funk — beginning with the Period of Unification — the Tendencies of Funk, the “heterogenous sound ideal,” and how James Brown invented extended play, changing our expectations of what a song could do. Overall, the professor found that the Funk is not just a look or a sound, but also a particular approach that nobody had really spoken on yet. “Cuz there’s ways to say it,” explains Rick in regards to describing the music, which is more like a movement, organically unifying elements of rock, jazz, blues and gospel. “You can say it from an ethnomusicological point of view… [or] you can look at it as a Black Power thing… These folks were saying ‘All of this is ours.’” 

 

We are honored to have Rickey Vincent grace us with his essence, and can’t wait to hang with him some more in the future. In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking interview, Rickey talks about how funk artists “arranged the rage,” the importance of visual artists such as Pedro Bell and Overton Lloyd, and why Jimi Hendrix was a fully formed, fully realized Black man who changed the sound of the Isley Brothers forever. Rick also discusses the rise and importance of Sly Stone, how funk artists of today are decentralized and resigned to a life of playing off the grid, and why we need a new Don Cornelius. If all that weren’t enough, we also have two performances by the FUNKANAUTS with emcees DUB ESQUIRE, MWNSTR and MEL YEL. Funky New Year to all!

 

an Issac Bradbury Production © 2022

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Episode 29: Rustee Allen & Levi Seacer Jr. [SLY/ PRINCE/PURPLE ONES]

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“I remember I got paid $20 for a gig, man,” says RUSTEE ALLEN, funk bassist extraordinaire, first introduced to the world via the transcendent soul staple FRESH by none other than Sly & the Family Stone. “I thought I made a ton of money!” he laughs. “I didn’t even know you even got paid for playing,” agrees his good friend and fellow Bay Area legend LEVI SEACER JR., a guitarist who went from playing hardcore jazz in local clubs to touring the world with PRINCE and his New Power Generation. “That’s how innocent I was about it… When I got my first check I’m like ‘What’s this?’”

 

Rustee was first spotted by the Sly camp as a youngster playing in support of local legend Johnny Talbot, much admired by all the top Bay Area funkateers at the time. Along with drummer WILLIE WILD, (who would later be part of the original lineup of Graham Central Station), Rustee was chosen to back up LITTLE SISTER, an offshoot of Sly’s Fam featuring Vet Stone and piloted by Freddie Stone. Next thing Rustee knew, he was “auditioning” to join the Fam as a full-fledged member—in front of 30,000 people in Virginia! Soon after that, Rustee was in the studio for the Fresh sessions, laying down tunes in basically one take each. “The first takes are the best ones anyway,” says Rustee.

 

As for Levi, he spent his youth gigging at spots like Earl’s Solano Club in the East Bay, playing jazz with ladies such as Rosie Gaines and Sheila Escovedo. “Playing was like taking a glass of water,” says Levi. “Just natural.” His confidence and skill got him noticed by Don Cornelius of Soul Train fame, who put him to work. Then one day Levi stopped by an audition that Escovedo — now known as Sheila E — was holding for bass players. Though Levi was a guitar man, she asked him to take the gig once she had heard him play “A Love Bizarre” on the four-string. This of course put him in the same orbit as PRINCE himself— who would eventually bring him into the fold not only as a player, but also as writer and producer. Like Rustee, Levi had found himself thrust into the spotlight, breathing the rarefied air of an internationally acclaimed artist with a new band.

 

Rustee’s return to Aced Out is a pivotal moment for us, as he was our very first guest for our pilot episode just a little over four years ago. In this inspirational interview, Rustee and Levi describe what made Sly and Prince amazing bandleaders, and what it was really like within those soul circles. As well, Rustee describes why his mother told him he was her most adventurous child, and what it was like onstage and off during Sly’s Lifetime Achievement Award performance at the 2006 Grammys, while Levi breaks down how Prince was like a “cool computer” and why every musician in Minneapolis hated the New Power Generation—at first, that is. If all that weren’t enough, the purple brothas also bring a band in the studio to perform Rustee’s single “You’re the One!”

 Produced & Hosted by Ace Alan

Cohosted by Jay Stone

Executive Producer Scott Sheppard

Website and Graphics by 3chards

 

Engineered by Grace Coleman at Different Fur Studios, San Francisco CA

 

Video & Sound Editing + Interview Mix & Graphics by Nick “Waes” Carden for Off Hand Records, Oakland CA

 

Video Production by Saboor Bidar

Musical Performance:

TONY PROVIDENCE — drums

CARL WHEELER — keys

MORGAN DAY – guitar

CARL NORDE — vocals

LEVI SEACER JR. — guitar, vocals

RUSTEE ALLEN — bass, vocals

 

Musical Performance Mix by Levi Seacer Jr.

Rap verses by Corey the Great

an Issac Bradbury Production © 2022

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Episode 28: Stevie Pannell [P-FUNK]

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At just age 20, STEVIE PANNELL, then strictly a bassist, wrote a song in his grandmother’s basement. He thought it was kinda special, so he went to Detroit and managed to present the tune to a man by the name of George Clinton. “It was right after ‘Knee Deep’” Stevie recalls. The funk doctor dug what Stevie had come up with, so he told the kid to cut a demo. He fulfilled this request, including Jerome Ali on guitar. When George heard that version, he gave it the green light. “He said, ‘Go ahead and cut it for real,’” says Stevie.

So they did just that— at Superdisc studios. Ron Dunbar was enlisted to produce the track, vocalist Jeanette Washington helped Stevie work out some lyrics, and the Horny Horns — featuring Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Richard “Kush” Griffith, and Rick Gardner – were brought in to enhance the mix with that bona fide P-Funk flavor. “Being almost like a teenager and you got the Horny Horns playing on your stuff,” says Stevie, “I felt pretty good.” The song became “FUNK UNTIL THE EDGE OF TIME,” an ooey gooey stank classic featured on the album Play Me Or Trade Me (1980) by PARLET, (and deemed worthy of inclusion on the Best of Parlet compilation). And that’s how Stevie officially got pulled into the Parliament Funkadelic Thang. He felt like family almost immediately. “It was fun,” he reports. “Too much fun sometimes.”

Throughout these years and beyond, Stevie — who had been playing bass since he got a Sears model at age 15 — started getting more and more into playing the guitar. For him, the transition was natural.  “You know, you’re playing with a band and you put your instrument down and everybody kinda switches up at halftime, so to speak,” he explains. “The bass player will go get on the drums; the guitar player will go get on the bass … There was always a guitar just laying around… You just kinda start playin it.” And the man plays it well — just check out the three funktastic live performances from this very episode for living proof! And keep an eye out for his upcoming EP, simply entitled STEVIE P, which also features his brother, accomplished player Chris Bruce. 

And though the man prefers to let the music do the talking, he did rap with us a bit as well. In this down-to-earth and jam-filled episode, Stevie recalls watching Bootsy Collins lay bass tracks for “Getting to Know You” from the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, explains why his younger brother Chris Bruce is his teacher, and describes being mentored by such heavyweights as Garry Shider, Lige Curry, and Billy “Bass” Nelson. Pannell also talks about his favorite gear, his friendship with Kevin Goins — (Quazar, brother to the late Glenn Goins) — and that time Bernie Worrell’s freaky keyboard lines scared his mom out of the studio during the recording of Tales of Kid Funkadelic.

 

an Issac Bradbury Production © 2022

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