The Early Years of Bernie Worrell

Bernie Worrell is something of a mysterious figure, and I think that was by design. I wanted to learn more about his early life, prior to joining Parliament/Funkadelic. I didn’t find any published biographies on him specifically, and wanted to avoid the books and articles that are heavily focused on his time in that band. I wanted to know more about his education and his early musical training, and all the things he was doing before he joined with George Clinton in Detroit. As I was reading and listening to the few interviews he did give, I realized that there was a lot of confusing and conflicting information out there. Sometimes misinterpretations of what he said, sometimes memory lapses or confusion on his part, and sometimes filling in the blanks for things he did not say (or was not asked). This is my attempt to distill some of what I learned, and to document it in the hopes that if someone else is looking for this information, as I was, there will be some more detail and context available to them in one place.

In the short documentary film called Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth, many of his closest musical collaborators speak on his talents, and they tried to piece together something of a biography. But as David Byrne says in the film, “If someone’s greatest strength is being almost invisible, to be like an invisible influence, then yeah, by nature a lot of people are not gonna realize the effect he’s having.” And I think that sums up not just the way Bernie used his talents, but where they came from and all the things that went into his development as an artist and a person. He was also driven by a desire for freedom, and did not ever want to be tied down or fenced in, as he said in the Red Bull Academy interview, “don’t tell me what I’m going to do, I’ll do the opposite. I will be free. And that’s how I play.”

His unique personality and his laser focus on music-making itself has led to a lot of his work being unacknowledged, unprotected, and sometimes credited to others. Although Bernie has passed, there are still people around who know details about his life, and I hope those details are properly documented so that future generations can understand the context around a person like him, and the world that he lived both in and around. I’m not one of those people, nor am I a professional writer. But I am a person who has had some similar experiences and approaches to music, though my talent has never been as great as Bernie’s. Still, I’m fascinated by everything I learn about him, and equally frustrated with the lack of good information available, particularly about his early life. I hope that what I write below is accurate, but it’s likely that some of it is not. I’ve left comments open here and if you have anything to offer please leave it below. I will moderate them to keep the trash out as best as I can, but if you’re a real person offering a genuine contribution to the discussion, it will definitely get through. I won’t be reading any comments posted elsewhere, but feel free to discuss amongst yourselves on any platform you like.

One of the main sources I’m going to refer to is an interview for Red Bull Academy that Bernie did around 2015. I recommend reading the transcript because the video and audio are excruciatingly slow paced and difficult to get through, in my opinion. The audio also gets messed up midway through and starts repeating from the beginning, though the video continues. 2x speed makes it more palatable, and I will link to specific times in the video throughout so you shouldn’t have to go searching. He gives only brief answers to a rather uncomfortable and perhaps unprepared interviewer, but he does say some very important things during the interview. About his father, Bernie only says that “My father was a truck driver, ran his own business, and as my mother would say, he was in the streets.” He then goes on to talk about his mother, and no more is said about him. The only other piece of information about Bernie’s father, which I consider to be more than a little unreliable, comes from an excerpt of a 1978 Rolling Stone article that says his passing was the reason Bernie left New England Conservatory. I haven’t been able to find anything verifying that his father passed away at that time and even if he did, there were many other factors involved in his leaving the conservatory. More on that later.

Bernie had a lot more to say about his mother. He describes her as a church-going lady, who sang in the choir and played piano. I think it’s pretty clear that Bernie was a vessel that his mother filled with love, in the hopes that it could shield him from the rough upbringing so many of his contemporaries faced. But, she was also free spirited in her own way. Bernie used her faith as an example, saying “…she didn’t believe in any one set denomination or religion…She was Baptist, but she’d go wherever she wanted…I guess, that’s where I get my freedom…” This is an idea that guided Bernie throughout his life, that he wanted to move through the world participating in a wide variety of cultures and communities, but really did not want to be tied down to any particular one. I couldn’t help but notice how much Bernie sort of perked up and engaged when the interviewer asks a follow-up question about differences in style between music in a Catholic church versus a Baptist church. Bernie says, “Yes, but it’s all music. And it could be related.” And that is another very deep expression of his belief in the idea of musical unity. Unfortunately the idea wasn’t explored much further, but I think Bernie had a lot to say about that.

