THE BIRTH OF FUNKADELIC

ifty years ago, during a turbulent 1969, came the first singles from a new crew on the block called Funkadelic; feet-finding independent releases that can now be seen as George Clinton sticking his funky toe in the water (then. But things were different now. He’d discovered LSD and acidrock, partly through his old chitlin circuit mucker Jimi Hendrix. Along with The Beatles’ and Hendrix’s , Clinton loved the amped-up blues-rock pyrotechnics of Cream, the vicious power-trio action of Blue Cheer and the heaving drama of Vanilla Fudge. He now took as much notice of white psychedelic bands as he did of his black contemporaries, envisioning new areas to stalk beyond the divisive old laws of rock and soul.