Alex Henderson

Mutiny
Mutiny on the Mamaship/Funk Plus the One

The 1970s wouldn’t have been the 1970s without George Clinton’s p-funk empire, which included not only Parliament/Funkadelic, but also, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, the Brides of Funkenstein and Parlet. Numerous funksters were greatly influenced by p-funk, including drummer/singer Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey and his Richmond, Virginia-based outfit Mutiny.

After making a name for himself playing with the Chambers Brothers and the Five Stairsteps, Richmond native Brailey joined Parliament/Funkadelic in 1975 and spent two years with Clinton before leaving along with guitarist Glen Goins in 1977. Brailey was briefly associated with Goins’ funk band Quazar, but after Goins died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1978, Brailey concentrated on his own project Mutiny—and Columbia Records released Mutiny’s debut album, Mutiny on the Mamaship, in 1979, followed by Funk Plus the One in 1980. Both albums were produced and arranged by Brailey, who provided many of the lead vocals in addition to playing drums and percussion and writing or co-writing the material.

In 2015, this reissue unites Mutiny’s first two albums as a deluxe two-CD set. Disc 1 contains all eight songs from the original Mutiny on the Mamaship LP, followed by four bonus tracks—and Disc 2 contains Funk Plus the One’s original nine tracks along with four bonus tracks (including the rarities “Funk Rock,” “The Rock” and “SSSH”). Different personnel are employed on the two albums: Mutiny on the Mamaship finds Brailey joined by Lenny Holmes and Skitch Lovett on guitar, Raymone Carter on bass and Nat Lee on keyboards, while on Funk Plus the One, Brailey oversees a lineup that includes, among others, Holmes, Lovett and Cordell Mosson on guitar, Darryl Jones and James Hockaday on bass and Lee and Kenni Hairston on keyboards.  

From the singles “Lump” (which was heard in the 1980 movie Cruising, starring Al Pacino) and “Funk ‘N’ Bop” to the selections “Romeo (Hope You’re Feeling Better),” “Go Away from Here,” “What More Can I Say,” “Burning Up,” “Voyage to the Bottom of the P” and “Every Time You Come Around,” the p-funk influence is impossible to miss on Mutiny on the Mamaship. And it is every bit as strong on Funk Plus the One: the single “Semi-First Class Seat” is very much in the p-funk vein, as are “The Ballad of Capt. Hymbad,” “Will It Be Tomorrow?,” “Anti-Disco,” “Reality,” “One on One,” “Romeo, Take 2” and “Don’t Bust the Groove” (which features Hockaday on lead vocals). On both albums, Brailey favors hard, tough, gutbucket funk with a strong rock influence.

Interviewed in January 2015, Brailey (now 64) asserted that the rock influence on Mutiny’s first two albums is no coincidence: his interest in rock was encouraged by the Chambers Brothers, and Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin were among his idols. “For years, John Bonham of Led Zeppelin was my favorite drummer,” Brailey explains. “I got a lot of my foot style and a lot of things from listening to John Bonham. When I was with George Clinton, people would hear me and say, ‘Check out the beats that this cat is playing on the drums.’ But I was playing like that before I got with p-funk. I was playing like that when I was with the Chambers Brothers. I met Jimi Hendrix when I was with the Chambers Bros—they were real close to Jimi.”  

Brailey added that in 1979 and 1980, one of his goals was to have a compact group with a very big sound. “Mutiny was a small unit,” Brailey notes. “I wanted two guitars, bass, keyboards and myself. I always wanted the concept where you didn’t need to have 14 or 15 people to get a sound. A lot of people like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles had small units, but they were able to get a sound—and that was my whole concept. I wanted Mutiny to be like a black Led Zeppelin. Remember, this was before Living Colour.”

Brailey recalls that in 1979, three major labels expressed interest in signing Mutiny: Warner Bros. and both the Columbia and Epic labels of CBS Records (now Sony Music). Mutiny ending up signing with Columbia, and in retrospect, Brailey wonders if perhaps Columbia’s R&B promoters were intimidated by the heavy rock influence in their funk.

“The rock department and the A&R guys at CBS loved us,” Brailey notes, “but the R&B/black department didn’t know how to promote us. They were used to promoting Gladys Knight and whoever else they had on the label at the time, whereas the rock department and the A&R guys loved us. But we had to go through the R&B department for promotion.”

Interviewed separately in January 2015, Holmes pointed out that like Brailey, he was both a funk lover and a rock lover. “Mutiny was funk with a lot of guitar,” Holmes observes. “Skitch Lovett and myself were both real big rock fans. We were just as much rock fans as we were funk fans. And every chance we got, we wanted to put some hard guitar riffs on top of the funk. Skitch and myself would listen to Ernie Isley and the Isley Brothers—we would listen to Jeff Beck, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and of course, Jimi Hendrix.”

Carter, in another January 2015 interview, also had some thoughts on the rock influences in Mutiny’s funk. Carter recalls: “Lenny and Skitch loved Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Everybody in Mutiny loved the funk and loved the rock & roll. I grew up listening to Gentle Giant, Mott the Hoople, Led Zeppelin and all kinds of rock. Rod Stewart was my favorite. ‘Maggie May’ was one of my favorite songs.”

Mutiny parted company with Columbia after Funk Plus the One, but Brailey has since kept busy with a wide variety of funk and rock activities. And in addition to releasing 1983’s A Night Out with the Boys on J. Romeo Records (his own label), Brailey brought Mutiny back with 1995’s Aftershock on Rykodisc and 2013’s Funk Road on Catbone Music.

“People haven’t seen the last of Mutiny,” Brailey declares. And in 2015, serious funk collectors will be delighted to have Mutiny on the Mamaship and Funk Plus the One united in this two-CD set.

—Alex Henderson, February 2015

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.