February 5, 2024 • 62 mins
In 2020, Team Supreme was blessed with an extensive conversation with George Clinton of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective. This two-part conversation features deep-dive discussion and the kinds of questions listeners will only find at Questlove Supreme. Check out part ONE of our George Clinton class.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey all, It's on pay Bill from Team Supreme. For
this classic episode of Questlove Supreme, we are speaking with
the incredible, the Only George Cliffe Parliament Funkadelic Part one,
George updates QLs and something's going on with his music
while taking a look back at an incredible sixty five
year career. This was taped in mid twenty twenty during
those early days of the pandemic, so Team Supreme was
still learning to get along virtue. But the quality of
(00:27):
the conversation is amazing. I love this one.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I hope you enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
The Ladies and gentlemen Funk upon a Time and a
galaxy far away and the land of cheese steak Utopia. Well, well,
(00:53):
the five year old April head boy with dreams, aspirations
and power hour of creative abundance, and he wished upon
a star one day that this young and would utilize
his talents so that one day he could bug and
pester from the Jesus out of his musical idols who
(01:15):
raised him. And this is that moment. Ladies and gentlemen,
you know the show, and you know the crew. You
know Fonte. You know six Steve unpaid, Bill Laya. Let
us get into it. This is the moment I've been
waiting for all my life, my first real conversation with
(01:35):
God himself.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
George Ship, Yes, yes, all of that, uh North Carolina building.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
How that sounds like some ship I wanted to say
to Smokey Robinson and I was growing up. Man.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Now you know, I know, man, this is This is
a rare moment where you know, I have access to
somebody that has had major input on my all of
our creative juices, I mean all of us are everybody?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We all your sons?
Speaker 6 (02:17):
Yea illegitimate?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
All right. I'll try not to make it this like
it's your eulogy, but you know this is definitely Where
are you right now?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
I'm at home. I'm in Tall, Florida. I'm sitting back
and kicking it, and I'm been painting and shit, I've
been chilling. This has been the RESTful part of my life.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Really good.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
I ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Stay in that bubble wrap.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
No, I'm cool.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Is this the first real rest that you you've gotten?
Speaker 6 (02:52):
You know, since I was a teenager. I put it
like that, We've been on the road since we was
twenty two when Testifact came out, right, Okay, I had
never left the road since then. We lived on the
road and moved to city to city and you know,
raised kids, get married, moved country and c you know.
(03:12):
But this is probably the longest that we've been down
and not doing anything.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
And you're not at all, are you?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Oh? Hell no, because I had to do it this time.
So I take it like, I don't stress myself. If
I can't do nothing about it, I do the best
I can and funk it. You know. I have a
good excuse to paint, and we make music now. I mean,
we were sending ship back and forth on nineteen studio
only about five miles from here. But I send this
(03:43):
ship down there in back. I don't even chance that ship.
But I don't know. I'm I have I go fishing.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I know you're big on fishing. Like,
are you doing a lot of that now?
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Oh? Oh hell yeah, that's the only I sneak to
the boat, get on the boat, we mask up. But
I do a lot of that. Okay, I've been I've
been chilling for real, just and you know, luckily been
chilling that you know, ready for it this time, right,
because we got a lot of ship that's getting ready
to come out when this thing is go down. We
(04:18):
was working on some bad ship, you know, with the
group the kids, they was killing them. We was getting
ready to do some hell of ship. But it's good
because it gave us a chance to sit down and
get it together and do it properly.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
That's good.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
At the same time, you know, I just got a
lot of my catalog back, you know, yes, oh yeah,
I got it back. Now I'm going getting ready to
go through some things that publicize it. You're gonna see it.
Ben Crump is my lawyer, you know, civil rights part
(04:50):
of it.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Right right? What would this mean for funketeers everywhere? Like,
are we all?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
I'm a matter of fact, I want everybody that has
worked with us that that's gotta be got a beef,
you know, the contact Sheila Jackson, Lee, we all we're
all doing together. She wants me to get all the
people that has a beef together so we can make
a one proper announcement. All those people get their copyrights back.
