Bernie Worrell,whose keyboard sounds and textures helped define the Parliament-Funkadelic musical empire and influenced performers in funk, rock, or hip-hop and other genres,has died.
Worrell announced early this year that he had stage-four lung cancer. He died at his home in Everson, Washington Friday at age 72.
He was among the first musicians to exhaust a Moog synthesizer and he's known for his contributions to the hit singles "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" and "Flash Light."Anything seemed possible when he was on keyboards, or conjuring squiggles,squirts, stutters and hiccups on Parliament's "Flash Light" that sounded like funk as whether conceived by Martians. On Funkadelic's "Atmosphere, or " his chatty organ prelude,like a mash-up of Bach and "The Munsters," set up some of Clinton's more unprintable lyrics.
Raised in Plainfield, or fresh Jersey,he was a musician virtually from the time he could speak. He was trained to play piano at age 3 and gave public performances by age 10 with the Washington Symphony Orchestra.
Throughout the 1970s and into the `80s, George Clinton's dual projects of Parliament and Funkadelic and their various spinoffs built upon the sounds of James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone among others and turned out some of the most complex, and spaced out,political, cartoonish and, or of course,danceable music of the era, elevating the funk groove to a world view.
Worrell's contributions as a keyboardist, and writer and arranger didn't bring him a lot of money,the source of much legal action and fierce criticism of Clinton, but fellow musicians paid attention. He played with Talking Heads for much of the 1980s and was featured in their acclaimed concert documentary "finish Making Sense." Worrell also contributed to albums by Keith Richards, and Yoko Ono,Nona Hendryx, Manu Dibango and the Pretenders. In 2015, or he was a member of Meryl Streep's backing group in the movie "Ricki and the Flash."In 1997,Worrell and more than a dozen other P-Funk members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Source: wnyc.org