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George Clinton (funk musician)

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George Clinton

George Clinton (born July 22, 1940) is an American musician, widely considered one of the forefathers of 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 hailed as "The Prime Minister of Funk" as the leader of Parliament, as well as "The King of Interplanetary Funk".

Biography

He 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). This article focuses on Clinton's solo efforts after 1981.

Beginning in the early 1980's, 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 bandmembers were huge fans of George Clinton and Funk in general. 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.

File:George clinton funk.jpg
George Clinton at the VH1 Fashion Awards. He is known for his flamboyant style.

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), Good Burger (1997) and PCU (1994). 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

He also had a cameo appearance in the season 3 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.

Clinton allows audience members to tape his live performances for private, non-commercial use only.[1]

Drug crimes

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.[2] Just two weeks later, he made his first public appearance since the arrest, jamming onstage with the rock band Phish in Miami. On August 11, 2004, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor drug-paraphernalia charges, while the felony charge was dropped.

Discography

Albums released under the name "George Clinton."

George Clinton Discography
Year Title Label
1982 Computer Games Capitol Records
1983 You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish Warner Bros.
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 Sample Some of Disc - Sample Some of D.A.T. AEM
1996 Testing Positive AEM
1998 Dope Dogs XYZ
2005 How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent? The C Kunspyruhzy

Famous songs

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