(05:23):
They can get them back right now. They you know,
recapture their copyrights. Said although this is this I'm telling
this is the civil rights. This is gonna be a
civil right. Yeah, like I said, yeah, how long is this? Well,
I've been I've been in the battle almost thirty years,
but I've been, you know, fighting to get it to
(05:44):
that level of you know, get it to where the Congress.
I was with John Kanye's he took it up for
a long time. You know, we couldn't get up the past.
But now every you know, it's the copyright capture thing
is over now. So I got a lot of min
in on time, and a lot of other people got
theirs in. They just don't know it, and they're not
(06:05):
telling and they're not telling them that they got it.
They trying to make them think that they have to
fight it something they don't have to fight. It's theirs now.
So we're gonna make a big announcement, especially everybody with us,
but not only us, a lot of people that work
with us, even the people that sample the music. They've
been in long enough now for some of their rights
to be coming back to them. Yeah, you know, Prince
(06:28):
Prince got his back, you know. So it's that it's
that time and this generational wealth. It's what it's about
you can't you can't pass it onto your airs if
they tie you up, which is what they're trying to do, right,
you know, trying to make it. There's a whole new
law thing going on that you know, you they tell
(06:48):
you just how they do it. And we got the help.
We got the writer report, the Child Jackson need to
explain all those things that needed done. So if you
know anybody that's stuff that's that's having a problem with
the copyright recapture, yeah, they should definitely get in touch
with Ben Crump and Child jacksually or myself.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Wow, So does this mean that for the first time
your post seventy six funk a deck delic catalog will
finally see the light of day, Like Yeah, Nomina One,
Nation on the Groove or Uncle Jim or Hardcore Jolly.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
I got that album that masterback, Kneed Deep, I got
those back. I own those two. I was I was
hesitant to put them out till I got them all
off the market people that was putting them out illegally.
I had to clean it up first, So I got
I owned those been on those for a long time,
but lawyers was keeping me from getting to them. You know,
(07:49):
but I got those and especially need to be in
one nation. That's why you hear so much about Antomic Dog,
even your capital stuff. I got Atomic Dog, the computer game.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
So loop Zilla all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
Yeah, so now we put all of them in. And
that's what we're making sure that that whole catalog recapture
thing is. You know, it's it's true for Elvin's president
and his family. It's true for John Lennon and his family,
So it need to be true for everybody that that
don't got nothing to do with race.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So what does this also mean for the westbound catalog?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Same thing?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, same thing. So is armand but lady and is
he still alive? Is he still alive?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
He's still alive. He's still alive, and and all that.
That's all that's from a big issue. It's gonna be
a big issue because it's you read the book, the
book I put out, You read the Jane Peters thing
in the back.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
That's you got to explain to the audience. Yeah, and
that's the thing recapture.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So I want to treat.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I'm gonna try to not ask such a your questions
because this is not just might be a book. So
I might have to break it down. Can you explain
to them the situation right now? I'm so elated that
that you own this stuff now, I know you've been
trying for the long.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Yeah, I had the book, the brother's video, like George,
ain't that phone count hard on? You know? That came
out and it was out for a while, and they
took me to court on that book. So I'm still
in court five years later for the book. Yeah, I
mean the thing was to kill that information, to kill
(09:35):
the information in that book. They said that the deformation
of the farm because I told everything that was he already
said himself, you know, in deposition. But yeah, they got
me in court right now. The main thing is to
keep it slowed down to where I can make no moves.
