...not that I would know but my impression based on talking to older, white rock-guys is that EW&F was the funk/soul-band that crossed over then and more to the Toto/Foreigner-type crowds.

The P-funk thing must have happened sometimes in the 80's-early 90's originally because I remember that it was SO easy to find the records cheap in cut-out bins (admittedly, I'm talking sweden here; maybe white americans were different) and then all of a sudden, they were expensive and treated like rock-rarities. My guess is that it initially started with RHCP as well as-for more underground audiences-all the punk-funk act that name-dropped them. The whole "Sun Ra/Lee Perry/cutting-edge/spacey" Wire-reading audience followed when the Funkadelic-albums got reissued in the early 90's and then the Dre/Snoop (and Ice Cube earlier I guess) crossover put it over the top; it's like Hip-Hop beats... but they were jamming!!!

I really don't know though, interesting if someone has some detailed imput on this...