George Clinton

George Clinton

George Clinton is a popular African-American musician. He is known for his signing, songwriting, music composing skills. In fact, he is the principal creator of P-Funk. Before launching into his solo career during eighties, Clinton was a mastermind behind the bands, Funkadelic and Parliament.

Born on July 22, 1941, in Kannapolis, George Clinton grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and currently settled in Florida. Before stepping into major musical career, Clinton used to work at a barber salon in his teenage. During that period he formed a local band, The Parliaments, inspired by the renowned Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. As the years passed he became a staff songwriter for Motown. At first, the band faced commercial failure but soon after the band was renamed as Parliament. And with that the band also gained success and another band was formed Funkadelic.

Under Clinton’s supervision, the bands were influenced by musical elements from several legendary artists and bands. These bands and artists included names like Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and James Brown. They explored different dimensions of sounds, lyricism and technology in their music. The seventies were dominated by diverse music of Parliament-Funkadelic with over 40 top chart singles. As soon as his bands gained spotlight and success, Clinton began to work on his solo career in the eighties.

From 1982, Clinton took up music production job as well. He not only produced his own albums but also produced albums for several other music artists including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bootsy Collins. Early in his solo career, Clinton produced albums of trivial importance. In fact, these albums also featured work from P-Funk’s core musicians. The sole reason why he would produce music under his own name was due to some legal issues. Later he signed Capitol Records, as a band and also as a solo artist producing Computer Games under his own name. He produced numerous top chart singles and albums, such as “Loopzilla”, “Atomic Dog”, R&B Skeletons in the Closet and Mothership Connection. Although Clinton produced some sensational music, he still had a rough time due to multiple legal copyright problems which eventually resulted in financial crisis. He claimed that Bridgeport Music fraudulently gained copyrights to his recordings.

Subsequently, he was hired by Red Hot Chili Peppers to produce their album, Freaky Styley. The band was highly inspired by Clinton’s funk music therefore they brought him onboard. He offered his expertise in the lyrical and vocal domain of the album. In the beginning, the album received a lukewarm response but years later when Red Hot Chili Peppers came to stardom the album became a bestselling record. With the passage of time, Clinton’s popularity waned yet his music still seemed fresh and inspiring to the rising music artists. Therefore, he is deemed one of the most sampled musicians ever, as most of the 90s rappers sampled his music.

During 1990s, Primal Scream’s studio album Give Out But Don’t Give Up came out which featured several of his tracks. Moreover, he made a film debut in Graffiti Bridge (1990) and also starred in other films such as House Party, PCU and Good Burger. George Clinton’s funk music is held in great prestige for its innovation, thus he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.


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