Tuesday, August 27, 2019

SO LOW YOU CANT GET UNDER IT - REST IN POWER PEDRO BELL by JayQuan


Dials and knobs replaced women’s nipples. Pimps and prostitutes were a hybrid of human, alien and insect. Women were tortured in phallic shaped spaceships with probes attached to their butt cheeks. Black super heroes shared spaces with alien creatures and half human – half drone musicians. These were heavy and sometimes disturbing images to my pre teen mind, but I couldn’t put the album covers down. My young mind wanted to know why. Why do those people have worms (maggots) where their hair should be. Why is that tube attached to that woman’s breast. Why is the spaceship shaped like a penis and testicles? Why? This is only a portion of the mind of the late great Pedro Bell – graphic artist and visionary behind many great Parliament Funkadelic albums, posters and story lines.

In the world before music videos, the album cover served as both and accompaniment and illustration of the music that we purchased on those 12” discs a few decades ago. Part of the adventure, beyond making the trek to your favorite record store was bringing your album home, putting it on the turntable and letting the album cover transport you to another world, as you listened to the music.

If the U.S. Funk Mob aka P Funk aka Parliament Funkadelic are masters of the concept album, then Pedro Bell alias Captain Draw aka Sir Lleb is the man who (*along with Overton Lloyd) gave us the visual link that captured our initial interest, before we even heard the music. In fact our very reason for even making the purchase was not only based on the song that we heard on the radio, or on Soul Train on Saturday morning. Those record covers aided in the sale as much as the music did, and the images and the music were a perfect marriage.

George Clinton, Uncle Jam himself says that in the early 1970’s among their fan mail, which contained letters from people who thought that Black musicians should leave Rock music to White musicians were fan letters from a young Chicago artist named Pedro Bell. The letters were filled with images which George described as hyper-sexual and strange. The images were so strange that the Postmaster General questioned George concerning what kind of organizations he might belong to. On Maggot Brain and Free Your Mind George had worked with photographers and he worked with illustrators on America Eats It’s Young. George says in his autobiography Brotha's Be Like that he began writing Pedro and discussing album cover ideas. When George discussed his vision for Cosmic Slop, Pedro created images that George described as “nightmarish, funny and beautiful”.

Bell would illustrate well over 2 dozen P Funk album covers, as well as George Clinton's iconic solo lp’s and spin off projects like Jimmy G & The Tack Heads. Pedro wrote liner notes and created promotional materials for P Funk, all littered with his own coded language, sometimes dissing their contemporaries like Rick James. He called his art “scartoons” because even though they were funny and animated, they left a mark. Both his Cosmic Slop and Hardcore Jollies illustrations were featured in Rolling Stones 100 best album covers.

Pedro’s work heavily influenced lp art by Snoop Dog and Digital underground as well as many of the 80’s Miami Bass records. Sir Draw’s work has also reportedly been an inspiration to many 70’s graffiti writers.

I was bothered to hear a decade ago that Mr. Bell was in poor health. Legally blind and
close to eviction, he somehow managed to hold on another 10 years making it to 69 years old. Pedro’s (pronounced Peedro – rhymes with Speedo) story is one of pride and influence. Less than a decade before he created some of the most powerful and iconic Black images to date, The Ojay’s and James Brown were still forced by their record labels to feature white families on their record covers. Pedro created Black super heroes and militants along with aliens and creatures of color that existed in a world that he created – a world that blended perfectly with some of the most forward thinking rock and funk music ever committed to tape. Rest easy Captain.






*Overton Lloyd joined P Funk after Pedro Bell. Mr. Lloyds style is more caricature and a lot less dark than Pedro’s. Overton designed the Motor Booty Affair cover, Gloryhalistoopid, the animated television commercials, the mini comics that accompanied the Parliament lps and mostly Parliament covers, while Mr. Bell designed mostly Funkadelic covers. Their work did overlap, and many time one artist created the outside cover, while the other created the inside (of a gate fold lp).