Cordell Mosson, a guitarist whose bass line drove the flamboyant band Parliament-Funkadelic for four decades, died on April 18 in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 60. The cause was liver failure, his companion, Donna Snead, said Thursday.
Mr. Mosson — Boogie to his band mates and audiences — had been a fixture of the group since the early 1970s, playing bass, drums and eventually rhythm guitar and, like the rest of George Clinton’s sprawling collective, appearing onstage in elaborate, intergalactic outfits.
He collaborated on seminal P-Funk albums like “Up for the Down Stroke” and “Funkentelechy and the Placebo Syndrome” and replaced Bootsy Collins onstage as the bassist when Mr. Collins left to focus on his solo career. (Mr. Collins still recorded with the group.) Mr. Mosson toured with the group until 2011.
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Clinton, the band’s leader and frontman, recalled Mr. Mosson as multifaceted, able to play “all the psychedelic stuff and the Motown and the James Brown.”
“Boogie’s been playing with us since he was 13 or 14,” Mr. Clinton said, adding, “He was the heartbeat for a long time.”
Mr. Mosson appeared with the band in the 1994 film comedy “PCU,” starring Jeremy Piven, Jon Favreau and David Spade. He and 15 other members of the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
Cardell Mosson Jr. was born on Oct. 16, 1952, in New Brunswick. In addition to Ms. Snead, he is survived by four daughters, LaPortia Nicholson, Lisa Brown, Latonya Snead and Ramona Perry; four sons, Chauncey Mosson, David Shropshire, Cordell Boogie Mosson and Remby Perry; a brother, the Rev. Larry Mosson; and eight grandchildren.
