Today’s funky Friday is in celebration of Bernie Worrell, who would have turned 80 years old today. Happy birthday to the keyboard wizard who George Clinton called “a musical genius” and Bootsy Collins said “made my music whole.”

As well as being one of the most important Parliament-Funkadelic musicians, Bernie Worrell had an extensive solo catalogue, including the fantastic All the Woo in the World. One of the highlights was the 12-minute ‘Insurance Man for the Funk’.

This was 1978 when the Parliafunkadelicment Thang was still in its prime. The group were playing on each other’s solo albums, as may be apparent from George Clinton’s “Hey, baby” in the first few seconds. The tune was written by the Worrell/Clinton/Bootsy Collins trio responsible for many P-Funk classics. Fred Wesley provided a typically great horn arrangement, which leans more towards jazz than Parliament’s Motor-Booty Affair of the same year.

The chorus could have only been born in the P-Funk world: “Insurance man for the funk / Take some insurance out on your rump.” One of the hooks among many is the delightfully weirdly delivered line, “You are the beneficiaaarrryyy.”

Can anyone make lists sound better than Clinton? On Parliament’s classic ‘Flash Light’, he lists lights: “Flash light / Red light / Neon light / Ooh, stop light.” On his solo classic ‘Atomic Dog’, he lists dogs: “clapping dogs, rhythmic dogs / Harmonic dogs, house dogs, street dogs (...) Dancin’ dogs, yeah, countin’ dogs / Funky dogs, nasty dogs.” And on ‘Insurance Man’, he lists types of insurance: “Driving insurance / We got flight insurance / Boat insurance / Anywhere-you-wanna-funk insurance.”

Bootsy takes the mic for a brief passage, somehow managing to make insurance sound sexy. Elsewhere he plays restrained but brilliantly funky bass, taking care of the One while Bernie’s synths have more freedom to swirl around.

Midway through the track, Maceo Parker plays some great saxophone lines between the almost non-stop vocals. There’s a mini duet between Parkers’s sax and Bernie’s keys from 8:45. They imitate each other’s sounds, playfully riffing in a brief vocalless section.

Despite it’s 12-minute running time and modest pace, there’s never a hint of aimlessness or lack of structure. Vocal parts may come and go, and there’s nothing you could point to as a concrete verse, but it doesn’t come close to mattering. There’s constant variation. Much of that is provided by Bernie’s synths, sometimes sounding like a charming, good-natured droid of Star Wars, and at others like plastic balls being sucked down a pipe as he plays quick descending lines. The final bridge section, which functions as an outro, features female vocalists and Mothership-esque synths.

Happy rump shakin’ this Friday, and thanks to Bernie Worrell for the musical gifts.