New ROB "FONKSTA" BACON co-starring AMP FIDDLER & THE P-FUNK HORNS !!!
For many true funkateers, keyboard legend Bernie Worrell was the cause, the reason. The virtuoso P(ure)-Funk player who stuck the Bomb like woo, and kept the whole damn THANG t’gether.
So it’s apt that, instead of building a statue in tribute, sonuva-lick guitar expert Rob “Fonksta” Bacon should, on his official solo debut, enlist the support of pianist/synth batton bearer Amp Fiddler & the original P Funk Horns (Bennie Cowan and Greg Thomas) to create the instrumental funk monument Cause & E-Funk. Worrell’s legacy inspiring Fonksta’s cause and the E-Funk effect is what you get…
“Rob Bacon is THE funk guitar player from Detroit”
So who is he? And what is he to funk?
The rumour is Rob "Fonksta" Bacon is so funky that when he was born he dropped into the world already wearing sheepskin. Growing up in the Motorcity - Detroit Michigan - his Mom even dated one of The Miracles (not Smokey). Though it was Pops Bacon, buying Junior his first Jimi Hendrix record Cry Of Love, that really taught the lil’ Fonksta to axe lyrical – Rob learning how to play every note, lick-perfect, whilst still old enough to pretend to sing lead in the Jackson Five.
Then, just as Bacon became a hotshot geetar prodigy, with the world at his Adidas shell toes, the 80’s happened. The beat machine and DIY DAT tape nearly killed the r&b band and US Slop players (Slop = rock n’ roll funk’d up with soul), so the 90’s saw unemployed black guitarists, assumed to be Sexual Chocolate Prince sound-alikes, relocating to the west coast to lay down guitar licks at any session they could git. It was in Los Angeles that Bacon earned his stripes as the authentic funk-pro with the prospering rap crews, who loved that he could crank out an original monstrous guitar riff without having to pay upfront or back-end for a Parliafunkadelicment thang sample. Indeed, G-Funk hip hop legends DJ Quik, Suga Free, 2Pac, Nate Dogg, 2nd II None & MC Eiht all had Rob on loop, reaping gold records and respect. Around this time, soul-genius-in-waiting D’Angelo made a special trip to New York (and James Mtume’s songwriting workshop) specifically to jam w/ Bacon.
Fonksta rocking sheepskin
Then Tony Toni Toné frontman and maverick super-producer Raphael Saadiq got hip and sought a soul summit with Rob at his digs in Sacramento, telling him: “You know these cats are keeping you in the back pocket, locked away in the closet.” From that meeting, over a decade of collaborations ensued with Bacon subsequently working on Saadiq solo albums Instant Vintage, All Hits Live At The House Of Blues, The Way I See It & Stone Rollin’, as well as continuing to work with DJ Quik and co-writing/playing on a slew of contemporary killers such as Dance With Yesterday by Joi (“He’s a badaas” said Joi, referring to Rob), Faith by Amp Fiddler, 80’s Joint by Kelis & Show Me by John Legend. On his resumé there’s also a Band Director section, Bacon hired by Saadiq, Boney James, Chaka Khan and his hero George Clinton, who tapped Fonksta to put together and play in the funk supergroup Children of Production, along with Detroit soul brethren Amp Fiddler.
Though shown off in each band and ushered into the solo spotlight on the nightly - his name embossed in gold on their Grammy winning CD sleeves - it wasn’t until the successful relaunch of the Arsenio Hall show that Bacon became known to the public at large, serving as the funk themed lead guitarist (“Sat What?!”) in Hall’s house band the Posse 2.0.
Which is all well n’ guudd, but it’s only now, in 2016, at the behest of his growing squad of cult Fonkateers, that we finally get a little taste ... a bonafide, Fonksta-for-sale solo release. Go get 'em brother.
CAUSE & E-FUNK by Rob "Fonksta" Bacon (Feat. Amp Fiddler & The PFunk Horns) is available now on iTunes.