At the heart of most of the funky forms this side of the ’70s are the musical ideas of George Clinton, the ringmaster of revolution in American music.
Clinton formed The Parliaments in New Jersey in 1955, and the band rehearsed and wrote together out of the Silk Palace barbershop where he straightened hair. After relocating to Detroit, where the political and cultural upheavals of late-’60s America were reshaping music and art irrevocably, Clinton pulled together an evolving cast of musicians to form the collective Parliament-Funkadelic.
Blending the influence of the emerging acid rock sound with R&B and soul music, Clinton revolutionized music as we knew it. But Parliament and Funkadelic were more than a sound, they were a way of being. Their street-talk, sense of the absurd, interstellar outfits and The Holy Mothership (a spaceship that accompanied them on tours) were all integral to the P-Funk Way.
Clinton’s cosmic bow-wow would sow the seeds for house music and techno. And with 1992’s “The Chronic,” rapper and producer Dr. Dre flipped P-Funk into G-Funk.
After decades of bringing “The Funk” to his dedicated fans, at age 78, Clinton is hanging up his boots as a live performer and retiring from the circus that is the Parliament-Funkadelic live experience. Ahead of his final tour, Street Roots’ sister paper The Big Issue Australia spoke to a relaxed and typically mirthful Clinton about the myth and music behind P-Funk.
Woody McDonald: You’re the most qualified man in funk, and you’ve been at it since 1957. What are the main ingredients of funk?
George Clinton: Fun and humor. You got those two, you can be funky as all hell.
McDonald: You moved from New Jersey to Detroit in the late ’60s. The atmosphere had changed from the sound of “Young America” with Motown Records to something else. What was that, and how did you fit into it?
Clinton: Yeah, by the time we got there, the (1967 Detroit) riots started to break out. The whole scene had given way to the new version of American music – which was rock ’n’ roll from over in Europe. The Europeans were bringing back the ’50s music, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. We had to change up our thing because just as we got to Motown, it was changing.
We changed up the acts we were playing with, like Iggy Pop, The Amboy Dukes, Ted Nugent, and MC5. We shared booking agents (with those artists), so we pretty much toured together. We evolved into the Funkadelic. So we had a whole new act. A whole new sound.
McDonald: Where did the street language evolve from?
Clinton: From jazz, (the songwriter and playwright) Oscar Brown Jr. and guys like that. Beatniks – that was their thing. Talking shit while they played real slick. Good way to freshen up music without having to do the same R & B thing over and over. Talk a bit of shit, political or just humour. Good old funky shit talking.
McDonald: Maybe your most classic track of all is “Atomic Dog” off 1982’s “Computer Games” record. How did it become such an anthem for so many different subsects of music?
Clinton: (Laughs) That was a real accident! Back in the day, you was getting high on whatever trendy chemical substance was around. I was on one of those things when I walked into the studio, and they had this weird track playing. So I just started talking shit about dogs – just a stream of consciousness. The groove was so good, but I didn’t realize the track was backwards. It made us come up with something we had never done before and couldn’t do again, because it was such an accident. It is one of the best songs. To this day, it still sounds like a new song. It sounds like today’s music.
McDonald: You always keep up to date with everything that is happening in music, is that right?
Clinton: Oh yeah, you have to do that. The music that gets on your nerves is the music you have to listen to. The young people that are coming up are usually the ones that scare you because they are getting ready to take your place. You tend to not want to listen to it. But I go out of my way to listen because I know it’s usually the next music – and I’m usually right.
I was talking about Cardi B before she was even rapping. She was on talk shows – ([and there was) something about the way she talked, the rhythm and everything. When she mixed that with the funk, she just had that Ghetto Cinderella vibe.
McDonald: She’s definitely funky.
Clinton: Definitely funky! (Laughs)
McDonald: Who were your artistic rivals over the years? Artists you respected that maybe you measured your own work against?
Clinton: There was always someone. Back in the day, it was Earth, Wind & Fire at first. Then in the rock ’n’ roll era, there was a group called Mother’s Finest – a black rock ’n’ roll band that most people didn’t know. They became R&B, but their best work was rock ’n’ roll. Their singer, Joyce “Baby Jean” Kennedy, sounded like Chaka Khan. But as a rock ’n’ roll group, they were the bomb!
McDonald: With members like Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell your group was so talented, but your list of collaborators is endless: Dr. Dre, Prince; it goes on. Was there someone that consistently blew your mind?
Clinton: Well, Prince did. He was so quiet, but whenever he came out of the studio, he came out with a fresh thing. And, of course, Bootsy was like that. He played James Brown-style, but when I mixed him with (keyboardist and composer) Bernie, I could always count on there being something new. You could dance to it, and you would like it, but you had no idea what to call it. I had a lot of members of the band that were great musicians, like Eddie Hazel and Garry Shider. They could do anything, and it would be fresh.
Courtesy of The Big Issue Australia / INSP.ngo
IF YOU GO
WHAT: One Nation Under A Groove Tour – George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
WHEN: Aug. 10, 2019
WHERE: Oregon Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road, Portland
TICKETS: ticketfly.com