He also said that his mother had perfect pitch, and could pick out notes easily and immediately, just as he could. She played piano at home, well enough to accompany herself and practice her church singing. His mother recognized that he had picked up this ability, and began sitting Bernie on her knee at age 3 (and a half, as noted by Bernie) and teaching him scales on the piano. This would have been late in the year of 1947 into early 1948 time range. Bernie began formal lessons right away, and performed in his first recital shortly after, which would be in the year of 1948. In a 1978 article for Contemporary Keyboard Magazine, it’s added that he played 40 pieces from the John Thompson curriculum. The family lived in the beach side city of Long Branch, New Jersey. In that same article, he names his first teacher as Mrs. Adelaide Waxwood, who felt he was too young to start taking lessons. But her husband, who was a grammar school principal, convinced her that Bernie was worth giving a shot. He also notes that Mrs. Waxwood became his godmother, so they obviously were very close. He was very successful early on, quickly surpassed her older students, and what had been apparent to Bernie’s mother quickly became apparent to his teacher. After about four years, his family moved to Plainfield, so Bernie could study with another teacher named Fay Barnaby Kent. He said in this 2011 Artist Connection podcast interview that his mother would trade housework with Mrs. Kent in exchange for lessons, and that most of her students were in high school or older at the time.

She was no ordinary local piano teacher, in fact she had studied at (and later helped fund) the MacDowell Colony, learned from Edward MacDowell himself, and championed the ideas around artist residency programs. Here’s a nice article from an alumni publication that gives some background on Mrs. Kent. Her estate in Plainfield was called “Kent Knoll,” and it’s clear that she wanted it to be her own version of that kind of artistic incubator she saw in the MacDowell Colony. Bernie had composed a piano concerto by age 8, and was performing solos with orchestras by age 10. In a 2011 interview with Alex del Zoppo at the ASCAP Expo, Bernie says a few key things. Among them are that he composed “his first” piano concerto at age 8, leaving room to say there may have been others written later. Another really cool thing about that short interview is that they came up with a photo of Bernie as a child that is shown as he’s talking, side by side with another picture of him as an adult. The next thing that he says, which is repeated with slight variation in the Red Bull Academy interview as well, is that he performed 3 concerti with orchestras at that time. Now, Bernie says he performed with “The Washington Symphony,” which would be a colloquialism since there is no symphony by that name, though it was probably called that name by locals at the time. A small detail he adds during the Red Bull Academy interview is important too, he says he performed with “part of the Washington Symphony and the Plainfield Symphony”. The National Symphony Orchestra (the actual name of the organization) has had a summer program for young people for some time, and Bernie could have been a part of that program. It was a transformative time for that orchestra, just prior to the development of the national cultural center that would become the Kennedy center. Perhaps Bernie’s performances were something set up by Mrs. Kent at her own studio, using players who performed in both symphonies, I don’t know. The Plainfield Symphony was one of the older community orchestras in the area and was a very high level organization as well, so these were the very best orchestras in the area at the time. The fact that a young child was performing at that level is extraordinary, no matter what small details have been lost. Being a child prodigy is unique, but being a pianist made him even more special. The important thing to remember is that he was the featured soloist at these concerts. A child prodigy on the violin or cello would have a number of opportunities to join orchestras and perform, since they would be part of a section. But a pianist only performs with orchestras as a featured soloist, so this was a really big deal. This would have been sometime between 1954 and 1958, a couple years after his family moved to Plainfield.

It’s somewhat telling that he did not have anything particularly negative to say about his time studying with Mrs. Kent.  He doesn’t relay any stories such as fellow child prodigy (and Juilliard student) Nina Simone’s description of her first recital around 1945.  Her parents took their proper seats in the front row to watch their 12 year old daughter perform in her first concert, only to be forced to move and make way for a white family who wanted those seats.  She refused to play until her family could come back closer, but that is the kind of thing that was likely to happen when Black children performed for classical audiences.  I think it’s unrealistic to think that it didn’t happen to Bernie, but he was 11 years younger than Nina and in a different area of the country, so I suppose there’s a small chance that he was able to exist in something of a bubble that lessened the severity or frequency of those events.  But that’s really unlikely, and he did not want to talk about it as an adult.  He did say that Mrs. Kent was a Quaker, that he was the only Black student in her studio, and that he felt like that meant she took a particular interest in him. But he doesn’t ever elaborate on how he felt about that, how she treated him, or how other students or the audiences behaved at his performances. It’s very clear that no matter anyone else’s motivation, Bernie’s talent spoke for itself and that was what drove his development and success as a young person.

