Who is george clinton parliament funkadelic

Motown passed on the group but hired Clinton as a songwriter, producer, and arranger. He was a low-key guy satisfied with behind-the-scenes glory. But success soured the band. They were attracted to the Motown sound, that feeling of breezy, compact perfection. They loosened their ties and decided that it was fine to grow their hair out. Clinton realized that you could play soul and gospel music at the sludgy pace of heavy rock, and he rebranded the Parliaments—who were stuck in a messy contract dispute—as Funkadelic.

One day, while watching cartoons, Clinton had the idea that it was far more interesting for the band to masquerade as characters than to be themselves. People got old, but a good character could live forever. Though the split personality of Parliament and Funkadelic evolved from contractual complications, it laid bare the importance of personae.

In the early seventies, Funkadelic fell in with the Detroit rock scene, matching the wailing anarchy of proto-punk acts like the MC5 and the Stooges.

If you surrendered yourself to their music, there would always be a place for you on the Holy Mothership. The backbone, after all, is connected to the rear. Nowadays, the band consists largely of younger players, including some children of P-Funk stalwarts from the seventies and a stable of singers and rappers. Parliament is currently on an American tour, which Clinton says will be his last.

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Login Username. Log In or. Forgot your password? Register Now. Cookie Settings Accept All. Confirm Selection. I love some of the people that did that real good. Garry Shider, along with Eddie, Dillon, and all them. They all went to church together. They were the second string after Eddie, Billy and them got started up and going. Motown moved them out the picture for a minute.

Never forever, but just for a minute. If you played in Plainfield you was going to be a junkie. Straight up. Everyone from 12 years to 70 at that particular time, so we took them up there cause we were leaving and stashed them up there until I think I stopped doing it and started going to the sheet.

When he came into it he had to do something. I think him and Tawl both used to do it. Tawl was probably too normal doing it. It looked like it fit him to right. Gary could pull it off pretty good, because when he would take it he was still a cool dude. When Towel would do it he looked like he should keep it on. He was the original Iggy pop.

Glenn was un-be- liev -able. If you look at that video and see him call in the Mothership. He was the youngest in the group at the time. Him along with Eddie. Eddie is another one who sings. But Glenn could do anything he wanted to with his voice. Could you imagine Glenn going to D. Rogers singing background for Bobby Womack? When he came with us he had just been fired by Bobby. Hell no. Junie Morrison. Matter of fact I just said something to Vivian just now.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. The second one he came to me — I used to sing a song. I used to hum it to myself when I was fishing. It can be a range. And when that worked, we must have had 50 people in there. Everybody was on that record. But it was so tight that it sounded like it was just one or two people. Junie is unbelievable.

If they sound confident like that, then fuck it. If I was successful at that time, I was fucked up. Fair enough. You mentioned the Mothership. Where is the mother ship? The Smithsonian. The African-American section of the Smithsonian. Some Oprah stuff. Yeah, so the Mothership is going to be in the lobby of the new building.

They got it already I seen online where they were actually polishing it up. At the end of the year, at the beginning of next year. Am I right? How crazy was it? What was the process of actually getting that done? We had a hit record at the time.

Neal is the promotion man. He worked at Buddha. I know once I get the spaceship. He got me a loan from the bank. He got me a loan from the bank and the royalties from the company paid the bank back. He knew it was a win-win situation. He knew that with a spaceship, that what was going to promote some records.

That was a man who used to run around New York at Buddha in July with gorilla suits on. Going to the radio station with the record in their hand to get it played. When I said spaceship he was down with it, the only thing he wanted to do is This has got to be a world thing. You just mentioned the different acts that were on different labels. How did that come about? Was that just bidding wars for different groups? What was the situation with that? Was it premeditated that way?

When we got the hit record, I did it before they got to us. We got him on tour, we can break the record for you. Take Eddie too. Parliament is on Casablanca. He wanted a girl group. I took him to Brides first, he thought that was too dark. Brides of Funkenstein. She wanted a soundtrack for Close Encounters. That album was done for her, but she wanted to buy it cheap so I sold it to Atlantic.

It happened accidentally but I just started before people started picking the group apart. They still did it; they got the rest of them later on. You start seeing mutiny on the Mothership. Had me walking the plank. One thing about the funk is it always comes back together. The funk is always going to be here. We were with each other, no matter what happens. Yes, 70 people. What would your advice be to somebody in a group — maybe a slightly smaller group?

To politically keep things together? I mean, you look at Wu-Tang did the same thing. They did the same thing. RZA had the Wu-Tang deal, then each one of them had deals.

Everybody want to do their thing at their pace when they want to do it. You know? You might have to wait until you get broke to come back and feel something and do it. My thing is, show me a studio. I know you worked with RZA at different points. Did you guys ever talk about? We did. Him and Shavo [Odadjian], System of a Down, we did a thing. Matter of fact, they just asked for paperwork the other day. Did he pick your brain about that whole thing as well? All the different labels and different off-shoots of the groups?

He did a good job himself. I think it was pretty well understood that when you get — especially in something like hip-hop — everybody is a different personality anyway. The best way to keep that is just get a different deal like jazz musicians used to do it, you know? Miles has a certain set of people, Herban Hancock and all them. As soon as you get a record, then next time Herbie Hancock has a deal, Miles play on it.

You mentioned just Maggot Brain and really going wild in the studio using the studio as an instrument, I guess, to some degree. What are the mistakes, things that maybe we take for granted from the records listening to them? Are there things that you remember that sound the way the sound on these songs because something went wrong or because there was an accident or something? A lot of it is parts get missing, parts get erased, wrong versions get put out. You get all of that. Sometimes they actually fool you.

Somebody do a mix, and they want their mix on the record. At the last minute they change it and send the tape out. That fucks you up too. This was the one I told them to put out! Hey I saw Charlie already. Where do you think you got your knack for wordplay?

Your knack for wordplay. He was the king of puns. He could just flip things around. A lot of it was school stories that he would flip. Two lovers and both of them are you. You know, I learned it from him. By the time we were doing Funkadelic, I was doing things absurdly. Not just simple wordplay, but ridiculously wordplay. Using words that sounded like, homonyms, using them as though they were the same word.

Just flip it any kind of way. You get a concept, throw it up in the air, and people just threw puns at it. It just probably flipped off trying to be deep. You know who I love is already out there. When I heard it later on, and people started making their interpretation to what it meant, of course I meant that!

Not for the most part. I got away with that one for years. I would write that on my autograph to girls. Oh yeah, you know I had to bite on my own lines. They were six years old when I got them to do that on Dope Dogs record.

Sly Stone, is that mother fucker you all. He got it like that. Just let it come out, get rid of it! I can give, well no, everybody heard that shit. Last funny story, is probably Overton over there, who drew all the Parliament albums, Overton Loyd. We worked on it and it was beautiful, it was a masterpiece. Three days later, he hawked it. I could have at least sold that. He just got a new one. Shit, I was fucked up, shit.

Everybody knew that. We got busted enough, you know? But when I got ready to change, I did that. I changed. I got married. I made an album with 33 songs on it. I have a lot of time on my hands nowadays.