George Clinton

• Born: 26 July 1739
• Birthplace: Little Britain, New York
• Died: 30 April 1812
• Best Known As: United States vice president under Jefferson and Madison

George Clinton was one of the most powerful men in New York at the time of the American war for independence, a Revolutionary War hero and longtime governor who ended his life serving as the vice president for both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Born in colonial New York, he fought in the French and Indian Wars with the British and their allies and participated in the capture of Montreal (1760). In his home county of Ulster, New York he practiced law, was a surveyor and land speculator and entered politics before he was 30, elected to the New York Assembly in 1768. Clinton served with the rebels in the Revolutionary War as George Washington's best hope to keep the British from seizing the Hudson River and cutting off New England from the southern colonies. Clinton served in the Continental Congress (1775-76) and as governor for New York for a long time, from 1777 to 1795, then again from 1801-04. He opposed ratification of the Constitution, but he lost that battle and New York joined the new federation. Picked by the Democratic-Republicans in 1804 to be vice president under Thomas Jefferson, Clinton was, by all accounts, too old and too uninterested in his duties -- he spent most of his time at his home in New York. Nonetheless, he was angered by Jefferson's choice of James Madison as successor to the presidency. Clinton took the consolation prize of Madison's vice president, elected in 1808, but didn't attend Madison's inauguration and stubbornly opposed the president's policies. Clinton was the first vice president to die in office, at the age of 72 in 1812.

Clinton's brother, James Clinton (1733-1812), was an even more highly regarded Revolutionary War hero... Clinton's nephew was DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828, son of James), a New York politician who served as U.S. senator, mayor of New York City, state governor and, in 1812, presidential candidate (he lost to James Madison).

singer; songwriter; bandleader; producer

Personal Information

Born George Edward Clinton, July 22, 1941, in Kannapolis, NC; son of Julia Keaton; children: Tracey, Shawn (sons).

Career

Hairdresser at Uptown Tonsorial Parlor, Plainfield, NJ, c. 1955-67. Formed vocal group the Parliaments, Newark, NJ, 1955; signed to Hull Records and released "Poor Willie" and "Party Boys," 1958; signed to Flipp label and recorded "Lonely Island" and "Cry," 1959; worked as staff songwriter for Jobete Music and Motown, 1962-63; cofounded Geo-Si-Mik production team, 1963; signed to Revilot label and released single "I Wanna Testify," 1966; formed group Funkadelic, 1968; signed to Westbound label and released debut, Funkadelic, 1969; formed Parliament; signed to Invictus label and released debut, Osmium, 1970; Parliament signed to Casablanca label and released Up for the Down Stroke, 1974; Funkadelic signed to Warner Bros. and released Hardcore Jollies, 1976; oversaw/produced Bootsy's Rubber Band, the Brides of Funkenstein, Parlet, Zapp, the Horny Horns, and others, 1970s; recorded for Capitol Records as solo artist, 1982-87; formed P. Funk All-Stars, 1983; signed to Paisley Park Records as solo artist and released The Cinderella Theory, 1989; produced artists Red Hot Chili Peppers and others, 1980s--; appeared on recordings by William "Bootsy" Collins, Bernie Worrell, Eddie Hazel, Dolby's Cube, Prince, Digital Underground, Ice Cube, and many others, 1970s--; appeared with Red Hot Chili Peppers and P. Funk All-Stars on Grammy Awards presentation, 1993; appeared in films House Party, 1989, and Graffiti Bridge, 1990.

Life's Work

The evolution of funk--the hard-edged, syncopated dance music that derived from soul in the early 1960s and paved the way for the emergence of hip hop in the late 1970s--owes a profound debt to George Clinton. With the barnstorming P. Funk family of musicians, including but not limited to Parliament, Funkadelic, and the P. Funk All-Stars, Clinton fashioned a celebratory fusion of soul, psychedelic rock, performance art absurdity, and revolutionary politics without which most of the rap and much of the alternative rock that followed are virtually unimaginable.

