George Clinton

0:05Pushkin. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human When it comes to the holidays, I believe you fall into one of two camps. Someone who loves holiday music, or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing a familiar opening phrase, maybe it's Donny Hathaway, maybe it's Mariah Carey, that just flips a switch, and you instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks Caramel Brulee Latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping.

0:46It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Because this season and every season together is the best place to be. Come together over your favorite holiday favorites at Starbucks. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant. so you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is those great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor.

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2:29Available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at americamagazine.org.

2:59listen to podcasts. George Clinton forever changed music with Parliament Funkadelic, whose theatrical sci-fi performance art has captivated audiences worldwide for over five decades and influenced a range of artists from Prince to the Chili Peppers to Dr. Dre. P-Funk's blend of psychedelic rock and deep, repetitive, unfolding funk grooves helped bridge the R &B and rock worlds in the 70s, along with acts like Sly and the Family Stone. Known for multiple characters like Dr. Funkenstein, George Clinton orchestrated multiple solo acts under the P-Funk umbrella, and by the 80s was charting with solo hits himself like Atomic Dog, all of which would lay the groundwork for hip-hop's classic G-Funk era and beyond.

3:44On today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to George Clinton on Zoom about the origins of the original vocal group, The Parliaments, and the time George was on a panel with James Brown and dared the godfather of funk and soul himself to do the splits 18 times. This is Broken Record. Liner Notes for the Digital Age. I'm Justin Richman. In true George Clinton fashion, he funked up his recording, but, you know, it's all good because we want the funk anyway. So here's Rick Rubin with George Clinton. It's a pleasure to see you, sir. Been a minute. Been a minute? Yeah. I love your hat, by the way. Oh, yeah.

4:24And I have to keep my dome. You know, it was the hair before I got to keep the dome occupied at all times. I like it. I watched a video of you either from 1969 or 1970, and everybody in the group had the best hats. You weren't wearing a hat. Everybody else had a hat. You had a mohawk. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. I always try to do something weird with the hair. You know, I was a barber. I didn't know that. Tell me about your life before music. Okay, man. 1956, we started the group. Okay. 13 years old. We started the group because of, you know, like Frankie Lyman and the teenagers.

5:15You know, why the fools fall in love. Doo-wop was the main music. Yeah. doo-wop was the music in Newark, New Jersey. And so I started a group. And one of the first things you had to do in the group in those days was get a doo. You know, your hair with the waves in it. I see. We couldn't go to the barbershop and get it done because it costs too much. So we learned to do each other's hair. So while we was learning to sing and doo-wop, right up into 1950, 1959, we were working in the barbershop singing at the same time, rehearsing in the barbershop Smoking the Miracles come out the Motown thing come out so that was our destination from then on to be on Motown singing doo-wop and doing each other's hair looking like the Temptations we did exactly that from 59 to like 66 when we got our first hit record I just want to testify incredible in detroit you know after working for motown you know joe bett most of that time you know as a writer we weren't signed to you know we never got a record out on the label we were signed to the label for a minute but we didn't get a record out but the competition right down the street golden world for motown i got a job there and i recorded i just want to testify and that became the hit of Detroit, you know, and we were like the competition for a minute, but we immediately changed.

6:51I think because it was too late by then, the European invasion was happening, you know, and the Rolling Stone Beatles and Led Zeppelins and all of that was happening. So we realized then, because we had a real good backup band, which was like our little brothers, Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, Tiki Fullwood, Tyle Ross, and Bernie Worrell. But those were the first ones that we did for years. They were called Funkadelic. But before Funkadelic, it was the parliaments, and it started in New Jersey. Right. Because I think of you as Detroit. I don't think of you as New Jersey. When did you make the move?

7:34No, it started in New Jersey, in the barbershop in New Jersey while we was doing these shows. That's where it started at. Let's talk more about doo-wop. I never made the connection because you said you did each other's hair. Is the name doo-wop, does it come from the doo? Is that why it's called doo-wop? No, it was a doo-doo-wop, doo-doo-doo-wop. But just so it happened, the do's, you know, getting your hair done was what it was called, getting a doo. so it did come close to that but you related it together that was the style remember nat king cole and his whole vibe sugar ray robertson those waves that was the current style back in those days so you if you're gonna go into the apollo you better have had to have a do you know everybody was cool you know on friday evening you got that dude your head was laid and that was the the style When we think of a barbershop quartet, that's essentially doo-wop.

