Various - Westbound Funk - 2 x LP
The film 'Standing In The Shadows Of Motown' is trying its best to reinstate one of the oldest music history myths, namely that Detroit died a sudden musical death at about the time that Berry Gordy's eye was caught by the Californian sun and a beckoning Hollywood. Fortunately someone forgot to tell Detroit. In 1969, Holland, Dozier and Holland set up their Hot Wax and Invictus outfits and Armen Boladian's Westbound Records opened up its doors as one of the most adventurous mainstream record labels to commit music to vinyl. Over the following decade it would release pop, jazz, sweet soul and some wonderfully deranged funk.
Boladian was already a long-time fixture on the Detroit music scene when he launched Westbound in 1969. He had run labels such as Fascination and his Record Distribution Corp was a well known local enterprise. His new label was formed as an outlet for a new group put together by another veteran: George Clinton. After an unsuccessful stint as a songwriter with Motown's Jobete Music, he scored a big hit, I Wanna Testify, with his vocal group the Parliaments on Don Davis' Revilot Records. However, by 1969 the hits had withered away and George and his allies had taken on board two new influences: rock and LSD and was developing his whole 'Parliafunkadelicmentthang' George and his buddies cast a large shadow over our compilation, with their unique slant on things having an overwhelming effect on the output of the label. They are here with the mighty I'll Bet You, a Clinton and Sidney Barnes soul stomper for Billy Butler transformed by Tiki Fulwood's 'bad-ass' drums and an interlocking guitar lick from Eddie Hazel. As that really wouldn't be enough we've also brought out the wonderful You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure - an album-only cut from the Cosmic Slop LP that comes on as the bastard offspring of Sly Stone and the Temps.
In addition we have Boby Franklin's wild take of the Maggot Brain track Hit It And Quit It which we think may feature Funkadelic members. The connection continues with the unreleased RPM by Boots, aka William "Bootsy" Collins. He had bailed out of his role as a member of the JB's [he played on Sex Machine, the James Brown-meets-rock experiment of Funky Down Here and the King 45 version of Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Something] by the beginning of the 70s. Collins then became a central member of Parliafunkadelicment, appearing on a whole host of George Clinton-related albums from 1972 onwards. RPM is one of two tracks from his only Westbound session.