Sean Ono Lennon Offers His Take

On Vintage Bernie Worrell Track

Out Now on Bernie Worrell: Wave from the WOOniverse

Produced by Musical Director Evan Taylor

“He’s the greatest of all time.”

— Sean Ono Lennon on Bernie Worrell

Taylor Dives Into the Story Behind the Song

On “Re-Enter Black Light (Phase II),”

From the Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Head Funk Legend’s Posthumous Double-Album 

 

 

Album Now Available Digitally

And on CD and Vinyl, HERE

LOS ANGELES — Bernie Worrell and Sean Ono Lennon had plans to work with each other shortly before the Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Head legend died, but fate had other plans. Just before the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s death, he was slated to sit in with the Lennon Claypool Delirium (Lennon and Les Claypool’s prog-adelic group) on June 17, 2016, in Garrettsville, Ohio but was too sick to make the gig. The Wizard of WOO died on June 24, 2016.

Shortly before the show, Pittsburgh City Paper asked Lennon how he felt about potentially playing with the funk pioneer,who was battling stage 4 cancer at the time.  “Bernie is any musician’s musical hero,” said Lennon. “He’s the greatest of all time. We’re all really sad he’s sick. The whole world is. If I ever had the chance to play with him, I could retire and be happy… I’m just a huge fan.”  

The musical admiration was mutual. “Bernie and I used to listen to the GOASTT [Lennon’s other band, the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger] in the van,” recalls musical director and producer Evan Taylor, who toured with Worrell in the Bernie Worrell Orchestra and co-produced three of his records — Standards and two EPs, Prequel and BWO Is Landing. “He was tickled when Sean would include a diminished chord for some reason. He told me stories of young Sean when he was playing on a Bill Laswell-produced Yoko Ono session. Bernie told me he wanted to work with Sean.”  

While the collaboration didn’t happen in their lifetime together, it did finally happen in a roundabout way. Lennon plays bass on “Re-enter Black Light (Phase II),” a cinematic, jazz fusion track from the posthumous double album Bernie Worrell: Wave from the WOOniverse, which was produced by Taylor, who sorted through dozens of the late artist’s treasure trove of demos, drafts, and unfinished songs in various stages of completion to produce the 13 tracks on the album.

Taylor explains how the track came together: “I came across this track on a hard drive labeled ‘Mystery.’ Little did I know, it was a track that had already been released titled ‘Re-Enter Black Light (Entersection)’ from one of Bernie’s solo albums, 1997’s Free Agent: A Spaced Odyssey. There were a lot of layers on it, but what I found out was that the original version was played live with Bernie and The Woo Warriors (potentially at Woodstock ‘99) but we know it was part of their repertoire. It was kind of a happy conundrum, in a way, that we didn’t know any of this because it reminds you that you don’t always know a prolific artist’s complete discography. There are always tracks that you miss.”  

“So we went back to check,” continues Taylor. “And I think that was a question Sean asked us, like, ‘Was this a song that Bernie released before?’ My original answer was no because that was the impression I was under. So, Sean actually created a new chorus for the song, thinking it was an outtake, which essentially turned it into a new song, unbeknownst to us.”

To turn the original, “Re-Enter Black Light (Entersection),” into the new version, “Re-Enter Black Light (Phase II),” Taylor first doubled up Worrell’s original melodica with celeste, a type of bell-piano, in the beginning. “It reminded me of something off of Sean’s 2006 album Friendly Fire,” explains Taylor. “These textures were complemented with French horns played by Justin Mullen, almost as if it was a nod to Sgt. Pepper’s [Lonely Hearts Club Band] or the Beatles, a band that Bernie would often cover. I decided I really wanted Sean to play bass like he did in Cibo Matto and he motherfucking did. Wow. What a performance.”  

To add more texture to the song, they recruited percussionist Davey Chegwidden, who utilized darbukas, vintage Chinese drums, and different types of scrap metals. Other unique elements to the mostly instrumental track include a tenor guitar and Claire Mckeown’s ethereal choral vocals added in toward the end of the song.

“Bernie and Sean always wanted to work together, and, hey, technically we made that happen. I hope Bernie is out there somewhere grooving along to this special track. We had a great time putting it together for him,” adds Taylor.

Bernie Worrell: Wave from the WOOniverse was released on Org Music initially on vinyl on Record Store Day (April 20, 2024) and then digitally and on CD in August 2024 at all DSPs (linktr.ee/bernieworrell). The lineup includes Bootsy Collins (James Brown, P-Funk), Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), Fred Schneider (the B-52s), Mike Watt (The Minutemen, The Stooges), Leo Nocentelli (The Meters) and Sean Ono-Lennon, Leo Nocentelli, Miho Hatori, Steve Scales, Marc Ribot, Fred Wesley, Marco Benevento, Stanton Moore, Steven Bernstein, Daru Jones, Will Calhoun, Buckethead, Norwood Fisher, and many more.

  “Re-Enter Black Light (Phase II)” Production Credits:
Bernie Worrell: Keyboards
Sean Ono Lennon: Bass
Davey Chegwidden: Percussion
Evan Taylor: Keyboards, Guitar, Drums
Claire McKeown: Vocals
Justin Mullens: French Horn, Trumpet
Shlomi Cohen: Saxophones
Engineered by Spencer Guerra, Horns Engineered by Nir Graff
Sean Ono Lennon recorded at The Farm by Scott Hollingsworth
Produced by Evan Taylor
Mastered by Steven Berson at Total Sonic Media, Cedar Park, Texas (digital tracks) and Dave Gardner (vinyl tracks)

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Bernie Worrell: Wave from the WOOniverse track listing:
1. Intro (Reflections on a Bird) – Feat. Nick Montoya
2. Distant Star – Feat. Jerry Harrison, Paul Dooley, Alecia Chakour, Invisible Familiars
3. What Have They Done To My Funk – Feat. Bootsy Collins, Michael Moon Reuben, Ouiwey Collins, Buckethead
4. Heapin’; Bowl Of Gumbo – Feat. Leo Nocentelli, Fred Wesley, Stanton Moore, Lonnie Marshall
5. Re-Enter Black Light (Phase II) – Feat. Sean Ono Lennon
6. The Big WOO – Feat. Fred Schneider, Binky Griptite, Marco Benevento, Jaleel Bunton, Kyp Malone, Ana Becker
7. Greenpoint – Feat. Steve Bernstein, Mauro Refosco, Smokey Hormel, Scott Hogan, Michael Jerome Moore
8. Soldiers Of The Stars – Feat. Daru Jones, Eric McFadden
9. When The Rain Subsides – Feat. Will Calhoun
10. Pedro WOO – Feat. Mike Watt
11. Contusion – Funkadelic
12. Transcendence – Feat. Marc Ribot, Norwood Fisher
13. Wave From The WOOniverse – Feat. Miho Hatori, Sarah La Puerta, Invisible Familiars