Perhaps one of the minor, less explored planets of the George Clinton universe, the Brides started out as an offshoot of characters in the storyline of Parliament’s 1976 loose concept album The Clones of Dr Funkenstein. Featuring, for the purposes of this debut long player, the pairing of Dawn Silva and Lynn Mabry, the duo were marketed as a more radio-friendly prospect than typical P-Funk fare.
It worked a treat on curtain-raising single “Disco To Go”, comfortably making Billboard’s R&B Top 10 chart and selling half a million copies in the process. Clinton co-wrote the track with Bootsy Collins and it occasionally featured in the latter’s live shows before he deemed its singalong lyrics too “pop.” A subsequent overhaul re-positioned the song closer to Pointer Sisters or Sister Sledge territory, and its opening horn riff was lifted wholesale for the Gap Band’s “Oops Upside Your Head” a year later. Further commercially-minded sassy chanteuse vibes are evident on the dancefloor defiance of feminist semi-anthem “Birdie” (“Now that I’ve got my way/I’m gonna know just what to say”).
The seven tracks offer intriguing variety; the strutty and suggestive “Amorous” is embellished by well-placed whooshes from the Detroit Symphony strings players, the jaunty “Nappy” bounces along like an outtake from Cabaret or similar Broadway show, while “When You’re Gone” aims for the orchestral lushness of Diana Ross.
So far, so mainstream, but Clinton and his Brides throw a curveball on “Warship Touchante”, its maniacal electronic effects, souped-up cartoon vocals and stream of conscious lyrics suggesting no-one from the P-Funk world strays too far from the mothership. However, the centrepiece of the album, whether by design or not, is the nine-minute “Just Like You”, a slow-burning, atmospherically confessional ballad which, aligned with its lengthy running time, recalls an elaborate Isaac Hayes opus.
Silva and Mabry (who’d first worked together in a touring lineup of Sly & The Family Stone) parted ways shortly after the release of Funk Or Walk. The latter turned her back on the music business for a few years to raise her newborn daughter, but made a highly visible comeback as one of David Byrne’s vocal foils in Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense.
Clinton (while also overseeing a second P-Funk-related vocal group, a trio under the name Parlet) assembled a Mk II Brides, with Silva joined by Sheila Horne and Jeanette McGruder for 1979’s Never Buy Texas From A Cowboy, but it wasn’t as well as received as its predecessor. Silva continued to perform with a revolving-door Brides lineup well into the 21st century, the foundation of her set songs from this slick and funky snapshot of when an out-there intergalactic collective played it comparatively straight but with no less attention to the groove.
Funk Or Walk is out now on Ace Records