Gimme Some Funk: Original P at Fort Dupont Park

 

I saw Original P with openers Ken Staton and his James Brown Revue for free at Fort Dupont Park in Anacostia Saturday night July 18.  I was not intending to write it up, but it was such an exciting and interesting event that I gotta share.  Yes, it was just an oldies tribute show, but it was one with the headliners doing an impressive job of delivering the best of the P-Funk catalogue for the 4,000 or so folks in attendance, many of whom happily sang along.  Opener Ken Staton and his James Brown revue are a local act that did well-sung and played but otherwise unsensational takes on  James Brown hits.  “Original P” (photo is from a Baltimore 2007 show) is a large band that includes two founding singers from George Clinton’s 1955 formed Parliaments, Grady Thomas and Fuzzy Haskins, who stayed with George through the 1970s and beginning of the ‘80s glory days of Parliament and Funkadelic.  Likely, for financial reasons, they split off from George around 1998 with two other original Parliament vocalists, Calvin Simon and Ray Davis.  Since then, Simon left the group to become a gospel solo artist and Ray Davis died.  Their group does not include well-known George Clinton associates Bootsy Collins or Bernie Worrell. 

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