George Clinton
to Perform at Houston SleepOut
George Clinton is the single
most influential figure in the history of funk,
the mastermind behind both Parliament & Funkadelic.
Clinton started his career in junior high, founding
The Parliaments, a barbershop doo-wop ensemble,
which scored a major hit with "I Wanna Testify"
in 1967. Clinton then began experimenting with harmonies,
melody and rhythm and taking cues from the psychedelic
movement, forever setting himself apart from the
Motown era.
Around the same time, Clinton
spawned Funkadelic, a rock group which
fused psychedelic guitar distortion, bizarre sound
effects, and cosmological rants with danceable
beats and booming bass lines which became the
definition of funk. Funkadelic made a number
of Earth shattering concept albums, focusing the
politics facing the planet, with titles like Free
Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow, Maggot Brain,
and America Eats It's Young.
Parliament & Funkadelic
dominated and revolutionized the music scene in
the 1970's, capturing 40 R&B hit singles and
racking up four #1 hits: "Flashlight,"
"One Nation Under a Groove," "Aqua
Boogie" and "(Not Just) Knee Deep."
Clinton's collaborators included master keyboardist
Bernie Worrel, guitarist Eddie Hazel, bassist
Bootsy Collins, saxophonist Maceo Parker, trombonist
Fred Wesley. On stage, spectacle ruled the day,
with an enormous mothership, outrageous costumes,
and marathon performances.
In the 1980's, George Clinton
emerged as a successful solo artist. He released
Computer Games with the #1 hit single "Atomic
Dog," produced The Red Hot Chili Peppers
pioneering Freaky Styley, and signed onto Prince's
Paisley Park label. He also began to experiment
with the urban hip-hop music scene, as a generation
of rappers reared on P-Funk began to name-check
him.
By 1990, Clinton had become
recognized as the godfather of modern urban music.
Beats, loops and samples of P-Funk appeared
on albums by OutKast, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg,
Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, De La Soul, Fishbone,
and many, many others. As Clinton has said, "Funk
is the DNA of hip-hop and rap." Clinton also
teamed up to create new recordings with artists
like Too $hort, Digital Underground, Ice Cube,
Q-Tip, Coolio and Redman. In 1996,
Clinton released his most recent solo album The
Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership,
which reunited him with Bernie Worrel and Bootsy
Collins.
In 1997, George Clinton &
Parliament / Funkadelic were inducted into
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland,
Guitar Center's Hollywood Rock Walk, and earned
a Lifetime Achievement Award at the NAACP Image
Awards. In 2002, SPIN magazine voted Parliament/Funkadelic
#6 of the 50 Greatest Band of All Time.
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