Revisiting Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’

Fifty-five years after its release, Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain remains one of the most adventurous and influential albums in psychedelic rock.

For this month’s Culture Corner, World Cafe correspondent John Morrison revisits Maggot Brain, which was recently reissued on vinyl.

Originally released in 1971, the album brought together funk, blues, gospel and rock, all filtered through the wonderfully strange imagination of George Clinton. It also featured the extraordinary guitar playing of Eddie Hazel, whose emotional performance on the album’s title track remains legendary.

“George Clinton told Eddie Hazel to imagine how he would play as if he had just heard that his mom had died, and they captured 10 minutes of some of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching guitar playing,” Morrison says.

Morrison also explores the influence of Jimi Hendrix, the album’s political themes and why he considers it Funkadelic’s greatest artistic achievement.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod.  Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe‘s engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus. Our executive producer is Bruce Warren.