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This article belongs to the story Parliament – God bless Chocolate City and its vanilla suburbs. |
Liner notes
In 2003 Parliament’s Chocolate City was re-released. Next to 3 extra songs, the release also contained an essay for liner notes. That essay can be read below.
“What’s happening C .C.? They still call it the White House… but that’s a temporary condition.”
Of all our nation’s many cities, the District of Columbia is the only one whose charter and budget are mandated by congressional fiat. Maryland and Virginia border it equally. Its majority population is African-American. In the seventies, D.C. was the place to be for upwardly mobile Black folk. Plenty good-paying government jobs, great schools, affordable housing, Black mayor and chief of police.
D.C. became home of the most socio-politically diverse Afro-centric culture in the lover 48. On the Black music tip, it was way ahead as well. There was a thriving Go-Go band circuit, goo-gobs of club/street jocks and America’s first progressive urban FM radio station, Howard University’s WHUR. Most important to our readers/listeners, D.C. was the first major city to give George Clinton’s Parliafunkadelicment Thang mad love.
Clinton’s ‘Thang’ was first The Parliaments, a progressive doo-wop/soul vocal group who had hit nationally in ’67 with “(I Wanna) Testify.” When The Parliaments added a young, tripped-out band and called it Funkadelic in 1970, their self-titled debut album tanked. Its druggy, rock-ish, blues ‘n funk mixture was deemed too “out there” for a national Black radio audience still hooked on traditional soul/R&B pop songs.
Only D.C. was down with The Funk. Thanks to ‘HUR and WOL-AM, banging “I Bet You” and “Music For My Mother” 24-7, Funkadelic became a regional cause célébre. After a legendary off-the-hook gig at Howard University in October ’72, Funkadelic literally owned the town. Each of their three subsequent albums locally sold more than 20,000 copies.
By ’74, Funkadelic was headlining at the Capital Center. That same year, Clinton regained use of the name Parliament, using the band as a more commercial venture of his ‘Thang.’ Casablanca Records’ Neil Bogart and Cecil Holmes signed them, releasing Parliament’s Up For Me Down Stroke as the label’s second LP – right after KISS. Once again, the D.C. funkateers had George’s back.
Parliament’s sophomore LP was the Big Payback. From its Lincoln Memorial-Washington Monument-Supreme Court-Capitol Rotunda melting chocolate bas-relief cover logo to its giddy pastiche of local in jokes, shout outs and sly vocal/instrumental references, Chocolate City is Parliament-Funkadelic’s big wet soul kiss to the place that always loved them unconditionally.
How mad genius is Chocolate City? It took Parliament but one nine-track LP to accomplish the same thing it took the entire catalogs of Stax, Motown, Chess and Philadelphia International to do: distill, define and represent a specific inner city’s unique zeitgeist via spirit-cosmic gestalt evoking R&B pop songs.
Ain’t no party like a D.C. house party: fogged windows, bouncing floors, loud-ass, sweaty, tambourine-slapping, whistle-blowing party people jammed wall-to-wall. And no slow records before 2 AM. Amped by recurrent variations of the choral hook – “Put a hump in your back/Shake your sacroiliac and ride on/Let’s take a ride” – “Ride On”‘s joyous, R&B-swinging conflation of Sly Stone’s “Loose Booty” and “You Can Make It If You Try” is a C.C. house party in 3/4 time.
“Let Me Be”‘s fusion of Chopin-in-the-key-of-blues piano, gothic-fugueing synths and the melisma-operatic vocal drama nails the District’s trademark contemporary gospel sound. “Together”‘s bumptious, groove-shifting disco bass ‘n drum swerve echoes hometown hero Van McCoy’s immortal jam “The Hustle.” “I Misjudged You” is a two-stepping homage to local one-hit wonders The Unifics. The remaining tracks – “What Comes Funky,” “If It Don’t Fit (Don’t Force It),” “Big Footin’,” “Side Effects” – are stankerific, window-to-the-wall par-tay jams. Invited to the party for the first time anywhere are alternative takes of “I Misjudged You,” “If It Don’t Fit” and the previously unreleased “Common Law Wife.”
Chocolate City is Parliament’s first great high concept LP: The inspiration, influence and raison d’être of all things Clones-Mothership-Funkentelechy-Sir Nose to come.
“God Bless C.C. and its vanilla suburbs.”
-Tom Terrell
