When George Clinton swaggered onstage, the entire crowd of Bovard Auditorium leapt to their feet for a roaring standing ovation. The 82-year-old GRAMMY winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee donned a flashy red rhinestone hat and floor-length sequined black and white coat that gleamed against the stage lights every time he moved.
Clinton is the musical mastermind behind Parliament-Funkadelic, referred to lovingly by many as ‘P-Funk,’ a band that exemplified an eccentric sort of Afrofuturism that shook the rock world with a new sound – funk. Iconic songs like “Atomic Dog,” “Flashlight,” “Knee Deep,” “Maggot Brain” and “One Nation Under a Groove” comprise merely a fraction of the legacy Clinton will leave behind.
Legacy was a central theme in his appearance at Pop Conference on March 7.
Clinton spoke with renowned journalist, writer and editor Danyel Smith in the keynote discussion. The conference, which is entering its 22nd year, features over 40 talks, roundtables and panels. Smith was able to ask Clinton about Parliament-Funkadelic’s origins, influences and how he made his mark on the music industry.
P-Funk came to be as a result of the doo-wop music that Clinton grew up hearing in 1950s New Jersey. “Delinquent” sound, Clinton recalled, was all the rage from The Temptations and Gladys Knight and the Pips, to Little Richard and Elvis Presley.
It was with their influence that in the early 1960s, a teenaged Clinton formed Parliament. The group initially conformed to the style of the time with matching suits and coordinated dance steps —the latter of which Clinton was still able to mime when Smith played one of Parliament’s oldest songs.
Though the band was passed on by Motown in the late 1960s, Clinton took on the role of songwriter and producer. Parliament’s first hit, “Testify,” was produced by one of Detroit’s independent labels. But as Beatlemania swept the nation and rock bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin dethroned doo-wop, Clinton felt it was time for a change.
“I went completely off. They [the other band members] did it one by one; they still tried to keep the suits together and all that. But I just went for it, because I knew we had to change [...]. They were calling it ‘the hippie [look].’ It was like practicing being poor,” Clinton laughed.
With P-Funk’s new look —which sometimes, he recalled, included a cut-up Holiday Inn bed sheet worn as a poncho or a towel pinned and tied like a diaper— Clinton came into his own as a producer. His unique style of voice manipulation and music mixing are defining features of that P-Funk sound. The heavy bassline and electronic bounce is distinctly Clinton/P-Funk —the kind that makes the listener want to “take their shoes off and kick up their feet.” The revolutionary stylistic methods, in combination with classical stylings of expert keyboardist and Julliard-trained founding member of P-Funk Bernie Worrell, kick-started the psychedelic era that P-Funk is most known for.
The band, founded and joined by formally educated or otherwise exceptionally talented songwriters, musicians and producers, quickly found their rhythm. 1971′s “Maggot Brain” was produced in only two days. But some of their risque material, often toeing the line between hilarious and vulgar, was a point of contention with their record label. The song “Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)” was one such example.
“The record label made us pay [the fees] out of our pocket, but I wanted it. I wanted it on there. It [the album] had to have some kind of shit on it,” Clinton said. “I remember the A&R guy said, ‘why did he mess up ‘One Nation [Under a Groove],’ now?’”
“I didn’t want to put out an album that I thought was perfect. We always throw something in so somebody says, ‘why did he do this?’” Clinton continued. “We felt like we could do anything. Funkadelic usually was very strange. We didn’t try to make straight records with funk.”
The dynamic sound and expert technique P-Funk is known for can be partially traced to the large number of artists who encompassed the band. P-Funk was like a revolving door, with many musicians (some known and others nameless) circulating in and out of the band over the years. Clinton recalled a story in which a young man off the street offered to play a guitar solo for $25.
The lick wound up on the “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” record.
“From the moment that sound came on, he hit that note. He played from top to bottom without stopping,” Clinton said. “Nobody could say the word. I was gonna give him more, but he was gone so quick! We never found out who he was.”
Many groups spawned as a result of P-Funk’s connections and broader influence, such as Zapp & Roger – who are most well known for their hits like “I Want to Be Your Man” and “More Bounce to the Ounce,” as well as their influential use of the talk-box.
“More Bounce to the Ounce,” released in 1980, was where the technique of sampling really hit its stride, Clinton explained. Sampling refers to the use of a portion of another song in a new track. At that time, sample machines were not as widely available.
“We literally had to cut the tape. That baseline is only five seconds long; we cut it out of another song called ‘Funky Bounce,’ which was on Zapp’s first album. I didn’t hear a hit single on the record at first, but that baseline was so infectious,” Clinton said.
“Roger [Troutman] wasn’t even there when we did it because he had [already] given me that one – it was ready to put out. We got the [new] groove, I called him in and told him to play his ‘West Montgomery’ licks that he liked to play. And that was the whole song. We just did [sang] “More Bounce,” and he [Roger] did the harmony with the talk-box on the mono and the guitar.”
Smith also asked Clinton about the challenges of being an artist and musician in the age of social media. In the 1970s and 1980s, Clinton explained, they would go on the air and “clown with the DJs” to garner attention for their music. But because of the relative decline in nationwide listenership for radio programs over the past 50 years, the way in which artists market their music has changed.
Social media platforms like TikTok have replaced those traditional outlets for promotion. Clinton himself sometimes uses TikTok with his grandkids (who, he said, affectionately call him “Granddude”). He even has a Patreon account where fans can get access to unreleased cuts from “One Nation Under a Groove,” “Maggot Brain” and “The Mothership Connection,” among others.
Throughout the talk, Smith asked Clinton multiple times when he figured out that he could sing (and decided that he wanted to share his voice with the world). But with so many stories to tell and songs to discuss, the audience didn’t really get the full answer until the final few minutes of their conversation.
“There was a guy right on Hollywood Boulevard, he was singing – an old guitar player who was about 65 or 70 years old. I told him to teach me his song. And I actually recorded that song with this guy. And we weren’t going to actually follow the song like that,” Clinton recalled about one of his most formative moments.
“We kind of went [as if] I knew what I was doing. And so I started to get [into] singing without a character – I was in characters all the time. But, during ‘One Nation [Under a Groove],’ that was momentum. I was feeling so good – on top of the world.”
The 2024 Pop Conference will continue throughout various locations on USC’s campus until Saturday, March 9.