At just age 20, STEVIE PANNELL, then strictly a bassist, wrote a song in his grandmother’s basement. He thought it was kinda special, so he went to Detroit and managed to present the tune to a man by the name of George Clinton. “It was right after ‘Knee Deep’” Stevie recalls. The funk doctor dug what Stevie had come up with, so he told the kid to cut a demo. He fulfilled this request, including Jerome Ali on guitar. When George heard that version, he gave it the green light. “He said, ‘Go ahead and cut it for real,’” says Stevie.

So they did just that— at Superdisc studios. Ron Dunbar was enlisted to produce the track, vocalist Jeanette Washington helped Stevie work out some lyrics, and the Horny Horns — featuring Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Richard “Kush” Griffith, and Rick Gardner – were brought in to enhance the mix with that bona fide P-Funk flavor. “Being almost like a teenager and you got the Horny Horns playing on your stuff,” says Stevie, “I felt pretty good.” The song became “FUNK UNTIL THE EDGE OF TIME,” an ooey gooey stank classic featured on the album Play Me Or Trade Me (1980) by PARLET, (and deemed worthy of inclusion on the Best of Parlet compilation). 

And that’s how Stevie officially got pulled into the Parliament Funkadelic Thang, (though he had already met several members of the camp as a kid through friends of his mom). Stevie felt like family almost immediately. “It was fun,” he reports. “Too much fun sometimes.” Part of that fun was being spontaneously invited to join the crew to lay some backing vocals to the classic LPs Electric Spanking of War Babies by Funkadelic and Parliament’s Trombipulation. “We would go to the studio,” explains Stevie, “and George would be recording something [and say] ‘Come on in here’ — you know and just get on the vocals or whatever... It wasn’t planned… [It was] just being at the right place at the right time.”

Indeed, Stevie seems to have a knack for landing in the right place. Though he’s originally from the southside of Chicago, his mom moved to Los Angeles in the 70s, so he and his brother would go back and forth a lot.  It was on one of those trips when he met George’s son Tracey a/k/a Trey Lewd through a mutual friend. “His guitar playing was so abstract ‘cause he played upside down,” Stevie explains. “He had these crazy lyrics… and I’m like wow… It took some getting used to for a minute but I was attracted to it.” That mutual admiration led to a project called Plastic Brain Flam, comprised of a younger, hungrier, and somehow crazier wave of funkateers which included Tracey, previous Aced Out guest Andre Foxxe, Jerome Rogers, and later Kevin Shider. 

At some point along the way, the fellas decided that George needed to hear what they were up to. So they hit the road and just showed up to P-Funk HQ one day — lack of an official invitation not a concern. “We didn’t get sent for,” Stevie chuckles. “We bogarted our way there… George was like ‘Damn. They’re here.’ We just had in our mind “We're gonna go do this.” George wound up putting them up in a house and handing the fellas off to GARRY SHIDER to start recording an album at United Sound. “He was just great at what he did,” says Stevie of Garry. “He was a hell of a producer to me… He worked good with us. It was a project that I think he was pretty proud of.” But proud or not, the album was never completed, and the group disbanded. However, George was good enough to include a handful of Flam tunes in the P-Funk Family Series collection. “At least it didn’t just sit on the shelf,” Stevie surmises. “So that was kinda cool… I wanted bigger things to happen from it… but it was a good experience.”

Speaking of good experiences, one of the deepest and most significant friendships Stevie would have with a funkateer was actually with the late, great EDDIE “Maggot Brain” HAZEL. Through family, Stevie had a connection with one of Eddie’s lady friends, so he wound up staying with them from time to time. “I was probably closer to him than anybody in the whole P-Funk thing,” Stevie confirms, “because I spent a lotta time with him.” Indeed, ten years Stevie’s senior, Eddie was like a big brother. “He showed me a whole lotta stuff,” Stevie remembers. And Stevie’s down-to-earth persona was probably partly the result of his time around the guitar legend as well. “He was easygoing,” he says. “Crazy as hell, but… he didn’t have the ‘star vibe’ on him like ‘I’m Eddie Hazel.’”  

Throughout these years and beyond, Stevie — who had been playing bass since he got a Sears model at age 15 — started getting more and more into playing the guitar. For him, the transition was natural.  “You know, you’re playing with a band and you put your instrument down and everybody kinda switches up at halftime, so to speak,” he explains. “The bass player will go get on the drums; the guitar player will go get on the bass … There was always a guitar just laying around… You just kinda start playin it.” And the man plays it well — just check out the three funktastic live performances from this very episode for living proof! And keep an eye out for his upcoming EP, simply entitled STEVIE P, which also features his brother, accomplished player Chris Bruce. 

And though the man prefers to let the music do the talking, he did rap with us a bit as well. In this down-to-earth and jam-filled episode, Stevie recalls watching Bootsy Collins lay bass tracks for “Getting to Know You” from the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, explains why his younger brother Chris Bruce is his teacher, and describes being mentored by such heavyweights as Garry Shider, Lige Curry, and Billy “Bass” Nelson. Pannell also talks about his favorite gear, his friendship with Kevin Goins — (Quazar, brother to the late Glenn Goins) — and that time Bernie Worrell’s freaky keyboard lines scared his mom out of the studio during the recording of Tales of Kid Funkadelic.

Produced & Hosted by Ace Alan
Cohosted by Jay Stone
w/ Content Produced by Stevie Pannell

Executive Producer Scott Sheppard
Website and Graphics by 3chards
Engineered by Grace Coleman at Different Fur Studios, San Francisco CA

Video & Sound Editing + Interview Mix & Graphics by Nick “Waes” Carden for Off Hand Records, Oakland CA

Live Performance Mixes Engineered by Grace Coleman

Video Production by Cedric Letsch with Jarrett Rogers

Live Performances:

STEVIE PANNELL — guitar
KYLE “COYOTE” COLLINS — drums
JAY STONE — guitar, vocals
ACE ALAN — bass, vocals

Featuring:

Songs from Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth by the Funkanauts
“Just Wondering Why” by Stevie P from the upcoming EP, Stevie P
“E-Magine” from The J by Juan Escovedo

Theme song “I Can Never Be” by the FUNKANAUTS from the album Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

an Issac Bradbury Production © 2022

More from this guest

Keep an eye out for the upcoming EP, STEVIE P!