By 1979, Bootsy Collins had already ascended to stardom (literally, in the case of his sunglasses. Later, his mother slapped the glasses off him when he visited the family home, reminding Bootsy of his humbler roots). Parliament and Funkadelic had both had hits like 1975’s ‘Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)’ and ‘One Nation Under a Groove’. But Bootsy had been bigger than both in 1976: his debut solo single, ‘I’d Rather Be With You’ was “heard everywhere throughout the summer”, wrote George Clinton in his memoir. Everyone on the joint P-Funk tour agreed that Bootsy should be made headliner, but he was moved back to the middle slot after struggling to follow the Mothership.
The single from This Boot Is Made for Fonk-N (1979) was big enough that sleeve designer Overton Lloyd (who along with Pedro Bell was P-Funk’s main designer), or the record label, saw fit to whack a white rectangle across the front cover, advertising “the Flammable Flash Hot Hit”.
‘Jam Fan (Hot)’ was written by Bootsy, his brother Phelps “Catfish” Collins, and Clinton. It was one of the album’s tracks where Joel Johnson, rather than Bernie Worrell, played synthesizers (they handled separate songs, apart from ‘Shejam (Almost Bootsy Show’), on which they both played. Bernie arranged the album’s synths with Bootsy, credited as “Gadgitmon?”).
It’s the horns and synths that provide much of the variety. After eight minutes, when the main groove and lyrics might otherwise seem too repetitive, Johnson plays an ascending melody (8:13) that leads to the next “You need a fan!”
In true P-Funk fashion, hooks are sprinkled throughout ‘Jam’. At 2:04, Bootsy sings, “I’m smokin’, I’m smokin’”; that could have been the chorus, but he rarely returns to it. And there’s “This boot is made for funkin’ / And if you let it, it’s gonna funk all over you”.
After that “smokin’” chorus, there’s a softer, horn-and-vocal-led bridge (2:43) in which the album title is referenced. During that bridge, you can hear the wisdom James Brown had bestowed on Bootsy, his bass emphasising the One.
Elsewhere, Bootsy’s bass is slightly subtler. During the “I feel like burnin’” chorus (if one interprets that as the chorus), Bootsy doesn’t accent all the beats you might expect. ‘Jam Fan’ is full of that fire theme. The “Burnin’ down the house” refrain was used in P-Funk concerts, heard by Chris Frantz, and later claimed by Talking Heads for their only top 10 hit, which kicked off 1983’s Speaking in Tongues. Worrell later became a touring Head. In a 2023 Pitchfork interview, Tina Weymouth called Worrell “a brilliant musical director”.
This Boot Is Made for Fonk-N’s horn arrangements were by Fred Wesley and Gadgitmon?. The Horny Horns—Fred Wesley, trombone; Maceo Parker, sax; Richard Griffith and Rick Gardner, trumpets—were drafted in from other P-Funk projects. That was common: dozens of musicians (from Parlet, Brides of Funkenstein, and co) all leant hands, or boots, to each other’s sessions.
Although this was still the ’70s, the snare is rather ’80s P-Funk: computerised, contrasting with the still very much human bass, guitar, and other instruments (of course, these are amplified; embracing technology had been part of the P-Funk ethos since Funkadelic stepped out in front of The Parliaments and embraced Jimi Hendrix-esque distortion and giant Marshall amps).
The song gets more spontaneous the longer it goes: from 5:47, Bootsy’s lost any inhibitions he might have had at the start of the take: “You want me to be cool / Well, I’m not / You need a fan! / You really need a fan!” Then a band member whistles, and it’s as loud as Bootsy’s lead vocal. “Yeah! How you like that?”
Top image from Discogs.