As Chris Richards of the Washington Post once wrote, Parliament’s Mothership stage element “might be the most awe-inspiring stage prop in the history of American music.”

The Mothership made its first appearance on the cover of Parliament’s 1975 album Mothership Connection, although the stage element didn’t much resemble the UFO object on the album cover, as you can see.
 

 
On WNYC’s show “Soundcheck” recently, Clinton reminisced about the Mothership:
 

When I told him [Dave Kapralik] after we got the hit record, you don’t get paid for records in the tail end anyway but you can get help with promotion. I said, “buy me this spaceship,” and I didn’t have to finish the sentence. He went and got me a loan from the bank for a million dollars. Jules Fisher built the spaceship, did all the costuming. I told him we wanted to be able to land it on the stage…It was a funk opera.

We landed the spaceship at five o’clock in the morning right in Times Square, right in front of the Coca Cola sign. With no permit in ‘77. The only person who came out was Murray the K, the DJ. He was ripped, he was drunk. He said, “Dr. Funkenstein, welcome to planet Earth. I am Murray the K, the fifth Beatle.” It transported us for 10 years all the way up to “Atomic Dog.”

 
Jules Fisher had been David Bowie’s tour producer and was also responsible for the stage concept for the Rolling Stones’ 1975 tour. He designed the Mothership, which was 20 feet in diameter. His designs for the Mothership currently reside at the Rock Hall’s Library and Archives, which is located at the Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts on Cuyahoga Community College’s Metropolitan Campus in Cleveland, Ohio. Fisher graciously agreed to grant Dangerous Minds permission to reproduce these original sketches for the Mothership.

The first appearance of the Mothership was in New Orleans on October 27, 1976—but they made a basic mistake by using it at the start of the show instead of in its natural spot as a show-ender. Nothing could follow the Mothership. They soon made the necessary adjustments. The Mothership’s lifespan as a stage element lasted five years, with its last appearance occurring at the last Parliament-Funkadelic show in Detroit in 1981. (According to this listing of P-Funk concerts, at a 1981 gig in Washington, George Clinton emerged from the Mothership naked! Can anyone confirm this?)

Click on any of the images for a larger view.
 

 

 

 

 

 
I found all of this material at the Rock Hall’s Library and Archives, which is located at the Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts on Cuyahoga Community College’s Metropolitan Campus in Cleveland, Ohio. It is free and open to the public. Visit their website for more information.

You can see the epic landing of the Mothership in this video, about 8 minutes in:

Here’s the full show.