Love
Love leader Arthur Lee was a walking contradiction who was part acid dropping hippie, part wild boy gangster. Living in a Los Angeles castle in the ‘60s, Love was the first rock group signed to Elektra Records. They recorded three albums for the former folk music label including their masterpiece Forever Changes, which was their sophomore project. Their biggest hit single was a cover of “My Little Red Book,” which was on their eponymous debut album released in 1966. Unlike their friends Jim Morrison and The Doors, whom they encouraged Elektra to sign, Love never became a household name.
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Thin Lizzy
Although I spent much of my latter teenage years loudly singing Thin Lizzy’s jukebox jams “The Boys are Back in Town” and “Whiskey in a Jar” whenever they blared on the rock station, I had no idea that Irish lead singer Phil Lynott was a Black man. But after watching VH1’s Behind the Music about the band, an episode I swear was one of the series’ best, I felt I learned so much about the biggest rock bands to emerge from Ireland. Years before U2, Thin Lizzy was doing the damn thing.
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Funkadelic
If Funkadelic only made their 1971 classic album Maggot Brain, featuring the mind blowing Eddie Hazel soloing title track, they would still be Black rock legends based entirely on that song. Led by Black rock conceptualist George Clinton, who came from the cosmos to bring music to the masses, the group would conquer the world with their later hits “Cosmic Slop” and “One Nation Under a Groove.” Still, it is their beautiful and brutal, dreamy and dire “Maggot Brain” that remains the perfect free funk/rebel rock instrumental that launched a million air-guitar fantasies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXq4GlHgROQ
EXPLORE Funkadelic’s discography via Amazon | iTunes