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(photos courtesy of David Brooks)
Original P - Live at BB King's in NYC 7/14/00
Here is my review of this show, which featured 4 of the 5 ORIGINAL PARLIMENTS who started the whole P-FUNK MOB!!!
My notes are sketchy and no, I don't know who played what instruments or who alternated on what cuts (folks I don't keep track of that kinda stuff when I go to a show)
You all know these songs...
As always, my apologies to Rickey Vincent for the format of this review
THE MUSIC:
1. STANDING ON THE VERGE - The band started off playing this cosmic cut, Calvin (Looking something like the Hooded Claw) started things off by
announcing.
Welcome to the ORIGINAL P show featuring the ORIGINAL PARLIAMENT:
Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Grady Thomas and myself Calvin Simon. Grady came out and said "I know yall might have come here to BB King's club tonight, but yall are about to get FUNKED.". Fuzzy was dressed in some kind of a wild fishnet body/jump suit and work a cap that sorta looked like a German Kaiser helmet with multicolored glitter all over it. Grady was dressed as a "sheik wearin purple shorts and shades" and Ray was looking like a "doo rag wearin pimp". Then they started jamming and bout midway during the song these 3 chicks came out looking like a cross between EBONY OILDED DOWN BIKINI BABES and Afronaut hookers from Deep Space Nine..lol
2. UP ON THE DOWNSTROKE - Grady on lead, implored "EVERYBODY GET UP.." and the audience did as they were commanded..lol
3. TEAR THE ROOF OFF THE SUCKA - We gonna turn this MOTHA out.
4. PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE - Ray took the lead on this one, and it was kind of a surprise, but it shouldn't have been. As everyone here knows, Ray Davis took the place of Melvin Franklin in the Temptations after Melvin's passing and you can hear his wonderful BASS singing on the album "For Lovers Only"
5. MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION - Radio station W-E F-U-N-K
6. COSMIC SLOP - This was a guitar lovers delight..ORIGINAL P has not one, but TWO STANK Hendrix/Hazel style guitar players and they BOTH took solos that were awesome.
7. ATOMIC DOG - For this song I left the area where I was sitting and moved to the back where there was a group of brotha's that I joined in dancing and "WOOFFING"..BOW WOW WOW YIPIE O YIPPIE A ..O ATOMIC DOG
8. ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE - Fuzzy announced at the beginning.. "We gotta start acting like we truly are ONE NATION, if we don't where will that leave
our children."
9. STOMP -
CALL: "OP ARE YA WITH ME."
RESPONSE: OH YEAH, WE GOT THE FUNK, WE AIN'T GOIN NOWHERE."
Those 9 songs took them 1.5 hrs to play
The second show was the same as the first, except they added "FLASHLIGHT" to the set
THE PEOPLE:
The crowd was about an 80/20 White/Black mix and people were dancing all over the place, in the aisles, at the bar, in between tables anywhere they could. Fuzzy kept telling the crowd to push the tables aside and create a dance floor. Nobody did that because they were most likley afraid to actually touch the marble table tops else be sued my the management.....lol
BB King's Club is located on 42nd St. in Times Square and is easily the most OPULENT/UPSCALE Blues Club I have ever been in (and I have been in many Blues Clubs). You walk down a carpeted spiral starecase with brass railings to enter the club. At the bottom of the stairs you are greeted by a lovely hostess who asks if you want dinner ($20 cover charge) or just the show ($10 cover charge). When you get to the bottom a 15,000 square foot room opens up with a bar that goes for the entire length of the joint. There are TWO huge video screens which flank the stage (which is also huge). The hostess seated me at my table, which had a marble top and the chairs had musical notes carved out in the back. Not a bad seat in the house.
I did some research and learned that the club is NOT owned by BB King, but is in fact owned by the same people who own the Blue Note down in the Village. This club is part of the on going "restoration" of Mayor "Ghouliani" which is turning Times Square into something that looks more like a Disney property than NYC. I have no doubt that if I were to do further research that I would find the "black hand" of the so called Blues Music Association (BMA) or BOWEL MOVEMENT ASSES (thank you POP EB) lurking behind this club!
(& no, I am NOT thru with the BMA)
One last poin't (mah peoples....where were ya last night?)
THE ONE:
Between the two shows I hung out with Calvin, Grady, Fuzzy and Ray for about
an hour and we kicked it. As I entered the dressing room, they hugged me and of course they gave props to all Soul Patrollers for your diligence in making sure that the history of Black music/culture is told correctly, and more importantly told by the people who created it in the first place, and NOT by "culture bandits".
Ray Davis immediately said:
"You and I are cousins, right.."
I said:
"Yeah, we were probably on the same plantation together."
Everybody started cracking up..lol
We then sat down and talked about many things including their new CD that they are working on, past times, future times, Plainfield days, good times and bad times with the "Maggot Overlord" and more Let me just say this, I had a BLAST last night and thanks to these brotha's warmth and fellowship I think that I made some new friends last night
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 Original P ( Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Grady Thomas, Calvin Simon) - LIVE concert featuring Maggot Brain, One Nation Under a Groove, Knee Deep, STOMP and Flashlight LIVE from the Roxy in Boston, broadcast via Soul-Patrol.Net Radio
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