UNCUT FUNK interviews Bernie Worrell

Jun 23, 1997
Larry Alexander

A 1997 UNCUT FUNK interview with Bernie Worrell that was republished on the now defunct New Funk Times website on August 23, 2003.

Actually, what follows is *not* an interview; it lacks the interrogative quality to hold that label. Rather, it's a conversation with one of the relative few who merit the overused label of "genius." Bernie Worrell welcomed Thomas Stanley and myself into his Plainfield, N.J., home on March 11 for a call-and-response about his stellar position within the P-Funk cosmology. We were joined by his wife and manager, Judie, as well as co-manager Rod Williams (quite the funkateer his-damn-self). Mr. B. W. was warm, gracious and extremely giving. His personality embodies the term "accompanist" -- he is always eager to play a support role, to contribute to the betterment of the communal whole. We are grateful to him for his words and proud to be able to share them with you here.

THOMAS STANLEY: Do you remember how music came into your life as a child, how you were exposed to it in the home, what kinds of music that might have been?

BERNIE WORRELL: Okay, how I was exposed to it I believe is through my mother, who was a churchgoer. Mom really didn't believe in one denomination. She believed that there is a God and no one can tell you which church, which faith to serve. Because she would go to Baptist, sit in the choir at the Baptist church, she'd go to the Episcopal church, sit in the choir, she'd go to Catholic -- I was raised Catholic. And that's the way she was. She was able to play keyboards enough to accompany herself slowly to learn her songs. She used to sing at teas, also. Fashion shows, locally in the community. This was out of Long Branch, New Jersey -- that was where I was born -- and Asbury Park later.

So, it's said that she taught me a scale, and I used to go to the piano every day and play this same one scale perfectly. So from that she had the idea, or it came to her that there might be something there. So she tried to find a piano teacher, and no one would teach me because they had never taught anyone that young, they were afraid. Till finally one day she found someone, who became my godmother and first piano teacher. Well, second, depending on -- See, I call my mother the first teacher.

Her name is Adelaide Waxwood, and she took me at 3 1/2 years old. And at 4 years old I had my first classical concert, and I had surpassed her eleventh- and twelfth- grade students. I can remember some lessons from class and stuff, but my mother had the old write-ups. Judie, my wife, has them now.

So the type of music that I was exposed to was church -- Baptist, Gregorian, because of the Catholic influence, Episcopal, I played organ at the Episcopal church also. I accompanied my mother at church teas later on. In college I was the keyboardist for a Jewish males' chorus. (laughs) I'd work on Saturdays while I was in college in Boston at odd jobs, besides playing in nightclubs at night. So I guess I'm multi-influenced. And I can remember some of the old 78 records I guess both of my parents had, which was of people like, of course, Duke Ellington and Count. Some of the older, like (sings) "Hey ba-ba-re-bop" ... I can't call his name. [Editor's note: Lionel Hampton.] And Cab Calloway. That type of stuff.

LARRY ALEXANDER: When you were very young and first getting into it, was it always fun to practice?

BERNIE WORRELL: I can't even remember if it was or not. I was too young. I can remember -- Well, I was raised strict.

JUDIE WORRELL: Your mother said she never had to make you practice.

STANLEY: Do you remember when you first started shaping your own music?

BERNIE WORRELL: I guess after we moved to Plainfield. I was eight years old when my parents moved from Long Branch, and I would hear bits and pieces of AM radio on the R&B stations. I would have to sneak (laughs) to listen to it because of the classical. They wanted me to be a classical pianist. Concert pianist. The main music was classical, I was classically trained. So I guess after listening in on R&B stations and seeing different -- It was the Beatles at that time. And there was a song called "Rockin' Charlie," it was a keyboard instrumental and I remembered it note for note. So when I'd get to go out to parties and there was a piano, everybody'd say, "Bernie, play!" That would be one of the songs I'd play, and I guess maybe then I started to do new variations on my own. And that continued into when I started playing in night- clubs with Maxine Brown. I was her bandleader for a few years.

STANLEY: How did she find you? How did you connect with her?

BERNIE WORRELL: (to Judie) How did I meet Maxine, hon?

JUDIE WORRELL: I don't know, you just suddenly appeared there one day.

BERNIE WORRELL: I met my wife through Maxine; she and Maxine were close.

JUDIE WORRELL: I think that, if I remember correctly, what Maxine said was that she had to talk to your mom. I think that Maxine saw you playing in Boston somewhere and wanted you to play, and she had to talk your mom into letting you do it.

ALEXANDER: What was the experience like, playing with the National Symphony Orchestra at a very young age? Were you nervous?

BERNIE WORRELL: Oh, yes! (laughs) I was nervous and at the same time oblivious. I was so innocent. I didn't really recognize or know what was happenning -- the enormity, how big a thing that was at that time. And it was just a God-given gift that was being allowed to be shown to the people -- a sort of part of His beginning plans of His trip for me. I was just 10 years old, on automatic because of the training and whatnot. (laughs)

STANLEY: Were you good?

