George Clinton (funk musician)
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| George Clinton | |
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 George Clinton performing in 2007
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | George Clinton |
| Born | July 22, 1941 Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States |
| Origin | Plainfield, New Jersey, United States |
| Genre(s) | Funk, soul, R&B |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, producer |
| Instrument(s) | vocals, synthesizers, keyboard |
| Years active | 1955–Present |
| Label(s) | Capitol Paisley Park The C Kunspyruhzy Warner Bros. |
| Associated acts | Parliament Funkadelic |
| Website | georgeclinton.com |
George Clinton (born July 22, 1941) is an American musician and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and was a solo funk artist as of 1981. He has been called one of the most important innovators of funk music, next to James Brown and Sly Stone.
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[edit] Biography
Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, and currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida. In Plainfield, he ran a barber salon, where he straightened hair, and soon formed a doo wop group, inspired by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, called The Parliaments. For a period in the 1960s Clinton was a staff songwriter for Motown. Despite initial commercial failures, The Parliaments eventually found success under the names Parliament and Funkadelic in the seventies (see also P-Funk). These two bands combined elements of bands/musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, Cream and James Brown while exploring different sounds, technology, and lyricism. This article focuses on Clinton's solo efforts after 1981.
Beginning in the early 1980s, Clinton recorded several nominal "solo" albums, although all of these records featured contributions from P-Funk's core musicians. The primary reason for recording under his own name was legal difficulties, due to the complex copyright and trademark issues surrounding the name "Parliament" (primarily) and Polygram's purchase of his former label (as part of Parliament), Casablanca Records. In 1982, Clinton signed to Capitol Records as a solo artist and as the P-Funk All-Stars, releasing Computer Games that same year. "Loopzilla" hit the Top 20 R&B charts, followed by "Atomic Dog", which reached #1 R&B, but peaked at #101 on the pop chart. In the next four years, Clinton released three more studio albums (You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish, Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends and R&B Skeletons in the Closet) as well as a live album, Mothership Connection (Live from the Summit, Houston, Texas) and charting three singles in the R&B Top 30, "Nubian Nut", "Last Dance", and "Do Fries Go with That Shake". This period of Clinton's career was marred by multiple legal problems (resulting in financial difficulties) due to complex royalty and copyright issues.
In 1985 he was recruited by the Red Hot Chili Peppers to produce their album Freaky Styley, because the band members were huge fans of George Clinton and funk in general. Clinton, in fact, wrote the vocals and lyrics to the title track which was originally intended by the band to be left an instrumental piece. The album was not a commercial success at the time, but has since sold 500,000 copies after the Chili Peppers became popular years later.
Though Clinton's popularity had waned by the mid 1980s, he experienced something of a resurgence in the early 1990s, as many rappers cited him as an influence and began sampling his songs. Alongside James Brown, George Clinton is considered to be one of the most sampled musicians ever.
In 1989, Clinton released The Cinderella Theory on Paisley Park, Prince's record label. This was followed by Hey Man, Smell My Finger. Clinton then signed with Sony 550 and released T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership) in 1996, having reunited with several old members of Parliament and Funkadelic.
In the 1990s, Clinton appeared in films such as Graffiti Bridge (1990), House Party (1990), PCU (1994), Good Burger (1997) and The Breaks (1999). Most recently he appeared as the voice of The Funktipus, the DJ of the Funk radio station Bounce FM in the 2004 video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, in which his song "Loopzilla" also appeared. Rapper Dr. Dre sampled most of his beats to create his G-Funk music era. He's also worked with Tupac Shakur on the song "Can't C Me" from the album All Eyez on Me; Outkast on the song "Synthesizer" from the album Aquemini; Redman on the song "J.U.M.P." from the album Malpractice; Souls of Mischief on "Mama Knows Best" from the album Trilogy: Conflict, Climax, Resolution; Killah Priest on "Come With me" from the album Priesthood and the Wu Tang Clan on "Wolves" from the album "8 Diagrams". In 1994 he collaborated with British band, Primal Scream on "Funky Jam" from their LP "Give Out But Don't Give Up".
On December 6, 2003, Clinton was charged with one felony count of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor count of possessing drug paraphernalia in Tallahassee, Florida.[1] Just two weeks later, he made his first public appearance since the arrest, jamming onstage with the jam band Phish in Miami. On August 11, 2004, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor drug-paraphernalia charges, while the felony charge was dropped.
He had a cameo appearance in the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Mother on September 18th, 2006.
"You're Thinking Right", the theme song for The Tracey Ullman Show, was written by Clinton. He appeared on the intro to Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment album, released in 2007. He also appeared in the film PCU (Jeremy Piven, David Spade) and played a concert for the big party.
Clinton founded a record label called The C Kunspyruhzy in 2005.
Clinton allows audience members to tape his live performances for private, non-commercial use only.[2]
[edit] Discography
[edit] Solo Albums
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Computer Games | Capitol Records |
| 1983 | You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish | Capitol Records |
| 1985 | Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends | Capitol Records |
| 1986 | R&B Skeletons in the Closet | Capitol Records |
| 1989 | The Cinderella Theory | Paisley Park Records |
| 1993 | Hey Man, Smell My Finger | Paisley Park Records |
| 1993 | Dope Dogs | XYZ |
| 1993 | Sample Some of Disc - Sample Some of D.A.T. | AEM |
| 1996 | Testing Positive | AEM |
| 1996 | T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. | Sony |
| 2005 | How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent? | The C Kunspyruhzy |
[edit] Solo singles
- Loopzilla (1982) US R&B #19, UK #57
- Atomic Dog (1983) US R&B #1, UK #94
- Nubian Nut (1983) US R&B #15
- Do Fries Go with That Shake? (1986) US R&B #13, UK #57
[edit] Guest apearnces
- 1996: "Can't C Me" (2pac featuring George Clinton; All Eyez on Me)
- 2001: "Come With Me", "The One" (Killah Priest featuring George Clinton; Priesthood)
- 2002: "The Movie" (Too Short featuring George Clinton and Belita Woods; What's My Favorite Word?)
- 2005: "Lotus Flower" (Blackalicious featuring George Clinton; The Craft)
- 2006: "Intrology" (Snoop Dogg featuring George Clinton; Tha Blue Carpet Treatment)
- 2006: "The Doctor and the Kidd" (People Under the Stairs featuring Geroge Clinton; Stepfather)
- 2007: "Wolves" (Wu-Tang Clan featuring George Clinton; 8 Diagrams)
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- George Clinton's official web site
- Houston Press interview
- George Clinton at the Internet Movie Database
- George Clinton at Allmusic
- College Crier George Clinton Interview
- Trouser Press George Clinton Discography
- George Clinton Audio Interview, Feb. 08