You know. Long. I've been in court for the last
(09:56):
fifteen years with my lawyers and and him and Armor
and the major record companies. So all of that's coming
to a head now because they're gonna investigate the whole
copyright recapture. We got our back, but we need everybody
to get out of the way to let us make
those collections because it's still hard to collect from the
(10:17):
different societies. If you know, if you ain't got your
powerful set of people behind you and lawyers. You know,
that's pretty hard for them because they got to be
in business. They got business with the companies, so they
mess up their business trying to protect you, especially a
catalog as big as ours. There's a lot nobody don't
nobody want to get at us. But they've been stealing
(10:40):
with that, you know, But they'll go down fighting. That's
a lot of you're talking about a lot of years,
a lot of careers of people that sample those songs,
use those songs, license those songs that we never not
only myself, but none of the band members. You hear
them all something. No, they didn't get money. I agree
(11:00):
with them, they didn't get it.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So I'm sorry, just for claborication.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
You're saying that you guys never received anything from any
of these songs until.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
No, No, I ain't gonna say never receive anything. I'm
talking about that sampling and that license, and no we don't.
We're not. We don't be participating in that at all.
You know, we got Atomic Dog recently in that three years. Okay,
but no, no, the money. Even since I got it,
(11:30):
I've been fighting my own lawyers to get the money
that's owed to me for it. The main thing was
to get it out of my possession right and you know,
and they did that for a long while. But I
thought it, I got it. I got it back, paid
four million dollars to my own lawyer. You know, take that,
(11:50):
pay got it back.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Just to clarify it, what I was going to say
is probably the most endearing thing about your personality is
the fact and your business acumen was the fact that
you were so open to working with rappers because unlike
your counterpart, and I use this word lightly, of course,
(12:17):
you know, people consider the pillars of soul music and funk,
you and James Brown. James Brown's attitude towards it was well,
I hate samplers, sampling, you know, rapper sampling my music
and all that stuff, but really not seeing that that's
going to just bring it back and make it. And
you called it early in an interview, like even in
(12:37):
the mid eighties that no, I like, they asked you, like,
what do you think about you know, day lost soul
taking you know, needy for me myself and I and
you were so open to it. You're like, that's great
because what it will do is it will lead a
whole flock of people to my music and to my
concerts and whatnot, Like you saw the vision of it.
So it's not that you're anti sampling and reached structuring
(13:00):
the music, but the fact.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
That pave me my money.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, so many people have.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
To you know, right part of it, the sampling part
of it, I welcome. I welcomed the sampling part of it.
You know, they got them too. Most of them didn't
get paid either.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I've gotten bit by armored a few times almost.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
And we never got anything that and he was doing
that on behind of us. He's supposedly we never got
any of it, got any of it. So now that's
what's happening. And now that's getting meant to be open
up and everybody will be able to see that nobody
in the band got their money or the other artists
(13:47):
that had you know, all the companies band together on
those sampling because nobody wanted to acknowledge it. So now
it's going to come out because we didn't fade the wait,
we didn't die all. We're supposed to be out of
here by now. But we said one nation and the group.
We meant that we uncle Jim's Army. We was on
the March then, and the clones with the sampling, to
(14:07):
me was just the clones. You have to have DNA
clones to make something new. That's what making the music.
When we said clones of Dr Funkenstein, we meant that
that far back we knew it wasn't gonna be music
on television. How they sell those k tail packages that
you didn't have to worry about that, no more, nobody
got paid for that. The new thing was gonna be samples.
(14:30):
And they didn't know how far they were gonna get
away with it. Not the artists that do. A Kid's
gonna make music whatever way they can, whatever new way
they have to, they gonna make music. And I'm welcome that.
I just have to learn how to participate, how to
hang in there. But the business people around that used
us against each other. You know that he don't want
you to sample it, he charging you. Most artists wouldn't
(14:53):
even talk to me. They were scared to talk to
me because they thought I was mad about the samples.
They told them, you know, and and I'm assuming you
so everybody knew that. But like I said, it's coming
out now, and yeah, and they sued me for the book.
In the book, you know, I'm the last one in
(15:15):
five years. Everybody else they got sued with me got off,
and I'm still there, you know, hoping I would go away.
That's what I did, Shake Shake the Gate and Medicaid
Fraud Dog. I did those two albums just to reignite
my energy, you know, to start to get the kids
going and the and that's how I inspired I was.
