Where Parliament wore sequins and landed spaceships, Funkadelic wore leather and shredded guitars. Maggot Brain -- ten minutes of Eddie Hazel playing like a man who'd just been told the worst news of his life, because George Clinton had literally told him to play the first half like his mother died and the second half like he found out she was alive. Hazel lay on the studio floor and delivered one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.
Funkadelic was the darker, louder, more dangerous side of the P-Funk empire. The self-titled debut in 1970 was psychedelic blues-rock that owed as much to Jimi Hendrix as to James Brown. Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow. Cosmic Slop. By the time of One Nation Under a Groove in 1978, they'd found the perfect balance between rock fury and funk precision.
Eddie Hazel died in 1992 at 42 from internal bleeding and liver failure. George Clinton kept the P-Funk collective going in various forms. But Maggot Brain -- those ten minutes of a man lying on a studio floor, channeling every grief he'd ever felt through a Fender Stratocaster -- remains untouchable. The saddest, angriest, most beautiful guitar solo in funk history.
Funkadelic was Parliament's dirtier twin. Maggot Brain is ten minutes of Eddie Hazel on the studio floor, playing like his mother died. One of the greatest guitar solos ever.