By shelz.
I’ve always been a closet fan of popular music. There is something about a well crafted piece of pop fluff that can put a sparkle in your eye and set your tail feather to shaking. The happy stuff is the best. Lose your cares, love the world and just dance…Like Lady Gaga said.
However, this type of music tends to fall into a certain set of places, spaces and circumstances. It is what gets the party started or the boots to knocking. It goes with your Ciroc better than lemonade and matches your prettiest party dress. It’s the welcome icing on the good time cake but rarely does it exist in a vacuum. Some music does.
Everyone has that song; the one that demands every ounce of your attention. It’s not to dance to. It’s not to make love to. You don’t have it on your workout playlist and you will never pick it on karaoke night. It’s the dark room and expensive headset song. You listen to it when you are alone and have the time and inclination to immerse yourself in sound; to pick apart every note and revel in their majesty as a group. Michael Hampton is responsible for mine, sort of.
When George Clinton decided what the finished product of “Maggot Brain” would be; taking the melancholy to tragic levels must have been the master plan. It’s rumored he told Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel to play the song as if his mother had just died. What Hazel produced was an almost 10 minute distortion and wah wah laden guitar solo that even in its highs communicated the darkness of the abyss. Sitting on top of a pristine arpeggio, Hazel’s solo runs amok with all the anxiety and gloom it conjures weaving a narrative of tangled, disjointed beauty. You don’t really hear this song as much as you feel it.
Hazel was a problematic man. His working relationship with Clinton was strained by a bad work ethic and Michael Hampton, the child prodigy, took over for him. Ironically, Hampton landed his job with the band by playing a cover of Hazels claim to fame when he was 17.
Since then Hampton has played with Clinton, adopting “Maggot Brain” as his own, mastering both the logistics and feeling of the song and spinning it on its axis with a myriad of improvisations, many better than Hazels original rendition. His first crack at his own was One Nation Under a Grove. He ran with the baton after that contributing to everything from Uncle Jam Wants You to The Electric Spanking of War Babies as head guitar funkateer in charge.
It’s been quite the ride for Hampton. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the rest of Funkadelic in 1997 and released a solo project a year after that. As a really bad fan, I have been remiss in cozying up to Hampton’s solo work, but I’ve never been able to get past “Maggot Brain.” It’s the song I go to when I’m trying to make sense of the madness and find a ray of light in the shadows. Hampton proves with every invention that splendor can be pulled from ashes.
Dramatic? Maybe. But true. This song has been with me through the entirety of my adult life and I believe my journey has been easier because of it. Today is Michael Hampton’s birthday, but he is the one who has given the gift. Happy birthday Kidd Funkadelic and thank you.
Funkadelic – “Maggot Brain”
Funkadelic – “One Nation Under a Groove”
01 – One Nation Under A Groove
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