Funkadelic singer Ray Davis dead at 65

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) - Ray Davis, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, a flamboyant 1970s funk band whose music is considered a precursor to modern rap and hip hop, died Tuesday from respiratory complications at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, said 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 the 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.

The group scored a top-20 pop hit in 1967 with the single “(I Wanna) Testify."

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 vocal 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.

Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

-- Associated Press