There is a gap, or perhaps just a period of steady growth, in Bernie’s story between the years after he arrived in Plainfield and started performing around 1954 and when he finished high school about 1962. Bernie played at local churches and community groups, sometimes accompanying his mother at events like teas and fashion shows, or funerals. Mrs. Kent definitely took a special interest in young Bernie, and connected him to other resources as he got older. Some interviews and articles about Bernie stated that he had been blown away by Elvis’s performances much earlier, but this comedically uncomfortable exchange during the Red Bull Academy interview shows that he was much more impressed by the Beatles. I think anecdote about Elvis came from an older interview, but he seemed to be trying to make the point that he actually wasn’t aware of Elvis until much later than everyone else. The other thing to consider is that he was not a young impressionable child at that time the of the Beatles performance, he would have been nearly 20 when they made their first appearance on American television. My guess is that he probably was paying more attention to things like Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, although they weren’t televised until 1958, when Bernie was getting a little older and starting to get more rebellious. In this NAMM Oral History Program interview, he points to “What I Say” by Ray Charles (released in 1959) as having a big impact on him. One influence he frequently points to is Victor Borge, and I think that he was a tremendous influence on Bernie. Borge’s ability to take the heavy, serious world of classical music down to the common people using humor is exactly the thing that Bernie would eventually do with George Clinton. And his style of humor is very similar. Victor Borge would frequently start a concert by asking if there were any kids in the audience. And when there inevitably were, he would say he couldn’t do the second half of the show completely nude, then. He would wear a tie, the long one. The very long one.

Bernie routinely sought out the places he was not supposed to go. His mother hoped his talents would keep him at places like Kent Knoll, safe and surrounded by high culture. By the time he moved to Plainfield, people were already talking about him as a prodigy, and his talents were definitely getting noticed. At some point, he became aware of a particular barber shop at the other end of Plainfield street, the Silk Palace. This is where George Clinton formed the Parliaments, and made his living cutting hair and selling various goods and services out the back door. Bernie is said to have started sneaking out of his bedroom window around age 14 to go to the shop. Sometimes it’s described as him sneaking out to play in their band, but that might be a stretch. It seems he was mostly interested in getting his hair processed, and socializing with the local musicians. He says in the Liner Note Legends interview that his mother sometimes went looking for him there, switch in hand. The guys around the barber shop were aware of Bernie’s talents and he probably demonstrated his knowledge and abilities to them by helping with things like chords and harmony that the self-taught guys did not know about, or using his perfect pitch to help them tune. He would be that “invisible influence” that David Byrne was describing. It’s entirely possible that he was used as an accompanist, since the Parliaments were a vocal group and it’s possible there was a piano somewhere in the back. But, Bernie doesn’t seem to indicate that he did anything other than get his hair processed and socialize. This would have been in the late 50’s. Bernie would be 14 in 1958, and that tracks along with George’s building of the Parliaments. They had recorded some singles that were published (and available today on compilations), but George would start working as a songwriter in Motown several years later, before anything really took off. As the story goes, George told Bernie that he wanted to work with him, and that one day he would call when he had the money to hire him.

Dr. Ellen Exner, a Bach scholar now on faculty at New England Conservatory, wrote a really detailed and interesting article for Bach Perspectives, Volume 13 that demonstrates Bernie’s use of musical quotes, and the relationship between Bach’s contrapuntal style and some of the Parliament/Funkadelic compositions. Because she is on faculty at NEC, she was able to gain access to several of his student records. She found his audition at NEC was on June 30, 1962. This is significantly earlier than I had expected, since a lot of the articles I read imply that he was only there for a short time. In the Rolling Stone article, it’s written that he took private lessons at Juilliard for 2 years, and spent just 3 semesters at New England Conservatory. However, Bernie consistently said that he left the conservatory in 1967, which would be at least 4, and possibly 5 years spent in college. In the 2011 Artist Connection podcast interview, he said that he actually skipped all the first year harmony and theory classes because he was so advanced. Elsewhere, such as in this article in Jazztimes released ahead of his Elevation album, it is written that he also took theory and harmony classes at New York College of Music. He mentioned in this 2011 interview that Mrs. Kent had connected him with Professor John Noge, and he took classes in theory and harmony with him at the New York College of Music as early as age 8. He wasn’t enrolled in the full programs there, or at Juilliard, but it does seem like those classes and private lessons would have happened while he was still in high school or younger. There may not be as many detailed records at those institutions, but it would be interesting to see what someone with Dr. Exner’s kind of access could find there. In that same interview, he describes performing in Symphony Hall in Boston accompanying the NEC chorus under Lorna Cooke deVaron, and taking lessons with Vic Firth (who apparently took a liking to Bernie’s younger cousin who came to visit). Being a student at NEC, I can also assume he performed at Jordan Hall as well during this time. His first few years in college seem to have been very concentrated around school work, from the period of around 1963-1966. Later in that interview, he also mentions that he worked at the Lahey Clinic in the filing department, so he spent at least some time doing non-musical work.

