George Clinton's Musical Life, From The Barbershop To Hip-Hop
The emperor of intergalactic funk is out with a new memoir, and he has stories to tell.
George Clinton's life in music spans six decades, from doo-wop to hip-hop. Along the way, Clinton turned two bands — Parliament and Funkadelic — into a caravan of funkified soul, rock, science fiction and showbiz at its most outrageous, complete with a spaceship that lands onstage.
In an interview with NPR's Renee Montagne, Clinton says the end of the 1960s represented a tipping point for American black music, when Motown as a phenomenon had peaked and another sound was preparing to take over. He had spent the preceding years singing in a doo-wop vocal group and working in a barbershop.
"I mean, that was the place to be back then because you got the pimps, the preachers, the politicians and players. You had all the P's hangin' round there," Clinton says. "And getting your hair done cost a lot of money at the time: Whereas a haircut was 75 cent, getting your hair done was seven dollars."
Clinton says that by the time Motown began to fade, he and his band were all too happy to shed their suits, seven-dollar haircuts and harmonizing. "We were getting ready to make new music: way-back-up-in-the-woods type of funk," he says. "Something totally brand new, to the point of being out of this world."
Hear what happened next, including Clinton's thoughts on the British Invasion and how his own music helped power the rise of hip-hop, at the audio link. And for more stories, check out a much more extensive pair of interviews below, courtesy of NPR's R&B channel, I'll Take You There.
9(MDE1MTIxMDg0MDE0MDQ3NTY3MzkzMzY1NA001))
Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
The emperor of intergalactic funk is out with a new memoir. And that man, George Clinton, has stories to tell. Clinton's life in music spanned six decades, from doo-wop to hip-hop. Along the way, he turned two bands, Parliament and Funkadelic, into a caravan of funk-ified soul, rock, science fiction and showbiz at its most outrageous, complete with a spaceship landing on stage.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLASHLIGHT")
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) Flashlight. Oh, I could never dance. Flashlight.
MONTAGNE: Songs like this have been so influential over the years, George Clinton and his cast of musicians have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. From our New York bureau, Clinton described the moment in 1970 when funk met psychedelic in the band, Funkadelic.
GEORGE CLINTON, BYLINE: We were getting ready to make new music, way back up in the wood type of funk, something totally brand-new to the point of being out of this world.
MONTAGNE: Well, before this leap into the stratosphere, can we talk for a moment about your doo-wop days? In the '50s and the early '60s, when you were a teenager and just a young man, you were making music, working as a barber when the barbershop was the place to be in your neighborhood in New Jersey.
CLINTON: Yes. I mean, that was the place to be - period - back then because you got the pimps, the preachers, the politicians and players. You had all the P's hanging around there. And getting your hair cost a lot of money at the time. Whereas a haircut was 75 cents, to get your hair done was $7.
MONTAGNE: What would be the $7 haircut?
CLINTON: Oh, you know, you had rollers. I mean, they had the big pompadour. If you look at Little Anthony, if you look at some of the old pictures of The Temptations, you see the hairdos I'm talking about. Those are the big pompadours.
MONTAGNE: In that period, though, to sing and to have a group - I mean, I imagine the competition, just even in the neighborhood, would be stiff.
CLINTON: There was two groups in every grade school, junior high school. On every other street corner, you heard somebody under the streetlights at night, you know, harmonizing.
MONTAGNE: In that moment in time, you did actually have a hit record. It made it on the charts...
CLINTON: Yes.
MONTAGNE: "Testify."
CLINTON: In 1967, we had a record called "Testify," which was signaling the kind of - the peak of Motown as the phenomenon that it had been.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TESTIFY")
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) And don't you know that I just wanna testify what your love has done for me. Everybody sing. Oh, girl, wanna testify what your love has done for me.
MONTAGNE: That was right at the cusp of a big change...
CLINTON: Right.
MONTAGNE: In music. And one thing that I discovered in the book that really interested me was that he British Invasion - The Rolling Stones, The Beatles - you do not begrudge them, their sound, that derived from blues and black-American music.
CLINTON: Oh, no. No, I don't never begrudge anybody. When something new is happening, you have to be down with it if you want to stay around. You ain't got time for no begrudging.
MONTAGNE: In fact, Clinton and the band were happy to shed their suits, $7 haircuts and harmonizing. Soon, their shows came to include a cast of cosmic characters and wild costumes, playing out subversive, often funny and sometimes lewd storylines.
CLINTON: We became what we call all the way funky.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "P-FUNK - WANTS TO GET FUNKED UP")
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) Make my funk the P-Funk, I want my funk uncut...
MONTAGNE: You know, this is one moment when radio fails because to see photographs of you all on stage is to see, like, a circus.
CLINTON: Right. We had an underwater show with fish. We had Mr. Wiggles the Worm, Starchild.
MONTAGNE: There was Dr. Funkenstein. You have Sir Nose.
CLINTON: Sir Nose was so cool. He was like one of the barbershop people who wouldn't go swimming. They might get their hair messed up. They didn't want to dance. They didn't even want to make love, you know, they was too cool for anything. But you can't funk when you're like that.
MONTAGNE: A lot of effort was spent trying to get him to - whatever - give up the funk.
CLINTON: To give up the funk and dance. Now, that worked almost every place we played - until you get to New York. When you get to New York, cool is such the thing to be that they was on his side.
MONTAGNE: (Laughter).
CLINTON: People in the audience would be like, leave Sir Nose alone. He don't want to dance. They sided with.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIVE UP THE FUNK")
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) Oh, we want the funk. Give up the funk. We need the funk. We've got to have that funk. We want the funk.
MONTAGNE: "One Nation Under a Groove."
CLINTON: Oh, that's the Holy Grail.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE")
FUNKADELIC: (Singing) Here's a chance to dance our way, out of our constrictions.
CLINTON: (Singing along) Our way, out of our constrictions.
That song, "One Nation Under A Groove," and "Knee Deep," everybody knows that from one thousand of the records.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT JUST - KNEE DEEP")
FUNKADELIC: (Singing) She did the freak, never missin' a beat, yeah. She did the freak. Boy was it neat, yeah.
CLINTON: (Singing along) Yeah. Boy was it neat, yeah. Not just knee deep...
MONTAGNE: (Laughter).
CLINTON: Oh, yeah, those were the days.
MONTAGNE: This would be a song that brings us to the subject of sampling.
CLINTON: Oh, very good 'cause it's the first song we got paid for sampling. De La Soul, they gave us a hundred-thousand dollars when they used it to make "Me, Myself And I."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME, MYSELF AND I")
DE LA SOUL: (Singing) Ooh, just me myself and I. Ooh, just me, myself...
CLINTON: The concept of sampling is legit and is cool. And we're very all right with sampling.
MONTAGNE: What George Clinton isn't all right with is where the money paid by artists to use his music has gone. He spent years in court in a string of lawsuits, claiming that record companies and lawyers have taken what is rightfully his, so far with little success. But Clinton still does not begrudge musicians, from Ice Cube to Jay-Z, using his music in their songs. In fact, he's downright upbeat about sampling as a kind of creativity across the generations.
CLINTON: Whenever we see kids doing something new, we start biting off of them before they - while they think they're biting off of us. We be biting back. And if somebody samples our record, I'll sample their record back with our song on it.
MONTAGNE: George Clinton, thank you very much for joining us.
CLINTON: Thank you, and "Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?"
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UP FOR THE DOWN STROKE")
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) Get up for the down stroke. Everybody get up.
MONTAGNE: And that is the title of George Clinton's new memoir. This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Our theme music was composed by B.J. Leiderman and arranged by Jim Pew. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad