Funk is the forgotten inspiration. Look back on the seventies as a decade in music and the glam rockers and disco kicks stand out like sore thumbs; their glitter balls and affinity for Nile Rodgers stand in front of one of the most influentially talented musicians of the last century: George Clinton.

Tasting the Maggots in the Mind of the Universe

Funkadelic's 1971 release, Maggot Brain, sits alone, light years away from its successors in tonality, genre, expression and wanton desire. From the ridges in the first pressing of its vinyl tell a story of everything that's to come, and I listen to it with open ears and an open mind, ready to absorb the universe according to pre-funk and post-soul music and R&B, rock and the blues.

Maggot Brain is progressive rock before progressive rock was a thing; it's enlightenment in the face of a war, of pain, of apartheid and the broken hearts of a million people. In the 10-minute opening track which sets the multi-genre tone for the piece, it's the guitar that sends the message to me as a listener. When music tells its listeners a tale without words, it speaks volumes to its power. You give me Jimi Hendrix? I'll give you George Clinton. Man, together, their soul music could fix us all.

The Manchester Mothership

One of the stories my mother used to tell me when I was little was about the time she went to Manchester to see Parliament-Funkadelic. She described it so vividly each and every time, the spaceship that landed on the stage was magnificent, and I was convinced it was real.

My mother told me a lot of stories. The seventies were her era, her time, and what the nineties should have been for my generation if we weren't all too busy being sheltered by our parents, right before the innocence was all stolen away from two rogue planes that crashed into the towers.

We would sit on the floor of the living room and listen to her records. I didn't get to hear Maggot Brain until my mid-20's, but the records she would play from later-Parliament have made an impression on me deeper than the grooves in each vinyl.

She would tell me the story over and over, the excitement of climbing onto a bus with friends to travel hundreds of miles to see a spaceship deliver George and Bootsy and the funk explosion that would launch a thousand artists relived was the only time I saw her feel such impassioned joy.

Funk Enlivened Her Soul

Music is our great unifier. It's music in which we find the middle ground, however different our tastes may be in the long run (her, Stevie Wonder; me, Debbie Harry). Some of her records that she bought as one-offs became some of my favorite artists, and it's all because of her why I do what I do, and because of George Clinton that she taught me how to appreciate the beauty in individuality.

We're different otherwise. We have alternating opinions on just about everything non-political. Even with politics, we like to challenge one another. Politics is a different world to art, however, and since music is art and art and creativity are enemies of the conservative world, it should barely count.

When I think of funk, I think of my mother. In years to come, when I hear Funky Town, I'll think of her and the delightful non-irony in which she proclaimed to love not only that track but the slow tempo, ska-inspired Ghost Town that sounded as such. That makes it seem like she only listens to tracks with "town" in the title, but it's merely a happy coincidence mated with a longtime, now-sketchy memory.

The Hoochie Coochie Bar

The Hoochie Coochie bar is a soul/funk/disco revival bar in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, for other folks my mother's age that have the same, wistful connection to the seventies.

Every month there's a night dedicated exclusively to the music of Nile Rodgers and Chic. Since she loves him, I decided to get her friends to band together and we'd all go to this bar she's been talking about endlessly.

One of them goes all of the time with her husband. I always wondered why they didn't offer to take my mum until I realized they had, but she was being conservative about her money and put eating before a good time, so I was determined to make this happen for her 60th.

There would be no better way to celebrate another year of my mother on this planet than to visit the genre of music that inspired a huge part of who she turned out to be. Once upon a time, she used to be the life of the party, and I would be remiss if I did not do all I could to make that happen again.

Blue moons don't just happen once in a lifetime, after all. 

I really, truly wanted to see her happy.

A Funky Fresh 60s

My mother doesn't read as 60. She dresses well for her age without dressing too young, and the frames of her glasses slim her face to cover the lines she is so convinced that she has and doesn't. She has a professional job in the government, working for a department that is not unlike the TV show Parks and Recreation (which I made her watch, and she agreed). She fights for people's rights, professionally, and never fails.

You wouldn't think to look at her on a work day, but when it comes to having a good time, she is queen. It's when she hits the dance floor that I recognize the person I always heard stories about yet couldn't connect with the woman who would sit beside me and play Parliament's Give Up the Funk.

When she got out on that dance floor at the Hoochie Coochie bar, I swear, 3/5 of those 60 years disappeared into her joy, and a smile I hadn't seen for decades.

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