While I wasn’t able to find any information about how Bernie navigated the racial dynamics earlier in life, Dr. Exner found some interesting evidence about his time at NEC. Even in Mrs. Kent’s application materials, there was a particular fact that might be telling. In her official recommendation letter, she made no effort to identify Bernie’s race, but rather attached a separate piece of personal stationary in which she wrote that he was “of the negro race,” along with other anecdotal statements. The official record she submitted would not have any indication of his race, since he shared his name with many white people in the area and studied at a predominantly (probably even exclusively) white music school, with a white teacher. She had ample opportunity to point it out in the official application, but chose instead to include it on a separate, personal note. Did she see his race as something that would work against him in the official record, but might compel the admissions officers personally or impact his acceptance if they were to find out later? This was a long time ago and trying to analyze the actions and nuance of how people navigated the racial dynamics of the time is difficult for me. Perhaps it is not as telling a detail as it may seem, but that was just the beginning of what comes out in the records. Dr. Exner also uncovered his jury sheets, and found harsh criticism of his playing coupled with some clearly racialized language. I think it would be extremely difficult for a conservatory teacher in contemporary times to fully wrap their head around the thinking of conservatory faculty in the early 60’s, but it’s clear to me that Bernie’s genius was not being well cultivated. Some of his teachers appear to have felt he was incapable of meeting their expectations, referred to him as a “boy,” and called him “lazy”. She also gives the detail that his piano teacher was Miklos Schwalb, a Hungarian who was driven out of Europe during the war.

At some point in his studies, it seems that Bernie’s lessons devolved into private performances for his teacher. Bernie’s wife Judie, in a research interview with Dr. Exner, described the scene as the teacher putting away the classical sheet music and asking Bernie to play some jazz for him. This could be seen as expressing a racist dismissal of his talent, but it could also have been something of a radical move on his teacher’s part in an effort to support Bernie’s musical growth. It’s important to remember that NEC was a conservative bastion for the classical style and its foil, Berklee, was where jazz and popular music were cultivated. There was a very clear distinction between what music was appropriate for study at NEC and what was not, and this was years before any jazz studies program was developed at the conservatory. It’s possible that Bernie’s teacher felt that the classical repertoire was neither helpful nor interesting to him, and perhaps he was genuinely interested in enriching his education through non-classical music. But his teacher was probably not very capable or learned in that department himself, and probably didn’t have a lot of help to offer. After a lifetime of rigorous lessons and study, I find it entirely believable that most teachers would have very little to teach Bernie about classical music at this point in his life. It was something of a plateau in his education, I’m sure, that led to Bernie leaving college. The only other insight about his studies that he offered was that he did a lot of accompaniments during that time, as he had been doing throughout his life. In another odd exchange in the Red Bull Academy interview, possibly brought on by thoughts of how tedious the conversation was, Bernie adds some description of how he thinks about musical accompaniment. He really excelled in those live situations where he was following every subtle nuance in a soloist’s performance, and staying focused on the present moment. Several of his statements and the timeline of his work with other musicians point to 1967 as the year he finished with college. Some articles state that he earned a degree, but his own bios usually avoid the word “graduate,” and it’s likely that he left the program without actually earning a diploma at that time. He was given an honorary doctorate from NEC in 2015, though.

Like all Americans of his generation, Bernie’s young adult life was marked by some extreme events in history. As he was in his second year at college, president Kennedy was killed. The summer of 1967 saw violent riots all across the country. In particular, that July saw a particularly tense weekend in Bernie’s hometown of Plainfield. Initial flashpoints brought rioting and looting, state and federal troops, and burned out buildings. Gangs from other parts of the country came pouring in to a community they knew nothing about, and it became a battleground. Ultimately, residents managed to secure a large amount of automatic weapons and the usual power dynamic was radically changed. National Guard sweeps failed to find most of the weapons, and for days buildings burned as fire departments were paralyzed by gunfire. It was a terribly traumatic event, shattering the community. I could certainly see how something like that, even if seen from a distant Boston, could have caused Bernie to not want to return to college for a another year, if he hadn’t stopped going earlier in the Spring. He had developed some other interests as well, and was again seeking out opportunities in the seedier parts of town.

