Ep 32: Linda Shider [P-FUNK/GARRY SHIDER]

When singer/musician/songwriter LINDA SHIDER met the folks in Parliament-Funkadelic, she was working as a stewardess for Pan Am. A friend of hers had just moved to San Francisco, so she invited Linda to come visit. That friend in turn introduced her to a woman who was dating Bernie Worrell, wizard of the boards, and from there she became acquainted with the rest of the funk family, including GARRY SHIDER, whom she wound up hanging out with at a party in L.A. Linda “Legz” had a boyfriend at the time, but she had already been an admirer of the band. “To me, they were like the black Rolling Stones,” she says. “Their aura… their vibe… They were just so intense, and you know they were real sexy onstage.”

Garry kept making comments about Linda and trying to make moves, but she would always rebuff him. Then one day, when the band was at a hotel, some guy came rushing in with a gun, looking for George Clinton, who may or may not have been with his girl. Garry swooped in to protect Linda from the ensuing gunfire by pushing her into a phone booth. He was her hero, and they decided to be a couple soon after.

She went on the road with him–following the tour bus in her car, or flying in for certain gigs. Then she joined them onstage for the first time–at Madison Square Garden. She even wound up on the cover of Rock & Soul magazine. But she wasn’t just some random hanger-on in the entourage. She was a leader with a deep background in civil rights advocacy who had fronted her own band, Legz, belting out heavy rock tunes like “Back in Black” by AC/DC. They also released the epic single “It Don’t Come Easy,” a impressively intricate and gooey deep cut which exhibits her complex compositional chops.

Indeed, this particular skill led to her becoming one of the very few credited woman songwriters in P-Funk history. It all started with a baby grand which lived in a hallway at United Sound in Detroit, where most of the P-Funk stuff was recorded. A gifted pianist, she just sat down and started playing. Somebody’s ears perked up. “George came by and he said ‘Hm, I like that,’” she recalls. “And he said, ‘Garry… figure out the chords and stuff and let’s go record that bad boy… I think Ima use that for Parlet.’”

Garry and the fellas did just that, and a unique track of music began to take form, a mid-tempo, haunting yet poppy combo of funk and prog rock. “Once I heard the whole musical thing gelling,” she continues, “that’s when I came up with the lyrics.” The tune sounded like it was coming from outer space, but she didn’t have to look far for inspiration. “It was a love song,” she says. “A lot of stuff that Garry and I did [was] that kind of material because we were so in love with each other. You know, we were hot and heavy and we just kinda like shared it with people.” The song was called “Are You Dreaming?” and arrived to the world as part of Parlet’s classic debut, The Pleasure Principle.

Mrs. Shider was also part of another momentous event in P history: the birth of Garry’s iconic stage outfit, or perhaps we can call it a uniform: the diaper, man. But was it an actual diaper? “It was always a towel,” reveals Linda. “They’d stay at the Holiday Inn a lot, so it has the Holiday Inn logo down the middle.” The story goes that Garry decided to give it a try after seeing George put one on that one time. Garry chose to combine the diaper look with a pacifier and some thigh-high boots. Everyone responded so positively that the simple ensemble stuck thereafter. But did Garry wear underwear under there? “No he did not,’ laughs Linda. “Sometimes the willy would kinda pop out if the diaper was too small… It was kinda scary sometimes as well, you know what was gonna happen… ‘Oh, god. Here we go.’ All the groupies would be like ‘Yes!’”

Like his lovely spouse, Garry Shider was a particularly loyal funk soldier, the only one who stayed with George while all the other members were coming and going–from the day he and Boogie Cordell Mosson left United Soul to join the P, until the unfortunate day that he passed. And as bandleader for (at least) 35 years, Mr. Shider was the herald of the P, the one who would kick off every show, sometimes just playing a little guitar first, then taking the crowd to the highest heights with his golden voice.

Even after saying all of that, it is hard to describe what Garry has fully done for that band and its history. “In the studio, he was the vocal arranger,” says Linda. “He’d produce. Most of the time George was off doing drugs somewhere or sleeping with some chick.” But despite her husband's massive contribution to the history and songbook of Parliament-Funkadelic, he always remained humble. As Linda explains, “One of his favorite sayings was ‘I’m no better than my surroundings.’ He said that all the time… He was like ‘I can’t do what I’m doing unless there’s people around me who are keepin up.’’ This philosophy tied in nicely with another one of his trusty sayings: ‘Get in where you fit in.’ To his wife, this meant: “Don’t oversing. Don’t overplay… Just kinda blend, go with the flow. He knew how to get the best out of people.”

Alas, Garry’s humility was perhaps his greatest weakness. Linda was constantly trying to get him to stick up for himself, but always to no avail. “I could make deals for Garry with other people, but he would never let me confront George about maybe a pay increase or something like that,” she laments. “He’d say, ‘You’re gonna turn him off, and it’s gonna probably blow up in your face anyway, so just leave that alone.’” Case in point: Garry was once offered $1 million to replace Lionel Ritchie when he left the Commodores! (George was paying Garry $150 a show at the time). “I said ‘Garry, he just offered you a million dollars,’”she remembers. “‘And you’re gonna turn that down?’ And he would do that every time someone else came up and offered him another option.”

Still, Garry lived his adult life doing exactly what he wanted to do, and not a lot of folks can say that. “He loved being in that group,” says Linda, “and he had a thing for George, like a father kind of relationship – even though it was one-sided… When he first met Garry, Garry was like 16. He wined and dined him… And once he got into the group, he just used him like he used everybody else.” In the end, Linda begged her husband not to go on the road, but he was there to the very end.

Nowadays, since Funk doesn’t really have a retirement fund, Ms. Linda still keeps busy. She paints, makes jewelry and is part of the annual Funkateer’s Ball in Bethesda, MD every September. She also continues to write, going so far as to create the funky comic book, DIAPERMAN, featuring Garry as the far-out titular superhero. “I always remembered when Garry was floating on that thin wire over the stadiums and coliseums and stuff, how scary it was,” she says, explaining how she came up with the concept. “I felt like, since he was the one that volunteered to do it, that he earned some credit for that… And it was his 70th birthday in July, so I figured it was a good time to do it.”

In this wide-ranging and extremely candid interview, Mrs. Shider talks about her days as a preferred extra in Robocop and other Hollywood movies, her work with Stokely Carmichael and run-ins with the Klan, and how much she loved to sing “Red Hot Mama” onstage. She also reveals details about her husband’s final days, her efforts to preserve his legacy, why ladies have always been important to P-Funk, and how badly George ruined that one song they did.

Produced & Hosted by Ace Alan
Executive Producer: Scott Sheppard
w/ Content Produced by Linda Shider
Website, Merch & Graphics by 3chards
Sound Engineered by Grace Coleman @ Different Fur Studios – SF, CA
Filmed by Domenique Scioli w/ Don Scioli for ZAN Media
Sound & Video Editing, Mixing & Graphics by Nick “WAES” Carden for Off Hand Records – Oak, CA
w/ thanks to Christian Low, Shaunna Hall, Dawn Silva, & Chris Lander

Featuring:
“It Don’t Come Easy” by Legz w/ Linda Shider
“Desert Flower” by Children of Production feat. Linda Shider, Garry Shider, & Gary “Mudbone” Cooper
“I Remember” from Tale of Two Funkys feat. Garry Shider & Linda Shider
“Glory of Love” from Tale of Two Funkys feat. Linda Shider
“V.I.P” by the Neon Romeoz