After ruling the R&B charts in the 1970s, Clinton weathered legal difficulties and changing tastes to re-emerge in the 1990s as one of rap's deities and funk-rock's king. And though his own 1993 solo album sold modestly, his music--albeit in sampled form--could be found all over the charts, on songs by rappers Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Warren G., and others. Aside from its obvious appeal to the "booty," funk--particularly the ecstatic workouts of the P. Funk gang--presents an optimistic, communal spirit for which the gangsta-rap-saturated nineties hunger desperately. As Clinton defined it to Rolling Stone, funk is "anything it [needs] to be to save your life. "

Born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, the eldest of nine children, Clinton had made his way to Newark, New Jersey, by his early teens. He worked in the Uptown Tonsorial Parlor barber shop and formed a vocal group, the Parliaments, which plied the street corner harmony style known as doo-wop. "I mean, I would go downtown on Sundays and go onto the back streets and just say the name out loud, just to hear myself say it," he told Pulse! of the days before the group's formation. In a Down Beat interview Clinton attributed his ambition to his astrological sign, noting, "I was a little Leo. If I couldn't have a baseball team I wanted a singing group. You know, that was our only [way] ... out of the ghetto ... if you could sing, dance, or some shit." Soon the group arranged gigs at dances and made its first recording at a coin-operated recording booth.

After several record company and personnel changes--during which time Clinton worked as a staff songwriter for Jobete Music and Motown Records--the Parliaments achieved a hit with their 1966 single "I Wanna Testify." By then Clinton had included in his musical lineup a number of musicians who would figure prominently in subsequent P. Funk operations, among them guitarist Eddie Hazel and bassist Billy Nelson. Clinton briefly lost legal rights to the Parliaments name in the late 1960s, so he came up with a new name--and a new sound.

With the explosion of hard blues and psychedelic rock in the late 1960s, Clinton decided to move with the times. The Parliaments' first tour, he averred in Rolling Stone, necessitated sharing not only the bill, but amplifiers with rockers the Vanilla Fudge. The "extremely loud" gear gave him an idea; he introduced his bandmates to cutting-edge records by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, and the psychedelic soul troupe Sly and the Family Stone's debut. "I said 'Let me stop this Motown, stop this doo-wop and pretty shit and let me get something else,'" he recollected to Pulse! writer Carter Harris. "If the blues is working, then the speeded-up blues will work, the funky blues, the one with the little light groove to it, that would work."

Hallucinogenic drugs and the general atmosphere of political and social foment added to this heady musical brew, his new purveyors of which Clinton dubbed Funkadelic. With the addition of keyboardist Bernie Worrell--who would prove to be one of P. Funk's musical architects--the group's distinctive sound was complete. They signed with Westbound Records and released their eponymous debut in 1969. The following year, having regained the rights to his old group's name, Clinton signed the streamlined Parliament to Invictus Records.

Though the two projects at first shared a hard blues-funk sound and sociological concerns, they formed distinct identities over the next few years. Funkadelic refined its acid-drenched proto-heavy metal on albums like Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow, the seminal Maggot Brain, and Cosmic Slop, relying on lengthy guitar jams and spooky keyboards to accommodate its often despairing reports of injustice at home and abroad. After moving to Warner Bros. in the mid-1970s, the band lightened up somewhat but retained its mighty guitar attack.

Parliament, meanwhile, added horns and charismatic bassist William "Bootsy" Collins--inherited from funk forebear James Brown's band--and became the quintessential party-funkers of the 1970s. "Getting down on the one," the first beat of a measure and the rhythmic jumping-off point for funk's subversive syncopations, became one of its many compelling slogans. The "P" in the "P. Funk" moniker stood for pure, undiluted--like the drugs that fueled their frenetic pace of recording and touring.

At the same time, Clinton harbored ambitions beyond the marriage of hard rock and funk; "concept" albums like the Beatles' landmark Sgt. Pepper and The Who's rock opera Tommy had laid the groundwork for long-format works in the pop idiom. Clinton engineered the first known R&B concept records, in which the all-powerful Funk conquers evil and indifference in outer space, under the ocean, and even in Washington, D.C. In fact, both Funkadelic and Parliament were vitally concerned with liberation: of the head, the heart, and, most of all, the "booty." And however comical and outrageous the process, the importance of P. Funk's redemptive message and communal vibe can scarcely be overestimated.

After moving to the Casablanca label, Parliament proceeded to dominate the R&B charts with jams like "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)," "Do That Stuff," and "Flash Light." With their cast of imaginary characters--StarChild, Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, Dr. Funkenstein--science fiction regalia, and raunchy, playful patter, Parliament dispensed with the well-groomed and hyper-stylized conventions of black performance, introducing soul music to the concept of anarchy.