Boston in the 60’s was an extremely dangerous place, full of criminals running wild. A lot of the violence fell along racial lines. Like most music students in college, Bernie also played gigs outside of school to earn money and make a name for himself in the community. He did the usual church and community jobs that he had been accustomed to in Plainfield, and also accompanied a Jewish men’s choir as he noted to Alex del Zoppo in his interview. I think that as the classical performances became unfulfilling for him, the challenge, and the joy of learning, came from branching out and trying new things. By the time he finished school, he had discovered the network of bars and strip clubs that supported the music scene, and that world opened up a lot of new opportunities for Bernie. In particular, he appears to have been looking for venues that welcomed and supported Black musicians and audiences, and he ultimately found them in the area commonly known as “the combat zone.” I don’t want to get too far off topic into the criminal underworld storyline, but it is actually very relevant to Bernie’s story. Boston was also a battleground, and law enforcement was playing a game to hold rival gangs in check by alternately supporting and undermining them. This tactic was an effort weaken their individual power and use them to do the dirty work that police and federal agents could not do themselves. This made for an overall criminal culture in society, with pervasive petty crimes like gambling and prostitution being some part of nearly everyone’s lives, in the name of providing a level of control that might not allow for widespread riots. It’s also no secret that Boston has always been very racist, so a great deal of the effort was concentrated on supporting white gangsters in their violence against the Black population, and that support grew dramatically after the 1967 riots. Whitey Bulger was released from prison in 1965 after 9 years of being in prison, where he was dosed with unbelievable amounts of LSD and tortured in psychological experiments. And he was just one of many psychopaths allowed to run wild through the community with support from law enforcement. The racial dividing line was the border between South Boston and Roxbury, and in that location there were a number of nightclubs that Bernie would have frequented. The most important for Bernie, and notable for many other reasons, was called Basin Street South.

Basin Street was not a jazz club at this time, it was more of a contemporary revue with a wide variety of acts that were in a more popular entertainment vein. In the minds of its white owners, it was a venue for a “mixed audience,” or “black and tan.” All African Americans, but a mixture of light skin upper class and dark skin lower class. There’s another comical moment in the Red Bull Academy interview when it seems like the interviewer says Bernie would have been running the band for the “Miss Tan” pageant, but skips right over any details on the event itself to try and express some incredulity that something so public could have a name like that. Again, I think it’s very hard for us in 2022 to really wrap our minds around the thinking of 1960’s Boston, and something like that was not unusual at all. Basin Street South was one of many establishments in New England that had an outward appearance meant to disguise the actual business activity that took place in the back rooms. Its ownership technically changed hands many times, but it was a center of gang activity throughout this time of very violent activity about 1965-1967.

Bernie formed a band called the Preachers that backed saxophonist Quinn Harris, and that’s the earliest group he mentions in any interviews. He had been interested in forming organ trios, and this was when he started playing Hammond organ and exploring all its possibilities. Quinn Harris was a student at Berklee, probably studying with (among others) Quincy Jones. I think it’s highly likely that Bernie could have met Quincy at some point in this time, although it does appear that this was a challenging time in Quincy’s musical life so maybe he wasn't out at the clubs, or as accessible as I may think. At one particular show, on a bill supporting the O’Jays, The Preachers would end up backing a popular local family vocal group, at that time named Chubby and the Turnpikes. It was the Tavares family, but they would not use that name for several more years. Being a vocal group, they needed to play shows at venues that could provide a backing band. That particular gig went really well, they hit it off with the Preachers, and made plans to work together more frequently. In an odd coincidence, the Parliaments’ first gig at the Apollo (which took place around the same time, but that was well before Bernie joined), notable mostly because of how badly they bombed, was also on a bill with the O’Jays. Back in New England, Patriots fullback Jim Nance was opening a new nightclub in Roxbury. Even though it was still definitely involved in the criminal underground, this would be a Black owned club in a Black community, and I suspect that carried a lot of significance for both Bernie and the Tavares brothers (who are Cape Verdean). Quinn and His Preachers would do 3 shows a night, Wednesday through Sunday, with bigger name vocalists brought in on weekends. Chubby and the Turnstiles would open most of the shows. Both Quinn Harris and Bernie would work with the Tavares family as music directors during this time. There’s a lot of confusion around exactly what year this was, but I believe it was 1967. The gigs at Jim Nance’s lounge didn’t last for very long, but a new opportunity came up for Bernie to lead the house band at Basin Street South, and he took it and left the Preachers. Quinn Harris would later write in his own autobiography that Bernie was so talented, it took three new musicians to replace him in the band (though none of them were keyboardists).