BERNIE WORRELL: They say I was. But I don't know. Good is different to some people. My ego is not, "Yeah, I'm bad," I think so. I'm pretty good. (laughs)

ALEXANDER: Are you comfortable about people talking about how good you are?

BERNIE WORRELL: No.

STANLEY: "The Duke Ellington of electronic music"? That makes you uncomfortable?

BERNIE WORRELL: I am the Duke? That's a compliment.

STANLEY: If the woo fits, wear it.

BERNIE WORRELL: I got to remember that. (He writes it down.) Y'all got to sign it. That's how it's supposed to be done as a team, songwriters together. One man didn't come up with anything -- Oh, excuse me!

STANLEY: Oh, no, no, no -- we're getting to that. We're getting to that.

ALEXANDER: Tell me about the circumstances of how you first met George?

BERNIE WORRELL: I used to sneak down to the barbershop to get my hair processed (laughs), and in the meantime, George Clinton and the other people from Plainfield had heard that there was this genius in town, this -- wizard, I guess. And George got wind of that and I guess I fell into his plans; we all did. And that's how I first met him.

ALEXANDER: What age?

BERNIE WORRELL: I started sneaking out of my bedroom window, must have been 15, 16, something like that, maybe17 --

ALEXANDER: Sneak out of the window to go to the barber- shop.

BERNIE WORRELL: Yeah. Then my mother, she'd catch me a few times. She'd drive down to the barbershop with the switches, twinin' 'em. I'd be in the chair (laughs). They'd get me up, sweep me up out of there. And then she got G. Clinton a couple times, too. Billy Nelson told me the other day that he remembers vividly when my mom came down. He said this particular day, he saw her coming and he got up out of there.

ALEXANDER: Well if you didn't get caught, when you came home with your hair fried you knew you were going to get it.

BERNIE WORRELL: Right. I guess with the time span, she finally stopped doing that, you know, running down there. I guess I was getting into them teen things and, no disrespect to her but, "Hey mom," y'know.

STANLEY: When you were getting your hair done, were you aware of the musical connections that George had? Did it matter to you?

BERNIE WORRELL: Yeah -- not all the connections, just about the Parliaments. At that time Funkadelic hadn't been named yet. They were just kids from the projects. But I remember there was a singing group, the Parliaments, who were a well-known, popular rival singing group of Scotch Plains, New Jersey's groups. You know, like Elizabeth, Trenton -- the doo-wop days.

ALEXANDER: I guess they didn't sing when you were getting your hair done. Do you remember seeing them sing any other time?

BERNIE WORRELL: I went to two or three gigs. The first one I went to was at Washington school. It's on the west end. Remember Billy Stewart and "Be Ever Wonderful"? It was a beautiful ballad. Billy had a falsetto tenor. George had the most beautiful falsetto tenor. For local talent, he had a beautiful voice until it ... you know. And I remember that song, because [the Parliaments] were good. It was my first time being away from the established and hanging out with the guys. So I kind of accepted this thing, because I was the nerd, you know. (laughs) The nerd type -- glasses and everything.

JUDIE WORRELL: Naah, you weren't a nerd!

BERNIE WORRELL: And then there was another time, Port Chester, New York. This was just before [George] moved everybody to Detroit, it might have been afterward. That was the early stages of development, I would say, with Funkadelic, still before it was named, but they had been branching out, playing. I made it during that part of the trip. And other than that, I know he used to go to New York every day on the bus. After the barbershop, go to New York. At that time he was getting into producing, cutting songs, whatever. So he was always the go-getter, the one. He did the roadwork. He had to, 'cause none of the other guys had the energy. George was the genius behind it. I guess he knew what he wanted, what he had to do to get here.

STANLEY: Who first approached you about doing keyboards with the Parliaments?

BERNIE WORRELL: Billy says that he did. George might say that he did, but who did it first? I don't know. Let's just say that they all --

JUDIE WORRELL: (to Bernie) According to you it was George. Remember what you said? You didn't even know Billy and Tiki and them. And you called me and you told me to go meet George at the Apollo because he had called you and you were down there with, um --

BERNIE WORRELL: Maxine [Brown], in Bermuda.

JUDIE WORRELL: Maxine. George had been wanting you, you told me he wanted you a long time, but you were still in school, blah blah blah, and he said he couldn't afford you. Ha ha ha, he still can't.

BERNIE WORRELL: Right, and when he could, then he called.

JUDIE WORRELL: Right, then he called and you sent me down there.

BERNIE WORRELL: I know, but I mean ... 'cause I forgot that I sat in with them in Toronto when I was with Maxine, and Billy says he said something that night. But hey, I don't remember. So, whatever. They always argue anyway. (laughs)

ALEXANDER: Before all this happened, years before, you wrote some lead sheets for George?

