Track Listing:
Music For My Mother
{G Clinton, Billy Nelson, Eddie Hazel} 5:17 lyrics
Music For My Mother (Instrumental)
{G Clinton, B Nelson, E Hazel} 6:13
Can't Shake It Loose
{G Clinton, J Barnes, R McCoy, J Jackson} 2:28
As Good As I Can Feel 2:32
I'll Bet You 3:57 lyrics
Qualify and Satisfy
{G Clinton, E Hazel, B Nelson} 3:01 lyrics
Open Our Eyes
{L Lumkins} 4:01
I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody's Got A Thing 2:59 lyrics
Fish, Chips and Sweat
{G Clinton, B Nelson, E Hazel} 2:59
I Wanna Know If It's Good To You 2:51 lyrics
I Wanna Know If It's Good To You (Instrumental)
{G Clinton, B Nelson, E Hazel, Clarence Haskins} 3:09
You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks 3:48 lyrics
Funky Dollar Bill 3:06 lyrics
Can You Get to That 2:49 lyrics
Back In Our Minds 2:39 lyrics
I Miss My Baby
{C Haskins} 4:18
Baby I Owe You Something Good
{G Clinton} 3:50 lyrics
Hit It and Quit It 2:46 lyrics
A Whole Lot of BS
{G Clinton, B Worrell} 2:11
Loose Booty 3:13 lyrics
A Joyful Process 3:25
Cosmic Slop 3:22 lyrics
If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause 3:33 lyrics
Standing On the Verge of Getting It On 3:18 lyrics
Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him 2:29 lyrics
Red Hot Mama
{G Clinton, E Hazel, B Worrell} 3:27 lyrics
Vital Juices
{G Clinton} 3:25
Better By the Pound 2:42 lyrics
Stuffs and Things 2:12 lyrics
Let's Take It To the Stage 3:20 lyrics
Biological Speculation 3:08 lyrics
Undisco Kidd 4:11 lyrics
How Do Yeaw View You? 3:42 lyrics
Review: RC: ***** MM: ?
Comments: RC: Credits listed only for songs not appearing on prior albums, or if they differ slightly from the album versions. Times are listed when they are different from the album versions. This is a superb set, with many shorter versions of well-known songs, plus many songs available only as B-Sides, and thus impossible to find today. Fantastic liner notes that have helped this discography immeasurably. Indispensible.
The single versions of many songs are interesting, particularly the early Funkadelic songs. They tended to suffer a bit from overlength, so paring them down really adds to their impact.
The set contains many interesting goodies. Foremost amongst them is "Vital Juices", the b-side of "Red Hot Mama", which is a great continuation of the jam for that song. The jam just gets hotter as it goes along. A lot of the songs are early Funkadelic thangs, including a number of Motownish numbers like "Can't Shake It Loose" and "I Miss My Baby." There's a band jam called "As Good As I Can Feel", a slow groove called "Fish, Chips and Sweat", and a nasty uptempo number called "A Whole Lot of BS". Some of these are very obviously b-side throwaways, but they're all interesting. All Westbound needs to do now is release a live Funkadelic album from the early 70's, and we'll be all set!
This is a great place to start a Funkadelic collection, as it contains most of the essential songs. However, the longer, instrumental pieces were left off, which is certainly a huge void in the Funkadelic story. If you pick up only this set, you should pick up Maggot Brain and One Nation Under A Groove along with it. This will provide a nicely balanced idea of what the band is all about.
MV: Music For Your Mother is excellent and also contains very informative annotation. However, it does not include any songs from the band's four Warner Bros. releases.