As bandleader of the house band at Basin Street, Bernie had even more opportunity to back up a lot of different major acts. He would have been in charge of hiring and scheduling all the other musicians, creating and rehearsing their parts, and putting together whatever the show needed. The nightly revue would include dancers, comedians, musicians, and all kinds of performers, with his band filling in any extra time with their own playing. It would be an entire night of entertainment, with major acts on weekends. What’s also very interesting is that George Clinton began bringing Parliament/Funkadelic out to Boston to play at the Sugar Shack around this same time. Bernie doesn’t mention whether or not he went to or performed at any of those concerts at that time, but I wonder if he went to see them. They had a keyboard player with them, Mickey Atkins, who George picked up in Detroit, and their entire aesthetic was to perform without any rehearsal. So it’s not out of question that Bernie could have joined with them any of the numerous times they came through Boston during these years, but he doesn’t actually say that he did. Bernie did take notice when Testify was released, while he was still in college, and said that he noticed George’s voice had changed a little bit when he heard it on the radio in his dorm , but he knew it was him. George was in Detroit alone, without the Parliaments, when that track was recorded and he used all local session musicians, which might explain one big difference in the sound. The other difference was revealed by George in a recent interview: he was doing Motown’s version of Bob Dylan’s singing style.

Returning to the seedy underworld around Basin Street South, there was one particular incident there that Bernie surely would have known about, and possibly witnessed. Because of the rampant corruption, the details of this event weren’t well known until the the late 90’s, when when the gangsters who terrorized Boston finally started turning on each other in efforts to reduce time served for their own crimes. The stories that came out, particularly this one incident around Basin Street South, had been obscured by the corruption of the police, the poor reporting, and a general lack of interest in crimes that targeted the Black community. In fact, a Boston Globe reporter nearly lost his job when he reported exactly the information the police had given him, which turned out to be incorrect in the details about the victims. And that was in 1998, 30 years after the crime. What did happen, on January 6, 1968, was that Stephen “the rifleman” Flemmi got into an altercation at Basin Street South. Details around the conflict are lacking, and based on really unreliable storytelling, but ultimately it ended with Flemmi getting a beating. He left the club and proceeded to call on his younger associate, John Martorano, to settle the beef. He was probably actually assaulted by fellow white gangsters, but the assistant manager, a Black man named Herbert “Smitty” Smith, became the target of his rage. The gangsters themselves say that he was the man who held him, while other (white) guys did the actual beating. Sometime in the early morning, in the middle of a snowstorm, Martorano shot Herbert Smith in his car, along with two unrelated teenage passengers. Smith and his passengers were all Black, and were killed out in the open, on a main street in a Black neighborhood. Martorano would earn several nicknames related to this incident, one of which was “Basin Street Butcher.” Another was “Sickle Cell Anemia,” pointing to the large number of young Black men he killed. The only remorse he ever expressed for any of his victims was directed towards the young female passenger, Elizabeth F. Dickson, who was a dancer at Basin Street, but even that was a halfhearted gesture made more than 40 years later. When the bodies were found, she was still clutching a pack of cigarettes, and it was said one was still burning in her hand. This article gives context around his callous and brazen attacks on the Black community. The message being sent by an act like this was very clear: these gangsters can kill Black people at any time, for any reason and in any place, and nothing would be done about it. The names of these victims weren’t even known (outside of their immediate community) until 30 years later. When John Martorano started talking in the 90’s, it became apparent that no one remembered the details, the police never even recorded the names or identities of the victims (which is why the Globe reporter got the story wrong, and was nearly fired for the inaccurate information he was given by the police). This was the environment Bernie lived and worked in at this time.