8:37Even the gospel versions of that was basically the background singers singing the things that the bass player would play with the drum. You know what I'm saying? They would sing the music parts. Whoop, doo-wop, whoop, doo-wop. They would do the harmonies and singing the instrument parts. And that was basically doo-wop. You had a lot of acapellas that didn't even use music at all. You remember Take Six? Yeah. Remember, they were like experts on singing all the parts. Bobby McFerrin. I mean, he'd take the essence of doo-wop and make it all the way into jazz. But yeah, that's what doo-wop basically was.

9:22We were singing in the barbershop. That was when we rehearsed that in Newark, New Jersey. Was it always four or five in a doo-wop group, or it didn't have to be that? It didn't have to be that, but five was basically standing there, and you got the impressions. They took it to the three. You had Gladys Knight and the pips, who was four, but the three background was like a group by themselves, even though they were backing her up. They were like another whole group. Did they come out of doo-wop, Gladys Knight? Yes. Oh, they, their first things would have been like, it was on Fury records would have been like 59, 60.

10:07Yeah. So, and the doo-wop, it was still happening. Yes. That, you know, Motown just slicked it up a little bit. It was still doo-wop, you know, the temps and all that, but they just slicked it up, you know, with the strings and the instrumentation Motown took doo-wop to the next level. What was the first doo-wop? Do we know? No, that would have been in the 40s. That would have been in the 40s. I mean, the Ink Spots. You know, Lewis Jordan would have been one of my favorite of that era. His was like doo-wop big band like Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Lewis Jordan was like the funk band of that era.

10:54and they did a lot of doo-wop type stuff. But doo-wop, I think of doo-wop as a vocal group. I don't think of the band as part of doo-wop. Like the band is a backing band and the group are the singers. Yeah, but they kind of like did both of that. Louis Jordan kind of like did, like we did at Parliament Funkadelic. Yeah. They had the singer and the band part. Like, I'll tell you, Sunrock did doo-wop. Most people don't know it. He did doo-wop before he went out of space. I didn't know that. There's a collection of Sunrock records out of Chicago where he was doing basic doo-wop groups. You know, when the Dells first started.

11:41Yeah, they were like big in 54. The Dells, oh, what a night. and that stuff. They redid it in the 70s. But they were like one of the groups around when we was still around in the 70s that we compared ourselves to because we had both been there a long time. Let's talk about what a big doo-op group was because now when we think of what a big group is in music, it's different today than it was then. What would be a big doo-op group? How many people would they get to play to what would that be like? Tell me. Okay. Your high aspiration basically was Copacabana or Vegas. That's all they thought about at that point.

12:29And you would have gotten through the Platters, Flamingos, Moonglows. I mean, Frank and I were in the teenagers, they went all the way to Michael Jackson. They got to that level, international. And they were a doo-wop group. They didn't even have festivals then. It was a big club, basically. It was as big as it got, and that was cool. We were probably, ourselves and Sly Stone, are probably the first ones that start playing to black bands. They start playing to the arenas, like the Soldiers' Field and things. And that would have been over into the 70s. But we started in the 60s along with Ted Nude, Amboy Dukes, Iggy Pop.

13:23We all was from Detroit with the same agent. So we played festivals in Ann Arbor and Toronto and places like that, you know, of the rock and roll side. You know, we were called the Bad Boys of Ann Arbor at one time. Funkadelic, when we put out Free Your Mind, Your Ass Will Follow, Mama, What's a Funkadelic? and Maggot Brain. Especially when Maggot Brain came out, we played all the rock festivals. Why did you move to Detroit? Motown. I see. The thing was, was to get out there to record with the Motown sound, you know, musician. And we went out there and I started writing with one of the competitor companies, which Motown bought out later.

14:07I started writing for them and they did the Edwin Stars and, you know, Daryl Banks, stuff like that, and Parliaments. The Parliaments still, you know, we did first records with them, and that's where we got our first hit. But that was how we got to Detroit. You moved out to want to join Motown. Yes. Become part of that situation, which I see the same way people see hip-hop today. That's the way it was to be at Motown. I tell you what, I'm going back and forth to Detroit. You know, I go to Detroit through the week, Monday to Friday, go back to New Jersey, and I work in the barbershop Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

14:56And I go back to Detroit, you know, to write and stuff. I do that for a year and a half, I think. And then we get a hit record. I do the last record that I do for Golden World. this guy's getting ready to sell the company to Motown I do the last record for them and I leave and go back to the barbershop I'm there two weeks before the record comes out on the biggest station in the country which was CKLW and WABC in New York and I had no idea it was coming out and everybody started hearing on radio saying your record is out Unbelievable. And that was the I Want to Testify, which became the smash of that, you know, 67, along with Beatles, Sergeant Perry, Jimi Hendrix, The Cream.