"I was trying to put blacks in places you wouldn't expect to see 'em," Clinton explained to Harris of Pulse! "I just knew that a nigger on a spaceship would look pretty strange, especially if he looks like he's on a Cadillac." Thus was born the spaceship prop from Parliament's Mothership Connection Tour. Such concerts--described in Vibe by guitarist Vernon Reid, founder of rock band Living Colour, as resembling "some sort of ritual"--have become the stuff of legend. Parliament spawned scores of imitators, many of whom they teased on their elaborately cartooned album covers.

At the heart of it all was the wizard himself, climbing out of the Mothership to lead the crowd in invocations that could come from everywhere: scripture, James Brown records, even dirty limericks. Neither an instrumentalist nor a particularly virtuosic singer, Clinton nonetheless provided the intellectual and organizational spark at the heart of P. Funk's sonic orgy. "The one talent I had," he explained to Rolling Stone, "was the ability to keep people together. I knew how to keep personalities in place, how to use them. That is still the most important thing I do in P-Funk. I can get anything out of anybody."

Funkadelic's biggest recording was 1978's "One Nation Under a Groove," which Harris of Pulse! described as "a fiercely funky utopian dream that became the rallying call" for P. Funk's acolytes. By this time Clinton had realized that he could not only get more work done, but get more music out by creating new groups under the Parliament-Funkadelic umbrella. Projects such as Bootsy's Rubber Band, the Brides of Funkenstein, Parlet, and many others--mostly comprised of P. Funk's regular musicians and singers in various combinations--released an avalanche of output in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By 1980, however, a series of legal entanglements had begun to hamper Clinton; meanwhile, Parliament and Funkadelic started to lose steam as electronically produced techno-funk, disco, and hip hop loomed large on the R&B horizon.

Clinton signed as a solo artist with Capitol Records and in 1982 scored a huge hit with the kinetic single "Atomic Dog." Various other solo recordings and gatherings of the "P. Funk All-Stars" followed, as well as a collaboration with British synthesizer whiz Thomas Dolby and work as a producer, notably for P. Funk lovers the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yet Clinton was still mired in legal difficulties, particularly over the Funkadelic catalog, which went out of print as compact discs overtook vinyl; by 1985 he was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Signing with the Paisley Park label of longtime admirer and 1980s R&B superhero Prince, Clinton released 1989's ill-fated The Cinderella Theory. Later he lamented to Request' s Bill Forman, "If I could have put that album out the way I first did it--before we remixed it and remixed it and buffed it to shinyism--my first mixes were closer to what people know us to sound and feel like. But the whole industry got into a remix situation. They remix the record before they put the record out."

By the early 1990s, however, P. Funk had re-emerged as a kind of stylistic Holy Grail for young musicians of widely divergent stripes. Hip-hoppers De La Soul sampled a Funkadelic hit for one of their early smashes, funk-rappers Digital Underground looped "Flash Light" and other Parliament hits on their debut and then persuaded Clinton to appear on their sophomore effort and pronounce them Sons of the P, and Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, and countless other rhymesmiths leaned on both the sound and lore of P. Funk. At the same time, funk-rockers like the Chili Peppers, Living Colour, Faith No More, Primus, and Big Chief extolled the energy and inventiveness of Parliament-Funkadelic. As the Peppers' influential bassist Flea told Guitar Player, "Funkadelic is my favorite band. Rock, funk whatever you want to call it, they were one of the greatest."

The prodigious output of Clinton's clan rapidly made him the era's most sampled artist--surpassing even Godfather of Soul James Brown. Rather than begrudge rappers access to the P. Funk catalog, however, he facilitated it by releasing Sample Some of Disc--Sample Some of D.A.T., intended as the first in a series of CDs providing sample-ready slices from the vaults, along with simple permission request forms. "Everybody else is making money off us now," he reasoned in Request, "so we just say, 'forget that, we'll make a record with all those typical grooves in it, and they can sample them.'" More than profits were at stake, though; Clinton sensed early on that rap was the future of the P. "Hip hop has the same energy, the same kind of rowdy vibe as funk," he insisted in Pulse!

Priority Records at last managed to secure the rights to the discontinued Warner Bros. Funkadelic catalog, issuing long-awaited CDs of One Nation and other classics. Clinton and the P. Funk mob joined the Chili Peppers for a riotous performance at the Grammy Awards presentation; meanwhile, Clinton's next solo project, Hey Man ... Smell My Finger, appeared after a long delay.

