Album Review: Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs – Eddie Hazel

Ever since my initial introduction to Funkadelic, I’ve often wondered why late guitarist Eddie Hazel was so unbelievably underrated. For all the many years I spent time searching for information about the man’s rather sordid life and fascinating music, it’s only now that it seems people are starting to appreciate his skill as a guitar player – 13 years after his death, and some 30+ years after the man proved himself to be some sort of funk guitar demi-god.

At the tender age of 17, Hazel was already a touring guitarist with George Clinton’s Parliaments. When that musical vehicle ceased to exist for various reasons, Hazel stuck with Clinton, and his guitar playing became a focal point of then-upstart psychedelic funk-rock act Funkadelic (which quickly established itself as the musical standard for the genre). Hazel’s guitar playing on the original three Funkadelic albums was mind melting, as he’d fluidly shift from rock riffs to funk rhythms to spacy, jamming guitar solos without so much as a hitch in his playing. The small bit of fame Hazel did manage during his lifetime came from the brain numbing title track to Maggot Brain, a 10-minute tour de force guitar solo that saw Hazel musically answering Clinton’s request to ‘play like your mother just died.’ During these early years of touring with Funkadelic, a young Hazel found himself increasingly involved in drug and alcohol abuse; even for all of his talent, Hazel never did learn to live outside those excesses. After years of darting in and out of the P-Funk limelight, Hazel passed away (largely unnoticed) due to complications from those addictions in late 1992.

After Hazel’s death, there was a minor scramble to release some of his ‘solo’ material. The Jams From the Heart EP gathered up about a half-hour of Hazel demos, while the full-length Japanese release Rest in P (apparently released sometime between 1994 and 1996) took re-furbished versions of those demos and rounded them out with a handful of other studio outtakes and unfinished jams culled from P-Funk’s musical vaults. The Holy Grail of Hazel material, though, remained his one official solo album – a 1977 release that went by the name of Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs that, until recently, was only scarcely available in its original vinyl pressing. Thankfully, someone over at Rhino had the good sense to take both Hazel’s full-length AND the Jams EP, clean them up, and re-release them packaged on the same disc.

Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs is ultimately odd in that, for most listeners, the most notable material on here will be the album’s two epic guitar-laden covers (“California Dreamin’ ” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”). Hazel’s solo album wasn’t really a vehicle for creativity, though his song writing abilities were nothing to be taken lightly, either – he did get writing credits on Funkadelic’s stellar Standing on the Verge of Getting It On album, albeit under the psuedonym Grace Cook (Hazel’s mother). Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs is a guitar showcase, indeed, and it shows – the two covers make up over 15 minutes of guitar solo laced goodness, and the remaining material is nothing more than a set of funk rhythms that basically serve as excuses for Hazel’s guitar work to shine.

“California Dreamin’ ” is a great album opener, as Hazel completely deconstructs the track and rebuilds it as a slow, deliberate, spacy funk jam. The soloing in the track is blissfully dreamy, and Hazel shows a surprisingly strong and soulful (if nondescript) voice as he takes the lead vocal, with the Brides of Funkenstein providing strong backing vocals. “Frantic Moment” is a strange track that really meanders around in various directions for four minutes without really accomplishing much. The Brides of Funkenstein provide all the vocals here, and Hazel’s guitar playing is far more restrained; however, there is some healthy noodling offered up on the musical bridges that occur just in front of the song’s verses, and some cool reverse-gated, backwards sounding licks pop up a few times, as well.

The most impressive track just might be “So Goes the Story,” which opens on a rather deliberate mood. Hazel’s powerful opening solo work sounds downright mournful as it bookends the Brides of Funkenstein’s two brief lyrical couplets. At that point, it’s officially ON, as the rhythm picks up courtesy of Bernie Worrell’s piano work and Bootsy Collins’ slap-bass action. When the rhythm shifts, Hazel’s playing kicks into overdrive, and the result is two-and-a-half minutes of absolutely nasty quick-lick guitar soloing. Hazel’s fluid soloing would have been impressive enough on it’s own; the awesome rhythm section, though, is what really makes this track a must hear. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” takes on a soulful Hazel re-birth, as well, with the Brides of Funkenstein once again handling the (admittedly minimal) vocal duties. This one’s all Hazel, though, as a majority of this nine-and-a-half minute workout revolves around his impressive soloing, which only gets stronger, louder and more intense as the track runs on.

Oddly enough, “Physical Love” also appeared on Bootsy Collins’ first album (though here, not surprisingly, Hazel’s guitar is turned up much louder in the mix). This song is more of a laid-back funk jam than anything else, as the soloing Hazel does offer up doesn’t seem nearly as dominating as it is on the rest of the album (though Garry Shider does provide Hazel apt competition with his secondary solo work on this track). “What About It” is an upbeat instrumental that once again seems to stray from Hazel’s frenzied soloing, focusing more on using the guitar playing as a way to add a spacy dimension to a strong funk jam.

Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs closes out with a brief, bass-heavy, slight reprise of “California Dreamin’.” This leads into the dirty, quick-lick three-minute funkstrumental, “Smedley Smorganoff,” which kicks off the Jams From the Heart EP. This ‘demo’ material is far more raw (and, in turn, more powerful at times), making for an interesting dynamic to compare to the studio produced full-length material. “Lampoc Boogie” (possibly a misspelled reference to Lompoc Prison, where Hazel spent some time in the early/mid 70′s) is a rousing 12-minute instrumental that rolls along on an extraordinarily upbeat rhythm. Hazel plays around with rhythmic guitar stretches for a while, though a little after six minutes in, he gives up and serves up more impressive lead guitar work that suffers through a false fade; when the track pans back up into the speakers, he decides to go back at it again not long afterwards.

“From the Bottom of My Soul” is a long, drawn-out soul ballad that features another strong Hazel vocal performance. After about five-and-a-half minutes of slow build, Hazel cautiously starts up a guitar solo that eventually builds into a well-contained raging blast of emotion via guitar, all of which end up encompassing over five minutes of stellar guitar playing. The disc ends with the torrid “Unkut Funk,” a demo outtake that dishes out two minutes of frantic Hazel soloing over a dirty funk rhythm.

All told, this re-release serves as quite the historical document, catching some of the best recorded guitar playing laid down by a longtime overlooked guitarist who aided in pioneering the melding of rock guitar styles into funk music. The packaging of this re-release is a bonus, as well, as a few hilarious Hazel shots taken for the album artwork are included; another plus is the brief Hazel biography offered up by Tom Vickers, who formerly served as the Minister of Information for P-Funk. Any fan of the original Funkadelic material should consider this required listening, and the same goes for guitar rock fanatics.

Eddie Hazel was essentially funk-rock’s Jimi Hendrix; sadly, in 2004, the same question plagues both of them: Without the drugs and alcohol … what if? – Gary Blackwell