Clinton is the chief of two vital funk bands, Parliament and Funkadelic. In 1975, Parliament launched Mothership Connection, a unfastened idea album about funk musicians as galactic invaders.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. George Clinton is the chief of two groundbreaking funk bands, Parliament and Funkadelic. As the author, producer and performer behind quite a few hits, Clinton helped outline the sound of funk within the Nineteen Seventies and past. Whereas he hasn’t obtained as a lot industrial success as his influences James Brown and Sly Stone, his impression on music is simply as profound. Rock critic Ken Tucker is utilizing the fiftieth anniversary of Clinton’s basic album, “Mothership Connection,” to have fun this pioneering innovator and the enduring energy of his funk.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “P-FUNK (WANTS TO GET FUNKED UP)”)
PARLIAMENT: Good night. Don’t try to regulate your radio. There’s nothing fallacious. We have now taken management as to carry you this particular present. We’ll return it to you as quickly as you’re grooving. Welcome to station W-E-F-U-N-Ok, higher referred to as WeFunk, or deeper nonetheless, the Mothership Connection, house of the extraterrestrial brothers, sellers of funky music, P-Funk, uncut funk, the bomb.
Coming to you instantly from the mom ship, high of the chocolate Milky Means. 5 hundred thousand kilowatts of P-Funk energy. So chill, dig, whereas we do it to you and your eardrums. Oh, me? I am referred to as Lollipop Man, alias the Lengthy-Haired Sucker. My motto is…
(Singing) Make my funk the P-Funk.
Make mine the P-Funk.
(Singing) I need my funk uncut.
I need my funk uncut.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Fifty years in the past, George Clinton was at a creative peak, the primary of many. He was writing a lot materials that with a purpose to get all of the music recorded and heard, he fronted two separate teams, Parliament and Funkadelic. By a really tough distinction, Parliament’s funk music was extra mild and catchy, whereas Funkadelic’s was heavier and extra given to improvisation. In 1975, Parliament launched “Mothership Connection,” a unfastened idea album about funk musicians as galactic invaders, full with a spaceship that will land on stage at first of each live performance, disgorging George Clinton wearing what appeared like a spacesuit made out of aluminum foil.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION (STAR CHILD)”)
PARLIAMENT: Nicely, all proper. Star Youngster. Residents of the universe, recording angels, we now have returned to say the pyramids. Partying on the mom ship, I’m the Mothership Connection. Getting down in 3D. Gentle-year grooving. All proper. Hear any noise, ain’t no one however me and the boys getting down. Hit it, fellas.
(Singing) When you hear any noise, it is simply me and the boys. Hit me.
Grooving.
(Singing) You bought to hit the band.
All proper, all proper. Star Youngster right here. Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip and are available onto the mom ship. Free booty, doing the bump.
TUCKER: For George Clinton, science fiction was a metaphor for the alienating expertise of making an attempt to make it as a Black pop star. He was on the forefront of what got here to be known as Afrofuturism, together with Black writers such because the critic Greg Tate and the novelists Octavia Butler and Ishmael Reed, whose landmark work, “Mumbo Jumbo,” had been printed simply three years earlier than “Mothership Connection.” On tour, Clinton blended his world-building and his bands right into a sprawling spectacle he known as the Parliafunkadelicment Thang – or, extra merely, the U.S. Funk Mob.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GIVE UP THE FUNK (TEAR THE ROOF OFF THE SUCKER)”)
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) You’ve got obtained an actual sort of factor taking place, getting down. There’s a complete lot of rhythm going spherical. You’ve got obtained an actual sort of factor taking place, getting down. There’s a complete lot of rhythm going spherical.
(Singing) Oh, we wish the funk. Hand over the funk. Oh, we want the funk. We obtained to have that funk. Oh, we wish the funk. Hand over the funk. Oh, we want the funk. We obtained to have that funk.
(Singing) La, la, la, la, la.
TUCKER: That track – “Give Up The Funk, Tear The Roof Off The Sucker” – was each a live performance showstopper and the band’s first million-selling single. It is a groove, a temper, a rhythm Clinton and his platoon of gamers, together with guitarist Eddie Hazel, bassist Bootsy Collins and the keyboardist Bernie Worrell, may keep for lengthy stretches on report and particularly in live performance. Suppose the Grateful Lifeless, however with a far superior sense of rhythm.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “P-FUNK (WANTS TO GET FUNKED UP)”)
PARLIAMENT: Nicely, all proper. Hey, I used to be digging on y’all’s funk for some time. Sounds prefer it obtained a 3 on it, although, to me. Then I used to be down south and I heard some funk with some Important Substances – like, Doobie Brothers, Blue Magic, David Bowie. It was cool. However are you able to think about Doobie in your funk? Ho, W-E-F-U-N-Ok. We funk.
(Singing) Make my funk the P-Funk. I need my funk uncut. Oh, make my funk the P-Funk. I needs to get funked up. I need the bomb. I need the P-Funk.
P-Funk, y’all.
(Singing) Don’t need my funk stepped on. Make my funk the P-Funk.
House of the extraterrestrial brothers.
(Singing) Earlier than I take it house.
Getting deep.
TUCKER: Clinton has at all times preached a utopian imaginative and prescient of, to cite a Funkadelic track title, “One Nation Beneath A Groove. From the mid-70s to the mid-80s, he launched greater than 30 albums on quite a lot of report labels and below an array of various band names. His affect is huge. Prince idolized Clinton and signed him briefly to his Paisley Park label. Scores of hip-hop artists have sampled his melodic hooks. However he could not maintain it. Clinton’s empire crumpled below the burden of poor enterprise offers, the trade racism that saved him off white pop radio throughout his busiest years and, most sadly, medicine and the wear and tear and tear on a physique that nonstop touring will inflict.
George Clinton is now 84, and he is nonetheless performing. Again in 1984, I wrote a bit for the Village Voice by which I described Clinton as the good pop mind of our period. And for a short interval, he actually was. I additionally lamented the truth that he by no means achieved the ambition he asserted once I first interviewed him – to be as common because the Beatles. The subsequent time I noticed Clinton to talk with him, he quoted John Lennon again to me, saying, the dream is over. He was smiling when he stated it. However I may really feel his frustration, his ache, as profoundly as one of many genius funk riffs he is been composing for greater than half a century.
MOSLEY: Rock critic Ken Tucker on the fiftieth anniversary of the discharge of George Clinton’s album “Mothership Connection.” Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, Peter Guralnick. He is the creator of the definitive two-volume biography of Elvis Presley. His new ebook is about Elvis’ longtime supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker. Guralnick says researching the ebook led to many surprises and made him query the numerous preconceptions about Parker. It is known as “The Colonel And The King.” I hope you possibly can be part of us. To maintain up with what’s on the present and get highlights of our interviews, comply with us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION (STAR CHILD)”)
PARLIAMENT: Are you hip to Easter Island? The Bermuda Triangle? Nicely, all proper. Ain’t nothing however a celebration.
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR’s government producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and critiques are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visible producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the present. With Terry Gross, I am Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION (STAR CHILD)”)
PARLIAMENT: (Singing) When you hear any noise, it is simply me and the boys hitting it. You bought to hit the band.
Star Youngster right here, doing it in 3D. So good, it is good to me.
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