Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Bernie Worrell might be an unfamiliar name, but his keyboard and synthesizer riffs have been the backbone of hits for Talking Heads, Parliament and more. He's in town with his own group, the WOO Warriors, and just might bring down, or 'burn down,' the house.
By ERIC DEGGAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 28, 2002
Perhaps this sounds presumptuous. But you should know who Bernie Worrell is.
Remember that bouncy, bubbling keyboard line that powers Parliament's funk classic Flash Light? Or the spacey synth sounds propelling Talking Heads' soulful hits Girlfriend Is Better and Burning Down the House? How about Tom Tom Club's percolating dance hit Genius of Love?
If you remember any of them, what you really remember is Bernie Worrell, arguably the best keyboard player you've probably never heard of.
So why isn't he better-known, like his star-glasses-wearing, bass-playing compatriot William "Bootsy" Collins or former Parliament/Funkadelic boss George Clinton?
Ask Worrell, 58, and you can almost feel his shrug over the telephone lines from Miami Beach, where he's helping singer Lauryn Hill jump-start work on her second album of new material (with an all-star band that includes Spin Doctors keyboardist Ivan Neville, Keith Richards' drummer/producer Steve Jordan and D'Angelo bassist Pino Palladino).
"That messes with me too, sometimes," confided the keyboardist, whose wife/manager Judie even had to counter Internet rumors in April that he'd died. "Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. I know who I am . . and lots of other people do, too."
Worrell and I first met nearly 10 years ago, just as he was taking the second keyboard position backing Paul Shaffer in David Letterman's Late Show house band when the host first left NBC for CBS in 1993. As a lifetime fan of both P-Funk and Talking Heads -- I was probably the only kid in Gary, Ind., with a poster of both Bootsy Collins and Big Suit Guy David Byrne on his wall -- I couldn't wait to see the master exposed to a wider audience.
Walking to his front door, through a Plainfield, N.J., neighborhood some cranks called "Cancer Alley" for its proximity to messy industrial factories, felt like a pilgrimage to the Original Groove -- an audience with an old-school funketeer who still outclassed most of the computerized, sequenced pablum clogging the airwaves.
"They always said we were ahead of our time back then, and you can see it's true," he said then, his thin frame balanced on top of a keyboard rented for the Letterman gig. "Look at all the sampling the rap guys have done of us. . . . We made a mark."
But Worrell didn't last long on Letterman, replaced by a horn section a few months in. Still, the keyboardist refuses to blame Shaffer, saying the network pressured the bandleader to add horns; a decision complicated by Worrell's weekend trips to gigs with Bootsy's New Rubber Band, catching red-eye flights back to New York in time to do weeknights on Letterman.
"Paul fought it, because he and I have been friends for years, . . . (but) when the word came down, we both understood," Worrell said. "It was a mutual agreement."
Those who know Worrell couldn't have been surprised. As much musical ground as Shaffer covers in a night, he couldn't offer enough variety to satiate Worrell -- who admits one reason the list of artists he's worked with is so long is because "I get bored quick."
Besides Talking Heads and P-Funk, Worrell helped Chrissie Hynde kick start the Pretenders after the death and departure of two founding members, turned up the funk on Keith Richards' first solo record and upped the experimental factor in his own music by teaming with famed New York bassist/producer Bill Laswell.
Worrell's musical journey started early: a prodigy with perfect pitch, he began playing piano at age 3. By age 4 he'd played his first concert, and four years later he wrote his first piano concerto.
Born and raised in New Jersey, he studied at the New York College of Music, The Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory of Music. But even though his family was strict about keeping him focused on classical studies, a young Worrell couldn't help sneaking out to play with R&B groups such as The Parliaments -- a doo wop group led by the owner of a Plainfield, N.J., barber shop, George Clinton.