(15:38):
Once I got the book out, I'm ready to make
brand new music with whatever we're going from here. This
is a new generation.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know. I'm glad you mentioned that. Normally I start
from the beginning, but I think for this particular one,
I kind of wanted to start go backwards. Definitely, the
Medicaid Fraud Dog project. Can you, for one, what is
your obsession or what is the the ideology behind dogs
(16:09):
in the metaphor your metaphors for everything. But because that
album in particular is such a clever outlet, like political
commentary but using dogs as your main characters, what what
was the genesis of that album?
Speaker 6 (16:28):
I did called Dope Dogs right, Yes, indeed, okay, Dope Dogs.
I have a whole story for that that I wanted
to do cartoons, animation and everything, but I never would
give it to anybody because I have all the characters,
and so I tried to do as many you know,
dog related songs just to keep that concept alive. So
(16:49):
I use it in Medicaid Fraud dog because it was
based on laboratory studies on dogs, when they used to
do studies on dogs for perfumes and ship like that.
That member, that's when the dope dogs come from. Not
only the drug dogs, but this time the dogs were
sniffing out the political bullshit in the in the Obamacare,
(17:12):
you know, all the different names they want to call it.
On the political drug scene, everything is about dope. Everything's
about drugs. The whole world is talking about how they're
gonna get their medicaid, okay, and so that whole thing.
The dogs are sniffing out that information, and most of
us are being hooked on stuff on medicine and create
(17:33):
new diseases with the drugs they give us. They given
the certain drugs and those drugs to give you side effects,
which to be a whole new flock of patience. Okay,
now they do. That's what I'm saying, And it's designer,
designer side effects, like designer drugs. That's the era we
(17:54):
live in now, where we evolve into some you know,
between robots, androids, human and that shit's gonna be a
blurred line in a minute, you know, it's you know
and wait, So the dog is take a dog to
sniff that out. The instincts of a dog is primal.
You know, whether this maiden or whether it's sniffing out
(18:16):
whatever you're training to sniff out, learn it. And if
he's sniffing out the drugs, you get high from sniffing
on drugs. So the dog's gonna have it, so they
have to. You know, the dogs are doped up. So
these are the dogs, the characters. I got this dope dog.
They all got their own relationship to drugs, whether it's
(18:39):
a police dog or whether it's a dope dealer who
like to make their dogs fight. And the dog and
the dogs are like, shit, you don't you used to
give me a reward, you know, used to give me
a joy, true sniff a treat. You know, that's how
they how they train the dogs so that they don't
even want to get a dog no treat. You know,
(19:00):
these dogs get together and they got their own like
you know, remember the Ninja Turtles. These dogs are like that,
you know, kind of like who Tang clan, you know.
And they they got a thing on drugs. They don't,
you know, they impartial to the political book, you know, discrepancy.
(19:22):
They just deal with drugs. So that's my part, My
partiality to sucking with dogs and drugs.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Makes sense.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Now we can't hear the news.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
You know, got more dogs for us.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
I got one that's coming I got one that's coming out.
That's that's gonna hurt you. Oh man, oh yeah, who dogs?
You know it's gonna be they're gonna be stepping on it.
You know how they be doing dancing to Atomic Dog. Yeah,
they're gonna stop. They're gonna stepping on this. They're gonna
be stepping up. They're gonna be stepping up this and there.
(20:00):
I dare your booty not to move your but your butt,
your butt to betray you.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I when that happened, I love it, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
From when she shaked by itself and you ain't got
nothing in voluntary?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, can How long did it take to make the
Medicaid Fraud Dog album? You know I I thirty eight
years but since the last Parliament record, but.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Well between that would shake the gate and that it
took about three years, you know. But I had a
couple of songs that I was hold on to the
I've done maybe five or six years ago. Then I
just kept them, kept them until I got them right.
I did them a thousand different ways, but medicaid fraud.
