Although a year older than Paul McCartney, George Clinton only really blossomed to fame in the 70s. He remained a soulsonic force right into the 1980s and beyond.
Clinton spent his formative years as a doo-wop vocalist, before turning his hand to Motown-style production and composition in the early 60s; even as late as ’67 his group, The Parliaments, took to the stage in matching blazers and slacks. By 1969, however, The Parliaments were mutating into Funkadelic, with Clinton having taken on board the psychedelic rock revolution, melding it with the dirty electric funk of a newly radicalised soul generation.
He took acid – tons of it – while volunteering for Timothy Leary’s science projects, but kept it together to reinvent himself radically as a brother from another planet, on a mission to teach America the P-Funk groove.
Long-time fan Kris Needs is an excellent chronicler and confidante of Clinton, and his text is enriched by the interviews he has conducted with the great and expansive man over the years. You’re in very safe hands indeed on this retrospective voyage through the life and times of one of soul’s biggest, funniest, funkiest and futuristic characters.
