Maceo would stay with the P-Funk mob until the mid-eighties. In 1985 he played sax on the George Clinton produced album 'Freaky Styley' by a hot upcoming all-white Funk band from San Francisco: The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

After brief reunions both with James Brown and Bootsy Collins Maceo joined Fred Wesley and Alfred 'Pee Wee' Ellis to tour Europe with Bobby Byrd in 1988. A subsequent album by the The J.B.Horns was released in 1989. For several years they would continue to work and tour together. Wesley and Byrd also joined Maceo for the electronic-influenced Funk EP 'For All The Kings Men' in 1989, produced by Bootsy Collins and Bill Laswell. Another guest appearance with his old friends Bootsy and Bernie Worrell on Keith Richards 'Talk is Cheap' would set the course for the following years. Besides working with a variety of different artists, Maceo Parker would for the first time concentrate on his own name and reach out to a wider audience.