Featuring a bevy of rap's leading lights on the single "Paint the White House Black" and several P. Funk alumni and guest production by Prince--who told Vibe, "They should be giving that man a government grant for being that funky"--the album was hailed by critics as a strong return to form. Still, Hey Man sold modestly; as numerous commentators reflected, black radio was largely disinclined to support artists associated with past glories, no matter how influential. As if to add insult to injury, Prince's Paisley Park folded shortly after the album's release. Clinton subsequently signed to NPG/Bellmark, which rose from the ashes of Paisley Park.

Clinton--who planned a doo-wop reunion with the original Parliaments--continued to tour with the P. Funk All-Stars, appearing at the traveling alternative music fest Lollapalooza '94 and in concert throughout the United States. Celebrated filmmakers the Hudlin brothers announced plans for a Mothership Connection feature film. And the sounds of P. Funk, if not the new work of their inventor, continued to rule the airwaves via samples on rap records.

Indeed, the gangsta rappers who outran the competition in the 1990s consistently turned to Clinton. In Dr. Dre's video "Let Me Ride," the rapper's posse--grooving to a Mothership Connection sample--gathers, like a dutiful congregation, at a P. Funk concert, while Clinton himself guested along with Bootsy Collins on Ice Cube's Parliament tribute "Bop Gun." In a cultural era beset by despair, Clinton's vision remained an oasis of hope and renewal. Perhaps, as he noted in Pulse!, we could still unite as one nation under a groove: "I'm gonna believe that even when it ain't happening. 'Cause I know it's possible to happen, and to me, reality is a belief, and if you give energy to the things that you believe, that's what makes 'em possible."

Awards

Platinum records for Parliament's Chocolate City and Mothership Connection and for Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove.

Works

Selective Discography

• Solo releases Computer Games (includes "Atomic Dog"), Capitol, 1982.
• You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish, Capitol, 1983.
• Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends, Capitol, 1984.
• R&B Skeletons in the Closet, Capitol, 1986.
• The Mothership Connection from Houston, Capitol, 1986.
• The Best of George Clinton, Capitol, 1986.
• The Cinderella Theory, Paisley Park, 1989.
• "Dope Dog," One Nation, 1993.
• Sample Some of Disc, Sample Some of D.A.T., AEM, 1993.
• Hey Man ... Smell My Finger (includes "Paint the White House Black"), Paisley Park, 1993.
• With Parliament; on Casablanca, except where noted (The Parliaments) "I Wanna Testify," Revilot, 1966.
• Osmium, Invictus, 1970.
• Up for the Down Stroke, 1974.
• Chocolate City, 1975.
• Mothership Connection (includes "Mothership Connection" and "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker [Give Up the Funk]"), 1975.
• The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (includes "Do That Stuff"), 1976.
• Parliament Live: P. Funk Earth Tour, 1977.
• Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome (includes "Flash Light"), 1977.
• Motor Booty Affair (includes "Aqua Boogie"), 1978.
• Gloryhallastoopid (Pin the Tail on the Funky), 1979.
• Trombipulation, 1981.
• The Bomb--Parliament's Greatest Hits, 1984.
• Rhenium, Demon/HDH, 1989.
• Tear the Roof Off: 1974-1980, 1993.
• First Thangs, HDH, 1993.
• With Funkadelic On Westbound Funkadelic, 1969.
• Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow, 1970.
• Maggot Brain, 1971.
• America Eats Its Young, 1972.
• Cosmic Slop, 1973.
• Standing on the Verge of Getting It On, 1974.
• Let's Take It to the Stage, 1975.
• Tales of Kidd Funkadelic, 1976.
• Funkadelic's Greatest Hits, 1977.
• The Best of the Early Years, Volume One, 1979.
• Music for Your Mother, 1993.
• On Warner Bros.; reissued by Priority, 1993 Hardcore Jollies, 1976.
• One Nation Under a Groove (includes "One Nation Under a Groove"), 1978.
• Uncle Jam Wants You, 1979.
• The Electric Spanking of War Babies, 1981.
• With the P. Funk All-Stars Urban Dancefloor Guerillas, Uncle Jam/CBS Associated, 1983.
• Live at the Beverly Theater in Hollywood, 1983, Westbound/Ace, 1990.
• P. Funk compilations George Clinton Presents Our Gang Funky, MCA, 1989.
• Family Series Vol. I: Go Fer Yer Funk, AEM, 1993.
• Family Series Vol. II: "P" is the Funk, AEM, 1993.
• Family Series Vol. III: Plush Funk, AEM, 1993.
• With others Dolby's Cube, "May the Cube Be With You," Parlophone, 1985.
• Bernie Worrell, All the Woo in the World, Arista, 1978.
• Bernie Worrell, Blacktronic Science, Gramavision, 1993.
• Digital Underground, "Sons of the P," Sons of the P, Tommy Boy, 1991.
• Prince, "We Can Funk," Graffiti Bridge, Paisley Park, 1991.
• Ice Cube, "Bop Gun," Lethal Injection, 1994.