15:55And those was one imprinted in my brain from then on when that became a hit. And those were the records that came out with it, you know, and right after that, Sly Stone came out. Before we left Plainfield, his manager, the guy, Dave Kaepernick, that was his manager, told us, you know, we were good, but he had a group called Sly and the Family Stone, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I had to brighten up because we were too dark, you know, in our concepts. And he was actually our manager for a minute. We was on Stone Records, which Dave Kaepernick managed for a minute, and then slap broke big we went to detroit we had you know we had that the hit single out but um we went separate ways for a minute because years we'll get to that later so i want to ask you about the commuting between new jersey and detroit forgetting motown for a minute how different was just your experience of life in those two places or was it the same and how would you say they were different worlds.

17:07Well, like this, I work in a barbershop in New Jersey. So you're dealing with Newark, Harlem, and they're like the first one that was doing those processes. Not the first, but the one that, what we call elevated to where it was looking smooth and soft and natural and really fly, as opposed to it still being done and being hard and, you know, glued to your head. So that was my only way of looking at it. There was lots of what they called players in Detroit, Cleveland. They was like preoccupied with that form of lifestyle. New York, New Jersey, we thought we was cooler with that lifestyle, same lifestyle, but just thought you was cooler in it.

17:52So I had to analyze going back and forth to, you know, the players in Detroit and the players in the barbershops around New Jersey who subdued it a little bit. And you had to deal with what you call it, a deuce and a quarter being the desired car as opposed to an El Dorado or Mercedes, you know what I'm saying, being the car of choice. But Motown was there, which made the difference. You know, everything at Motown in my head was the coolest in the world. No matter what, we just had to change the hairstyles. Yes. Could Motown have happened anywhere else? Or do you think that the nature of Detroit had something to do with Motown blossoming?

18:41I think it had something to do with the city and that whole factory car company thing. It's just been that place. Chicago started like that. They just didn't get one place to zone in like Motown did. A lot of the records came out of Chicago, but they were different labels. Same thing could have happened in Minneapolis. when Prince and all of them were together it's always been how do you keep it together because industry ain't going to let you keep it together you know the main thing is to break it up and get whoever's big and everybody want to be big so it's you know kind of easy to get to good people and give them some money and they leave before you get to where Motown got Motown was magic it was like so magic that particular band you think of it like all the musicians the one that played on it was unbelievable but then all the singers was like one big fan you know that was like the first Motown the review where all those superstars was on the same buses it's like I don't know it was like college yeah everybody's sharing information back and forth and yes I mean and at that particular time which was the 60s school was happening.

20:04College was happening. A lot of kids in college was sharing knowledge all over the planet. We have to pause for a quick break here, but then we'll be back with more from Rick Rubin and George Clinton. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps, someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase, maybe it's Donny Hathaway, maybe it's Mariah Carey, that just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring.

20:38For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection, sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte, because this season and every season together is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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22:29Every December, we start singing. At church, around the fire, in our cars, with the radio turned up. But have we ever stopped to ask, where did our favorite Christmas carols come from? And what makes them so magical? I think it's probably one of the most perfect tunes to play and to sing. The voices are converging. They're adding this more complex and chromatic harmony, and it gives us that climactic arrival point. Hark is a podcast about the meaning and the making of Christmas carols. Get into the spirit of the season and listen to Hark, the stories behind our favorite Christmas carols. Available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at americamagazine.org.

23:20We're back with Rick Rubin's conversation with George Clinton. It's interesting that your first song was Testify. Testify is a word that I associate with church. Was there a spiritual component for music for you from the beginning? I was around a barbershop with a group called the Gospel Clefs. They used to rehearse there. And to see the show and the vibe that they would put on was unbelievable. but it was like the coasters in church. Wow. And that always let me know that that was the root of all the music, no matter what the tone was. That was the root. So that vibe, you know, right from the get-go, doo-wop was always the vibe of, you know, church.

24:07Like I can remember the Staples Singers or Mahalia Jackson, that stuff when, you know, waking up to breakfast too. and it sounds like hit records to this day when i go to texas all the all the bands all the funk bands is in texas in church yeah all the best players all the best musicians absolutely yeah the best so in the detroit scene how was the motown world and the detroit rock world part of the same thing when you were there did you feel like it was all part of one thing or did it feel like the Motown thing is really separate from like the Ted Nugents and the Iggy's. When we got there as Funkadelic and Testify was out, we bridged that one instantly because Motown was already like a Motown playing with those groups on shows with them, but we were immediately a Funkadelic, a psychedelic band.

