Parliament/Funkadelic's Ray Davis Dies

[TimmyB]

May Ray Davis rest in peace.

Tim

From www.billboard.com

Edited By Jonathan Cohen. July 07, 2005, 10:45 AM ET

Parliament/Funkadelic's Ray Davis Dies

Ray Davis, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, died Tuesday from respiratory complications at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., according to his son, Derrick. He was 65.

Davis provided bass vocals on songs such as "Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucka)," "One Nation Under a Groove" and "Flashlight." The latter two songs reached No. 1 on Billboard's R&B charts.

Under leader George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic fused R&B, jazz, gospel and rock styles combined with garish costumes and elaborate stage displays to form one of the most original bands of the 1970s.

Davis was a member of the original Parliaments, a vocal group formed in the 1950s by Clinton while he was a junior high school student. In the early 1970s, Clinton changed the group's name from plural to singular and also created Funkadelic, a funk band with a sound more influenced by the electric guitar. The two overlapping groups and other affiliated acts became known as "P-Funk."

[bradm]

Aloha,

Brad