Further Reading

Books

• Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, Billboard, 1991.

Periodicals

• Down Beat, April 5, 1979, pp.14-18, 44.
• Guitar Player, November 1991, p. 55.
• Melody Maker, January 16, 1993, p. 35.
• Pulse!, December 1993, pp. 56-66, 102.
• Request, December 1993, pp. 42-4.
• Rolling Stone, September 20, 1990, pp. 75-8.
• Vibe, November 1993, pp. 44-8; August 1994, p. 47.

— Simon Glickman

See George Clinton Lyrics

• Born: July 22, 1940, Kannapolis, NC
• Active: '80s, '90s, 2000s
• Genres: Rhythm & Blues
• Instrument: Producer
• Representative Albums: "Greatest Hits", "Hardcore Jollies", "Dope Dogs
• Representative Songs: "Atomic Dog", "Loopzilla", "Computer Games

Biography

The mastermind of the Parliament/Funkadelic collective during the 1970s, George Clinton broke up both bands by 1981 and began recording solo albums, occasionally performing live with his former bandmates as the P.Funk All-Stars. Born in Kannapolis, NC, on July 22, 1940, Clinton became interested in doo wop while living in New Jersey during the early '50s. He formed the Parliaments in 1955, based out of a barbershop back room where he straightened hair. The group had a small R&B hit during 1967, but Clinton began to mastermind the Parliaments' activities two years later. Recording both as Parliament and Funkadelic, the group revolutionized R&B during the '70s, twisting soul music into funk by adding influences from several late-'60s acid heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Sly Stone. The Parliament/Funkadelic machine ruled black music during the '70s, capturing over 40 R&B hit singles (including three number ones) and recording three platinum albums.

By 1980, George Clinton began to be weighed down by legal difficulties arising from Polygram's acquisition of Parliament's label, Casablanca. Jettisoning both the Parliament and Funkadelic names (but not the musicians), Clinton signed to Capitol in 1982 both as a solo act and as the P.Funk All-Stars. His first solo album, 1982's Computer Games, contained the Top 20 R&B hit "Loopzilla." Several months later, the title track from Clinton's Atomic Dog EP hit number one on the R&B charts; it stayed at the top spot for four weeks, but only managed number 101 on the pop charts. Clinton stayed on Capitol for three more years, releasing three studio albums and frequently charting singles -- "Nubian Nut," "Last Dance," "Do Fries Go With That Shake" -- in the R&B Top 40. During much of the three-year period from 1986 to 1989, Clinton became embroiled in legal difficulties (resulting from the myriad royalty problems latent during the '70s with recordings of over 40 musicians for four labels under three names). Also problematic during the latter half of the '80s was Clinton's disintegrating reputation as a true forefather of rock; by the end of the decade, however, a generation of rappers reared on P-Funk were beginning to name check him.

In 1989, Clinton signed a contract with Prince's Paisley Park label and released his fifth solo studio album, The Cinderella Theory. After one more LP for Paisley Park (Hey Man, Smell My Finger), Clinton signed with Sony 550. His first release, 1996's T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. ("the awesome power of a fully operational mothership"), reunited the funk pioneer with several of his Parliament/Funkadelic comrades from the '70s. Clinton's Greatest Funkin' Hits (1996) teamed old P-Funk hits with new-school rappers such as Digital Underground, Ice Cube, and Q-Tip. [See Also: Parliament, Funkadelic] ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

Live & Kickin' Buy this CD	Best of George Clinton Live Buy this CD	Atomic Dog [EP] Buy this CD	How Late Do U Have 2 B B 4 U R Absent? Buy this CD	Greatest Funkin' Hits [Clean] Buy this CD
Greatest Funkin' Hits Buy this CD	Take It to the Stage Buy this CD	Best of George Clinton [Collectables] Buy this CD	Best of George Clinton [EMI-Capitol Special Markets] Buy this CD	Tamurinillis Buy this CD

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