25:07So it changed immediately. At first, by the time Ted Nugent and Iggy Pop, MC5. Yeah. It was merging right there. Would everyone play at the same clubs? Like, would someone on Motown and MC5 play at the same venue? We did. We played with MC5 and all of them. And there were separate R &B venues? Oh, yeah. Except for, like, the Rooster Tail, that's where Pop and R &B played, the Fox. pop and heart be played you know most of those kind of places the theaters everybody playing there what would you call the first funk record from anybody oh my god everybody would have to be one of those blues things that's you know is in 40s those are basically punk records most of them.

26:06I look at you know the New Orleans stuff you know the Motown early records James Jameson, those bass lines incredible. That made everything funky. They just had so much strings on top that it was music for Young America that was the name of it that was their theme. Their music, the basic rhythm tracks was the funkiest thing that there was. That's what made us that's who called us the Funk Brothers. They called us the Young Funk Brothers. You know, our backup band, and that's why we named it Funkadelie. They had a New Orleans vibe on it, but Motown had its own chord changes with it. But basically everything they did, you know, was seriously funky.

26:56Pop, nobody identified it with funk because we came along, we did it basically. We went to real raw funk, simple lines, chants, and extremely, you know, slow. What's the first time you were ever aware of James Brown? Please, please, and try me. Those two, I mean, as you know, they were like blues songs, but you could feel the vibe in it that it was there. But when he started doing Papa Got a Brand New Bag, from that point on, it was something else. you know that's when you start seeing bands pop up that imitate him you know once it got to that point he was like he was like a TikTok artist. Every city you go to you can find a band that could perfect his show so good that they could actually substitute his sound.

27:51I mean you know I mean I knew some band was more James Brown than James Brown but the work that they had to put in to get those horns precision. I mean, you watch Maceo do it with us, you watch him do it with Prince. Fred did the same thing with Count Basic. They all, Bootsy, I mean, came out whole style, you know, from the funkadelic, like we were doing funkadelic first, to the parliament, new stuff when we did Chocolate City, Up for the Downstroke, then Mothership and all of that. And it was still, he brought the horny horns, you You know, then with me and Bernie Worrell, being a classically trained keyboardist, was able to have them play horn parts with that same kind of precision.

28:42So it was like we had two or three generations of styles, you know, the Jimi Hendrix, the James Brown, the Motown and Parliament Funked Up all at one time. you know and that's what we was having like 10 albums out at one time in a year with all of the same people yeah i always wanted to know about why why the different band names and why the different labels how did that happen and was it on purpose and tell me about it it was the only way to get everybody satisfied everybody wanted to be up front and start so whoever's the guy a hick that's who we all become we was a backup band for the brides and you know it didn't matter at the time we realized that it was hard for one act to survive after you know seeing you know motown get to its peak we realized we had to have them on different labels and that way you can accommodate all the new acts that was coming up behind us that we had we had loads more yeah In a way, you did what, basically how the Funk Brothers was the root of all of the Motown.

29:58You did your own version of that, but instead of building a label, you had artists at all the different labels. Yeah. You know, like Wu-Tang did it right after us. Yes. And they stayed together as a group and was all sitting on their thing. that was what we were you know attempting to do had anyone done that before you not not that many i'll tell you uh phil specter did remember he had that darlene love song on everybody's record and they had all the groups the crystals the you know all the raw raw teams and and ike and tina did it a little bit. Remember Ike and Tina? Yeah, they did it. But we just spreaded it out a lot further because that show them was stars themselves as the J.B.'s.

30:56We named them the Horny Horns and they were already their own stars so it was easy. And Bootsy was Bootsy so we made him into Bootsilla. We made him an instant star right from the get-go. You know, in Parliament and funk then we had built our reputation as a psychedelic band so it was when the mothership happened it was like we had a ship with all these acts on there the backup girls would become the parlets and the brides was there a particular inspiration for going psychedelic or was it more the whole movement or were there any like key artists were like we need to do something more like this?

31:38We had a friend that worked with us, Jimmy Miller. He was the producer of the Rolling Stones eventually. We used to practice our doo-wop thing and we recorded some records with him and a guy named Jimmy Fallon. And just as we got our first record together, we gave it to Brunswick records they released the demo we gave on jackie wilson he went on to do a group called spencer davis give me some loving he went on to do traffic stevie now this was like my partner we wrote together and i saw what they had did with with spencer davis you know give me some loving and and I'm a man. I realized that's where it was going, that rock and roll European type of thing.