I've been obsessing over all things p-funk lately and came across this old interview.

Roctober Magazine (http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/pfunk.html)
P-FUNK (Pedro Bell Interview)
(From Roctober #11, 1994)

JA: George Clinton's put out two really bad album covers in a row. What's he going to do about it?

PB: Well both of them were on Paisley (Park, Prince's label). Well there was a concept, which I am going to reuse, for "The Cinderella Theory." It was actually going to be a combination robotic-photographic combination. And George had done his part as far as the photography, and I'd done my part, and then somewhere in Paisley Park, the Purple One said no.

JA: Now that Paisley Park has been dropped by Warner Brothers, where does that stuff stand now?

PB: George doesn't have any shortage of sources. Somebody in Detroit's setting up some kind of label. Somebody said Uncle Jam's label's coming back.


ps--- I LOVE this album.

Another interesting thing is that "Serious Slammin' " was originally done by The Pointer Sisters and they have uncredited backing vocals on the GC version.

Wow...I always loved the title Cinderealla Theory and when I heard that it was coming out on Paisley, I flipped. I thought this was a dream combination. Prince writting some shit with George, Bootsy, Bernie, Gary, Michael and Blackbryd, etc. THAT album SHOULD have been monsterous. There was no excuse those cats couldn't have came up with some hellified shit. I visualized some 1999 type shit combined with Hardcore Jollies and Mothership Connection! But instead, that album was a major letdown musically. I love Pedro Bell's work and why in the hell P would keep THAT from happening is beyond me. Hell, P himself took from the artwork on Electric Spanking Of War Babies, Hardcore Jollies AND the artwork on Cosmic Slop all for his 1999 album cover.
[Edited 8/27/09 0:09am]

blackguitaristz said:

And not only that, his mid 90s and late 90s output also tried to recreate that Pedro Bell magic in some way but failed miserably, in my opinion. (See Exodus album cover, the original Come album artwork, and some of that stuff that Steve Parke did.....I hated Steve Parke´s covers but then I read that it wasn´t really his fault that those covers looked so cheap and amateurish).

I wonder what the original Pedro Bell artwork for Cinderella Theory looked like. Guess we´ll never know.

PS: I love the fact that you started posting more these days, I have always liked your contributions to the org and enjoy reading them. Just a little wish from me: Could you please divide your posts into paragraphs sometimes ? Because as much as I enjoy the content, it is VERY difficult to follow your sentences visually because it´s just one huge block of text.
I also enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work.

blackguitaristz said:

I'm well used to all those mentioned, but still, could you elaborate your point? I don't get what you mean exactly.. Cheers mate.

KoolEaze said:

Haha....aaaaah yeah. I do that stream of consciousness when I write on here, man. My thoughts are usually running so fast in my brain that when I first start off on something, in my mind, I'm ALREADY finished before I even started typing. So yeah, on here, I tend to run it all in one huge text. I'm just usually flowing, not conscious to stop the water. To really visualize what I'm saying, read over certain sentences again. In those "texts" I cover a lot of ground in a post so u may sometime need to re -read what all I put in there. You'll find that u may "see" something more clearer once u go over it again.

blackguitaristz said:

But yeah, thank u for the compliments.

FunkyDissCo said:

To me, I've always seen on Electric Spanking, the phallus shaped spaceship dead center of the cover. That always reminded me of the phallus shaped "One" in the numbers 1999. Regarding Hardcore Jollies, all of the items and figures are suspended in space. Just like the lettering on the 1999 cover. The coloring and images on Hardcore Jollies reminds me of that on the 1999 cover. Also on the Hardcore Jollies cover, u see the numbers 666. That is also on the 1999 cover if held upside down. On Cosmic Slop, on the backside of the cover, you'll see stars around the titles of the songs. Again, to me, the 1999 cover recalls this. Interesting that other Funkadelic album covers also feature it's images suspended in space...Besides Cosmic Slop, Electric Spanking and Hardcore Jollies, Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On and Tales of Kidd Funkadelic also have this same theme of it's images all suspended in space. To me, P's 1999 album cover artwork, which he drew himself, I think was very inspired from Pedro Bell's artwork.
[Edited 8/28/09 0:54am]

OK, good points. Thx!

FunkyDissCo said:

Thank you and you're welcome!

Good observation Bruh B..From looking at both LP covers for "War Babies" and "1999" you're right. Never thought about that.

And yes like you, I was let down by "The Cinderella Theory". I was expecting "Uncle Jam" meets "1999" and I was disappointed. Was there even a guitar solo on that LP? (lol) I think I listened to it once and put it away.

SPYZFAN1 said:

Thanx...And Hell NAH there was NO guitar solo to be found! Can u imagine some shit like that? A collab with Clinton and Prince with all of those Funkadelic cats around like Blackbyrd and Hampton...And no one stepped up to thrown down on an axe solo? Shit...U would have thought Prince would have at least felt a little compelled to thrown down on a lil' solo but nah, nada. I played it once and put that shit up too. Great album title though huh?

Yes. That is a killer LP title.

I think in the early 90's George started to realize the props his guitar players were getting. The guitar mags were interviewing them and P-Funk Guitar Army CD's ("Tributes To Jimi" - Vol 1 and 2) started selling underground.

And of course the Eddie stuff was released too. Plus The Chili's, Bad Brains, and Fishbone gave all the Funkadelic guitarists mad love. That's probably why George kept saying throughout the decade 'the heaviest Funkadelic record is coming..and there will be a lot of guitars'..(lol).

Hate to say it but I'm still waiting.

SPYZFAN1 said:

Yep.

Interesting facts.

I like the cover but would be curious to see the original. I had this on cassette so when I found the CD I was glad to get the xtra tracks.