When I got the concept together, I got Fred Wesley
(20:55):
down there, I got you know, Chris Days. You know,
I knew the people that I needed for that outside
flavor to what we were doing now. And we were
sampling our own self, but now we're learned. Everybody else
was sampling, and then everybody got scared to sample anymore,
so we started sampling that self.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You're I think you're your best sample source.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
So that's only right, but you know, it's still is
it's an art form to picking that shit out.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
How many reels do you reckon of just unused source
material do you have?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
And can we have them?
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
Because for me, for me.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Like my all time favorite p funk song is new Spaceship,
a song which musically is created twenty years before you
even completed it in ninety seven, So how many other
like uncooked is do you have just sitting in the
vault that could come out today and still work. Have
(22:05):
you heard?
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Have you heard the sample some of this and sampled
some of that? All right?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I have a slight confessional, yes, so check this out.
I purchased sample some of this, sample some of that.
Never opened it because I think in my mind, I
always thought, well, this probably throwaway stuff. And you know,
I'm sure that all the prime P funk stuff is
on actual P funk records. And so it wasn't until
(22:33):
I talked to DJ Premiere. This is about four or
five years ago, and I asked him a question about
a sample. It was a NA sample and he says, oh, yeah,
these drums I got because my favorite premiere sounding drums.
I asked like, where do you get these drums from?
And he said, the George Clinton sampled some of this,
(22:54):
some of that PET like, so NAS's represent drums come
from that practice. All of the Hard to Earn album,
the drums come from that. Some of Jaybrew's second album,
The Wrath of the Math mind Blown. And then when
I went to it, I wanted to kick myself because
like it took me fifteen sixteen years to open up
(23:18):
this record. If I just had the patience and just
sat down and listened to it, I could have been
ahead of the game.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
But you know, Eric Sermon used to use it of
that too. Yes, I gave I gave. I gave him
a copy of it down at Gallous Austin studio, and
most people, like you said you said, they didn't open
because people like, if you give it to them, then
it's not interesting that they could find it. So it
took a lot of people a long time to even
(23:48):
look at it because we were saying here, Now, what
I was saying about that album is that most of
where those samples came from, we have the whole tracks
to those songs. Those are songs came out in the
Family Series, but a lot of the them came out
at all. So those that's what A lot of those
samples came from. The songs that were released, you know,
(24:11):
except for maybe some of the film was in the
Family Series, which a lot of people don't know about
those Easterns.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Well, I was gonna say, even with the Family Series. Okay,
so there are some captain obvious questions. I'm gonna ask
you the Junior Marrison song on that family series Super Spirit,
Super Spirit. I think that's the most eccentric creative moment,
and in a life that was always eccentric. Can you
(24:40):
talk about Juni Morrison and how like, what's his what's
the process of his creativity? At least how did you?
My god, how did you utilize it?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Me and him, we did like person myself, I do
my part and do you you do your party and
say it back. We didn't question the Whatever I did
was lokay. Whatever he did, I knew. I just had
to figure out what my part was, and that's to me.
We started to do and it's a song on that
Famihi's called Tryune Yes. Yeah, that's when we actually was
(25:16):
getting ready to actually come up with a concept. He
thought I was weird and I thought he was weird.
So we got along really good on the weirdness part
of it. And we couldn't get quite together, you know,
because of the political stuff that was going on around
us that we had no idea who was actually being orchestrated,
(25:40):
you know, And that's a whole other story that we
could talk about later. But we could never get together
even when we was doing computer games I was, you know,
of course the you know at the time I was
into my drug thing. But I always commnaged to figure
a way the work, to get the work done. But
you can't get the work done and watch people that's
(26:02):
you know, intentionally trying to keep you from getting the
work done. That's a little more than you're bargaining from
what you say. I'm getting sucked up. You don't realize
when you get fucked up, you fuck up everything. You know,
everything around you get fucked up. You know, it takes
you a minute to grow up, if you know, to
get out of that, if you unless you can wigre
(26:22):
your ass out of it. Before the duo, but that's
what the Junie and I had a lot of stuff
we was was gonna do and even like a medicaid fronto.