A second landmark event also took place shortly after those awful murders, and I think must have also been witnessed on some level by Bernie, directly or indirectly. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took place on April 4, 1968. The collective trauma of that event again shook the nation, and another wave of riots began. In Boston, the following night, James Brown played a free concert, also televised and broadcast repeatedly on the radio, to a huge crowd in Boston Garden. His leadership in that moment is credited for saving Boston from a devastating riot. I wonder if he was in town on that night, or even at the concert or watching from home, and what kind of thoughts were going through his head at the time. I also wonder what his opinion of James Brown was at the time, or even later. Bernie was certainly well aware of George Clinton’s development of the funk genre, and it’s likely he was at least aware (if not a fan) of Sly Stone’s work too, but there’s possibly a more personal connection to James Brown. While working in the clubs around Boston, and in particular Basin Street South, Bernie worked with Lola Falana, and through her met and worked with Tammi Terrell (though he says she went by Tammi Montgomery at the time). Early in life, as a teenager, she had been in James Brown’s band as a backup singer and also his girlfriend. She left his group after he beat her bloody in front of at least one band member. After taking a break from music and going back to college, Tammi then became involved with David Ruffin, and that relationship ended after he cracked her in the head with a motorcycle helmet. She had also had existing brain trauma from childhood, and ultimately was found to have had a large tumor from cancer. The timing of when Bernie met her is both very important and not indicated, so it’s impossible for me to know at what point in her tragic story he worked with her. But for her timeline, she ended that relationship with Ruffin in 1967, was singing with Marvin Gaye that same year and famously collapsed into his arms on stage, had unsuccessful brain surgery early in 1968, struggled through the next couple of years and died in 1970. When Bernie speaks of her in the Red Bull Academy interview, his face lights up and it’s clear that he had a strong personal connection to her, and I can’t help but wonder if that relationship had any impact on his opinions of James Brown.

Around this time, Bernie was also working as music director for Maxine Brown. He had said that he worked with her for 3 years, so that would be roughly 1967 through 1969. It’s possible that it was less frequent earlier on, or that he managed both her band and other bands simultaneously while he worked with the Preachers or at Basin Street South. It’s also possible that the January 6 murders prompted Bernie to get out of Basin Street South and start looking for other jobs, it might have only been a matter of months that he was in that position. He did not “tour” with Maxine, her gigs were individually scheduled at various places in the Northeast and some in the Midwest. I found a great video from the Bitter End in 1968, that shows the type of revue format that was popular at the time. Skipping ahead to Maxine’s final number, you get some good shots of Bernie playing along and congratulating the band at the end. He spoke very fondly of Maxine in all his interviews, and though he had to do a lot of hiring and firing guitarists and drummers, and towards the end he felt like her career was moving downward, it seems like it was a very successful and rewarding job for him. At the beginning of the final number, as she is being interviewed, it’s said that she had just recently played the Apollo theater. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Bernie was her bandleader at that time, so it’s pretty likely he played at that show too. Contrast that band with this early video of Parliament/Funkadelic that was recorded in Boston in 1969. When Bernie was in Bermuda with Maxine Brown, opening for Jimmy Smith, he finally received that call from George Clinton. The way the story is told sometimes makes it sound as if Bernie was in his hotel room, gets a long distance call from George, who is at the Apollo, saying “come on up.” Then Bernie grabs his B-3 and hops on a plane to play a show the next night or something. It took more time than that, the original call was just to set up a meeting with his manager (I believe it was his wife Judie), who met with George and reported back to Bernie asking if he would like to move to Detroit. Bernie did play his first show with Parliament/Funkadelic at the Apollo, but that was later, in November of 1969. Bernie says that there was a gap of about 2 months between wrapping things up with Maxine Brown and joining with George Clinton. So that would mean he left her band at the end of the Summer of 1969. In the 2011 interview he mentions that he was actually living on Long Island at that time, and came back there to relocate to Detroit.

Bernie didn’t really want to go to Detroit, he had definitely been freaked out by the riots, which were very severe there. He also didn’t have many (perhaps any) connections there as he did in Boston or New York, but he ultimately did decide to do it. Like many of the other musicians recruited by George Clinton in the early days, Bernie found himself in a tough position. The contracts and financial situation was a mess, whatever promises George had made quickly proved to be questionable or unfulfilled, and as Bernie tried to reach out to other artists to play with and make some money, George would get upset and not allow it for fear that another group could steal their sound. The other A&R people, managers, and musicians all recognized his talent as well, and there was definitely a push and pull of who got to use him for their projects. Bernie did work with several other acts during this time, but it seems like he was burned badly on those deals as well, not being as familiar with the recording industry and how all of that worked. He did get enough work through George’s projects to keep him busy though, and was a part of a lot of other important recordings apart from Parliament/Funkadelic at that time.