By 1970, he was with Clinton full time -- the band had already moved to Detroit and failed as a traditional R&B act in Motown. But the exploding psychedelic culture would inspire a groundbreaking re-invention of the group -- rewriting the rules for R&B, rock and dance music by sticking everything in a huge, musical blender that merged psychedelic-style cosmic concepts with head-shaking funk and searing bursts of rock guitar.
Clinton, Worrell, Bootsy Collins and a long list of other musicians created the "P-Funk"; a hippy-dippy spaced-out version of the future -- complete with an extra-terrestrial "mother ship" that swooped down to open the band's later shows.
Worrell's syncopated clavinet work and thick analog synth bass lines would form the backbone of that sound, fueling hits such as Up For the Down Stroke, (Not Just) Knee Deep, Tear the Roof Off the Sucker and Flashlight. As the '70s progressed, the swirl of bands in Clinton's orbit would include Funkadelic (a name he used in the early '70s when legal battles barred use of the Parliament moniker), Bootsy's Rubber Band and the Brides of Funkestein.
Of course, the offstage chaos grew as well. Various members of the collective struggled with substance abuse, money problems, clashes with Clinton (who wanted to build a musical empire much like Berry Gordy's Motown), and more.
Worrell, who often co-produced, co-wrote and arranged P-Funk material, was marginalized as Clinton took the lion's share of credit -- moves that would later limit what the keyboard player, Bootsy Collins and others could earn from publishing royalties, as youngblood rappers built new hits on samples of old Parliament/Funkadelic tunes.
"I'm still owed money from a lot of sampling," Worrell said, noting that Clinton also has filed lawsuits to establish ownership of early Parliament/Funkadelic songs and royalties for samples used. "George always got more money than we did. But what goes around comes around."
After Parliament/Funkadelic, the studio sessions grew: Dee-Lite, Cream bassist Jack Bruce, The Spinners, The O'Jays, Gil-Scott Heron, Sly & Robbie, Yoko Ono and more. Many more.
"My method is to play whatever comes to me. . . . God gave me that gift," Worrell said. "I listen and they mostly say, 'Bernie, do what you want to do.' But I say, give me a guideline . . . because we're a team working on this."
These days, Worrell's juggling several projects: the WOO Warriors, his own mind-bending solo gig; Bruce's Cuicoland Express, a group featuring the Cream bassist and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid; and a band with former Primus bassist Les Claypool.
In Ybor City, Worrell will bring the WOO Warriors, a seven-piece band that balances ambitious takes on his solo material with classic P-Funk cuts and covers such as Burnin' Down the House.
Live gigs are happily unpredictable affairs, with Worrell using breaks between songs as opportunities to jam on everything from Elton John's Bennie and the Jets to King Crimson's Court of the Crimson King.
"You will be introduced to the WOO universe," cracked Worrell, who retains the Parliament/Funkadelic flair for creating a trippy concept and filtering his music through its lens. "I might play some cartoon music, or some Beatles . . . whatever comes into my head. I'm an arranger . . . so I can mix musics and come up with whatever I need."
And younger musicians are getting hip to Worrell's talents. Years ago, he wondered why rappers would sample his old grooves instead of hiring him to play new ones; now he's cut a Nike commercial (with Bootsy and former James Brown horn man Fred Wesley), also crafting new grooves with Snoop Doggy Dogg, Mos Def and Lauryn Hill.
"She's playing guitar now . . . and she's effervescent, bubbling with ideas," Worrell said of Hill, who called him last week to help flesh out her concepts. "She's been doing this project for awhile, and she's searching . . . trying to communicate her ideas to the musicians. But I bet she'll find it."
Meanwhile, Worrell hopes more young artists go to the source when looking to tap the funky vibe that P-Funk turned into a musical revolution.
"I met Snoop for the first time a couple of months ago, and he said, 'Thank God, I finally got the real thing,' " Worrell said, laughing. "I guess the word is out. For all those who have been sampling us, . . . they're realizing now they can just have us play new stuff. Because they can save money and get the real groove."