Bernie Worrell, whose amazing array of keyboard sounds and textures helped define the Parliament-Funkadelic musical empire and influenced performers of funk, rock, hip-hop and other genres, has died.
Worrell, 72, who announced in earlier this year that he had stage-four lung cancer, died on Friday. He died at his home in Everson, Washington, according to his wife, Judie Worrell.
Throughout the 1970s and into the '80s, George Clinton's dual projects of Parliament and Funkadelic built upon the sounds of James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone among others and turned out some of the most complex, spaced out, political, cartoonish and, of course, danceable music of the era, elevating the funk groove to a world view.
He was also a regular collaborator with Talking Heads during the height of their success in the 1980s.
Worrell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic in 2007.
