For years I've been unable to figure out who the third featured singer on "Side Effects", off Parliament's Chocolate City album is. He doesn't sound like any singer within the P-Funk crew from 1974-1975, when the album was recorded. The two singers I do know are:
- George Clinton, the sleazy-sounding tenor who sings the first two lines of the song ("Catch her duckin' in and out / But never lettin' her know that I found out") and most of the rest.
- Ray Davis, the deep bass singer who gets a few lines in the chorus, namely "She's robbin' me of my manhood", "Seems to me I'm floating", and "Shoulda been a dude, the way she's playing".
The lines in question are below. The first two sets of lines are in the first verse, while the last one is in the first and last choruses. For reference, I've linked the full lyrics. The lines are sung by what sounds like a baritone singer.
Lurkin' here, creepin' there
People giving me those funny stares
Mouth shake, funny lies
Love to talk such phony jive
'Cause it's taken the love out of me
Like I said, I'm not sure who it is, but I do have some thoughts on who it could be:
- Ray Davis singing higher than usual. The mystery vocalists does hit a couple of pretty low notes. However, I've never heard Ray Davis sing that high (it's not even that high, it's a baritone voice), so I have no idea if he'd sound like that.
- Grady Thomas. He doesn't have any leads that I know of with The Parliaments, Parliament, or Funkadelic proper, but he does have a few leads on the Connections And Disconnections album recorded with Fuzzy Haskins and Calvin Simon under the Funkadelic name. While both are baritone singers, they don't sound similar enough to me to be the same person. However, Chocolate City was recorded five years earlier than Connections And Disconnections, and voices change.
- Ahneua Hilson, the cowriter of the song with Bootsy Collins and George Clinton. I don't know who this person is, as the only thing I can find about them anywhere is that they co-wrote this song. I'm also unsure if Ahneau Hilson is male or female, since I can't find any information on the first name "Ahneau" either.
I'm not certain it's even one of these three people, but I can't think of anyone else it could be, at least within in the P-Funk camp in 1974-1975, since this singer sounds like no one else who was with the group at this time.
