Sweetwater Sounds

The name, the title, the sleeve… There’s little doubt of what we might find inside this umpteenth album by the great funk guru, who still rocks his platform boots at 69 years old. As often is the case with Bootsy, the record is a mere excuse for getting some friends together and diving into an XXL funk orgy and jam session. Power of the One does not buck the trend with a minimum of one guest per song! Snoop Dogg, whose flow marvellously glues to the master’s bass, joins the fray as well as an array of 5-star bassists like the groovy legend Larry Graham, Christian McBride and Victor Wooten. Let us not forget the saxophonist Branford Marsalis, guitarist George Benson and even the philosopher and writer Cornel West. As the pandemic obliges, the majority of these collaborations were made at a distance without taking away any of the party spirit… The years have gone by but the Bootsy of 2020 sounds just like he did in the 70s and 80s as he slaloms through tracks that sound more like funk/soul/jazz/rap jams than real compositions. With its excitable Sci-Fi lyrics, social caricatures and party spirit, the funk on this record remains anchored in the world of uncle George Clinton’s P-Funk and a tradition that he consistently references (on WantMe2Stay, Bootsy revisits Sly and Family Stone’s If You Want Me to Stay). © Marc Zisman