BERNIE WORRELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he had approached me before all this. That was my first, uh, business venture, I don't know what you call it. They knew I could write and stuff, so yeah, he asked me if I'd do some lead sheets.

ALEXANDER: Did you find yourself injecting your creativity into some of those?

BERNIE WORRELL: No.

STANLEY: Well you know what my next question was.

BERNIE WORRELL: What?

STANLEY: Has he paid you?

BERNIE WORRELL: (laughs) No! A lot of people in Plainfield would see [George's game]. I guess that's why if he comes, he'll sneak in and out. It's really crazy, man. I see somebody downtown, they say, "Uh-huh. Man, he's still ... I remember back in the day ..."

ALEXANDER: Let's switch gears for one second. In your developmental years studying piano as a teen, who were your favorite composers?

BERNIE WORRELL: Mozart, Schubert, that music right there. Edward MacDowell. When my parents moved to Plainfield, Fay Barnaby Kent, who was my teacher from 8 years old up to college, Edward MacDowell was her teacher. He was one of the first American composers. Debussy and Ravel, I love. Bach. He's one of the ultimates. He's the only one that gives me trouble with memory, 'cause of all of the voices, contrary voices and stuff. Bach, Beethoven. Chopin!

STANLEY: Maybe it's not relevant, maybe it's kind of obvious, but as a young black man playing the classical music of Europe, how did other people, white and black, view you? You must have been a bit of an oddity.

BERNIE WORRELL: I really don't know how they ... I know at my teacher's recitals up in the mountains in Berkely Heights -- my mother also used to clean her house as part of the payments, but they became like good friends, very close. Mrs. Kent's more my mom than -- not more my mom, but just the same, 'cause she knew what she had, I guess. You know when you put someone in front of all the other white students and their white parents and say, "This is mine." And I guess some were jealous. I really didn't see it, or maybe didn't want to see it, 'cause I'm real sensitive. I didn't pay any attention to it.

And on the black side, I guess they were with it, because I played in church and they'd say, "Bernard, I know you get tired of playing that classical stuff, go 'head boy, go play some," you know, my cousins and stuff. They liked to see me get loose!

STANLEY: Can you remember what it felt like as a musician to get together with what I'm assuming would have been Billy and Eddie and Tiki at that time. I mean, did the chemistry click right away? First time you sat down and played with those cats, what was it like?

BERNIE WORRELL: When we moved to Detroit. Oh, it was -- I was ready. It was freedom. I could take everything I had been doing and now here's a vehicle, a way to, totally free, create some -- I wasn't thinking about creation, just writing. Writing, composing, performing. Recording. You know, just to be free of all that, you know, and working and having fun. Enjoying your work.

STANLEY: Just name a handful of the first things you can remember doing some keyboard work with, I guess by that time it had been named Funkadelic?

BERNIE WORRELL: That was the "I Got a Thang" days. And I had the RMI piano and the Farfisa organ. Oh yeah, and I think we had acoustic amps at the time, and I used to bang the heads with the reverb arms to get the psychelelic sound. That's when I was getting into all that. They said I used to play keyboards like it was a synthesizer because I started experimenting with sounds. Let's see, "I Got a Thang," "Music For My Mother," "Wo-Ha-Ey!"

ALEXANDER: So you were with Judie by the time you went to Detroit.

BERNIE WORRELL: Yeah. Before that.

ALEXANDER: You mentioned using the amps to create distortion. Did you get the RMI piano right away?

BERNIE WORRELL: No, it wasn't right away. Maybe two or three years.

ALEXANDER: So on "Free Your Mind" that wasn't an RMI? That distorted piano sound?

BERNIE WORRELL: It might have been. Wait a minute, it might have. Yeah. It wasn't two or three years. 'Cause Stevie had -- This piano had just come out. Stevie had gotten his from Wonderlove music store down on the east side. Then they say I was the second one to get it. Yes, all that stuff is out, so what's that, a year? Maybe six months to a year 'cause [George] probably got some money from Armen Boladian to get some equipment, 'cause he had to get me some.

ALEXANDER: As loosely as you guys played when you cut live in the early days before you get more of the over- dubbing style, did you do a lot of repeated takes of things or just hit it? Was "Free Your Mind" really cut in one day?

BERNIE WORRELL: Back then, it was like, hit it! You know? Yeah, "Free Your Mind" is one day. All that stuff is raw. It's feeling. We didn't mess it up with no overdubbing crap. That was the shit, that's the P-Funk! That's the P! All this other stuff now, digi-this and data-dat and ... (laughs) That was the raw -- That's what they felt, and that's what the masses didn't feel, and that's what they didn't want felt. I'm talking about radio and those blacks that felt that way, or those whites that didn't want that throb -- that thang!

Read more interviews.