Motown was the opportunity that moving to Detroit allowed, though. It seems to me that Bernie had done very little studio work prior to moving to Detroit, mostly putting together live acts and rehearsing bands for specific performances. He also had the opportunity to branch out with new instruments. Prior to this, he was a pianist and organist exclusively. Moving to Detroit, joining with George and working under record labels introduced him to the Clavinet, which he purchased almost immediately on arrival probably after hearing what Stevie Wonder had been doing with that instrument. He saw the rehearsal studio for Alice Cooper’s band, and the portable Yamaha CP-80 piano that they were using, and that would allow him to play a real piano while on the road. It’s never totally clear who plays what on any of the George Clinton productions, but there was also some harpsichord on Parliament’s cover of Los Pop Tops’ “Oh Lord, Why Lord”, and I can only assume that Bernie would have played that part, though the arrangement might have been Ruth Copeland’s work, it’s just unclear. It was, after all, an adapted version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, which had also been enjoying a lot of popularity due to the release of that particular recording. Being such a student of Bach, I also wonder if he had played the harpsichord while in college as well, but that doesn’t ever seem to be discussed. The studios at Motown definitely had harpsichords, as they had been popularized in so many recordings of the 1960’s. Bernie frequently expressed appreciation for George Martin’s productions, which used harpsichords and classical ensembles frequently. Later, he would be a very early adopter of the Moog and Minimoog, and would take that instrument (and his playing) to a whole new level. All of those things were enabled by his move to Detroit, as was the promise of the “New Motown” that George Clinton was trying to build. One obituary, written by Ben Kaye for the Consequence of Sound blog, claims Bernie was “the second musician ever to receive the original Moog synthesizer and the Minimoog.” But I think that claim is exactly as unbelievable as it sounds, though maybe there is some kind of kernel of truth in there. In the Synth Gods book Bernie says, “Stevie Wonder bought the first RMI in Detroit, and they say I got the second one.” That’s a little different than what was printed in that obit. Bernie elaborates more towards the end of the Red Bull Academy interview (read the transcript, it’s past the point where the audio resets in the video), and says “On the track that you played with the strings, my first string, everybody thinks it’s Clavinet, but it’s the RMI piano. And Stevie had gone to, it’s called Wonderlove Music, music store in Detroit. I had gone the next day, but they told us at the store: “Stevie was at the store yesterday and got one,” and I was the second person that got one.” That’s a completely different instrument than the Moog, so I think there was just some confusion and misunderstanding about that.

From here, Bernie would go on to do some incredible work with George and Parliament/Funkadelic. His songwriting and musical talent brought the group to a whole new level. He helped to organize the chaos, make some great recordings, and produce incredible live performances. His creativity and talent were given an outlet, and the freedom to do what he wanted to do and play what he wanted to play. But even in his new position as bandleader of one of the most innovative groups around, his musical training was sometimes seen as a handicap. When Bootsy joined up a couple years later (and brought a lot of the James Brown flavor), he was concerned that Bernie’s style was not funky enough. When Bernie got the chance to write and arrange parts for strings and for horns, the players would sometimes bristle at his classical style. This is common in the music world, especially with horn players. They have their own sense of arrangements and familiarity with how parts go together, and usually when players of other instruments make arrangements for them it comes out differently than what they would arrange by themselves. But Bernie’s influence is clearly present on the Osmium recordings, and it would grow and develop along with the rest of the group as different cowriters joined and brought their own unique voices. Mixing all those elements together is exactly what Bernie had always wanted to do.

From here the story goes to another place. He produced many of his own projects, and went on to work with the Talking Heads in the 80’s. Countless other collaborations and projects followed, some of which are accurately noted while there are others that seem to be thrown in and exaggerated just for the sake of showing his range. I hope that when a truly comprehensive biography is written, all of those details are worked out and we can have a better account of all the great music he created. As Bootsy said in the Stranger movie, “if you’re not watching or listening, you’ll miss him.” So, I think we should all do more watching and listening to Bernie, because he did some truly remarkable things that should not be missed.