Ruth Copeland: Suburban Family Lament and Don’t You Wish You Had (What You Had When You Had It)
From: I Am What I Am [Invictus, 1971]
Right I know I promised more in depth stuff this week but I have got the ultimate mother of all head colds and have to be quick on the keyboard before it entirely disappears beneath a layer of phlegm. With that beautiful thought in mind I’ll let the quality of the music speak for itself as I give you Ruth Copeland’s Sophomore album I Am What I Am.
While Copeland’s fame was pretty short lived, for a while she seemed to hold the future of P-Funk in her hands. After forming a friendship with George Clinton, Copeland penned a number of tracks for Parliament’s debut LP Osmium. The Funkadelic/Parliament boys repaid the favour by playing on her debut release cunningly titled Self Portrait.
The link between Copeland and Funkadelic continued with Ruth’s second album and member’s of the band even ended up touring with her when she supported Sly Stone. However, insanity took over on tour when Copeland started calling the group Funkadelic on flyers for shows. This was too much insanity for Sly and Copeland’s relationship with the Funkadelic collective ended soon after.
Despite the rockier style of music on offer the link between Copeland and Funkadelic is extremely clear in Suburban Family Lament with the funky underbelly twisted by Copeland’s unique, abrasive, vocal style and some searing drum work by Tiki Fulwood. This track always had a hint of Betty Davis for me too with it’s sweet mixture of bitterness and righteous anger offset by the humour on offer.
Don’t You Wish You Had (What You Had When You Had It) again displays Copeland’s independence in full effect over some stunning, bluesy, Eddie Hazel guitar work and a funky pot of indignation. Great great stuff.
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Hear them vocals?? THAT'S how that shit gets done! Reminds me of Betty Davis in that "I'm-the-baddest-BADDEST-bitch-you'll-ever-fuck-with" type of flavor. Well done!
I gotta call Billy. I don't have the albums here, to recheck the credits. But I do remember a few little things:
– Really, Funkadelic was still with Funkadelic — this was just work being done for Invictus boss Jeff Bowen as part of George's deal to have that Parliament album, Osmium, done on Invcitus.
– So Bernie Worrell was also involved on the Copeland stuff.
– Billy Bass tells me with alot of that Invictus work was also dropped in by noteable bassist Bob Babbitt too. So sometime when you think it's Billy, it's Babbitt. One way to distinguish is if you here tremolos on the lines – that's Billy signature. I was surprised because many tracks I used to think Billy did, Babbbit and one other bassist did.
Best, fONk
Chuck, I hope you're not letting the facts get in the way of a good story?
I confess my post is based almost entirely on hearsay, be happy to amend it.
and if you get the original vinyl on invictus, not only do you get some great blusey funk a la betty davis/ later etta james, you get the triple fold-out sleeve. mmm-hmmm…
Yeah I would have loved to have found a scan of the full album cover to post up, it's something to behold that's for sure….
Ramon Tiki Fulwood joined Miles Davis for a while in 1972
Adlib – Do we know of any recordings with Tiki and Miles ? Please … You always trump it man, Adlib, your THAT dude. Thanks.
Hope it's enough for ya cHUCk
http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/1nationpfunkbios/tikifulwood.html
About Miles, see Cellar Door Sessions
http://www.miles-beyond.com/cellardoor.htm
Janis had a date with Funk and never went.Superb stuff…where is this voice now?
the guitar tone and phrasing on 'suburban lament' reminds me alot of the guitar on the chamber brothers' 'new generation'. this is not a criticism, just a fun observation which may or may not be useful to anyone. it's not the same guitar player, right?
very cool. never would have heard this if not for your blog.
thanks!
That's an interesting question b, had never noticed the similarity before. As far as I'm aware they aren't one and the same but then the Chambers Brothers did have links to p-funk so you never know……
i had to come back and thank you again for this. this is truly amazing.
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