I had to call him get him out of retirement.
You know, you know he's going trying to do nothing.
He was doing some electronic music, but he wasn't trying
to deal with the business. But I got in the
(26:45):
same thing when we did, when we did the pour
a phone, got got Booty and him the you know
the summer swim, the some some swim song. I know
every time I do a song with him, it's gonna
be a level of cleverness and real and you know, intentional.
(27:08):
He know what he's doing. He can do what he wanted,
you know, he do what he wants to do. Once
he analyzed what era w in, that's all we have
to think about, is what era is this? It's not
our old days. It's knew whether they doing that, what
is the feel? He analyzed it like that, and he
used to come up with the arranger whatever the kids,
(27:28):
and we would relate to kids. I think I said
that before. I always try to relate to nine, ten, eleven,
and twelve. Then the ones you got bubble gum, they
get on your nerve everything they think about. But if
you notice, that's the music that always comes back, the
music that gets on your nerve that you know, how
could they get away with this? That's the way it was.
(27:49):
When we came out with powerful, powerful, power, powerful, What
the hell are y'all talking about? That was due same
thing come along, you know, kids, take get back to
elementary and it meant to get on your nerve, to
get your os out of the way. But if you
pay attention to him, how danced with you? As I can,
(28:12):
but otherwise I'm gonna recognize it and try to hang
at least paying attention to what they do. I can
spot a young artist even knowing anything about it. I
would have bet my life on let's say, Rihanna.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
With S O S.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
Cardi B as soon as I heard her. There's certain
type of styles that's meant to provoke him. But certain
people have an artistic thing about it. Certain people can
take like Frank Zapfler, he could do he could go
all the way out with but he was intelligent as
hell with what he was doing. And he wasn't even
(28:50):
doing drugs. That's that's really out there.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Was that always your theory because a lot of I'll
say that, a lot of the themes of your initial
wave of Funkadelic a p funk word ice yeah, laced
in the nursery rhymes and limericks. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
And me and Bernie Bernie myself only throw the cartoons
was you know, cartoon used classical music, Okay, you know,
so Bernie could play anything he wanted to play in them,
and at the height of it, how intense and intellectual
would get, he could still play Mary have a little
lamb in there.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
He didn't that.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
That's how comfortable he was, you know, and the jazz
thing he had his time was impeccable. He was just
free to do what he wanted to do. And at
the same time we had Eddie Hazel and Billy Bass
who was probably the Funkys Roys kids, and then Gary
Side later on. They even church kids. They all went
the church together, you know, Glenn going. The whole neighborhood
(29:59):
was and they was on fourteen and fifteen when I
met him, I had a barbers shop. They hung out
and bought Billy his first guitar. Eddie is Eddie had
the guitar, but I both Billy his person. Okay, really,
so you brought Eddie Hazel his first guitar, not Eddie's first.
Eddie had one the Big Gipson had the Big Gibson,
(30:20):
but he was like fifteen years old. I bought him
his first rock and roll and he played the Big Gibson.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
For a long time really, but when he.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Got to the studio, you know, yeah, I had to
get him all because we didn't know we we played
with the Vanilla Fudge and they had the Damps and
they let us choose that ship and we heard what
we sounded like. We went back to Mannies in New
York and bought everything that We spent all the money
we had and got the loudest We was the loudest
(30:51):
member of the band in all of the East Coast.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
I mean we Oh, I was I wanted to ask
you had mentioned him in passing Glenn Goings. He was
like my favorite singer out of the coming amazing and
he died so young.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
What was his story kind of what was his deal?
Speaker 6 (31:10):
Him and Gary shot all like I said, they all
went to church together. He was a ram Salent freak.
Really yeah, oh man, that was him and him and uh,
what's the d J Rogers. They saw the background, they
saw the background for Bobby woo mack okay, and they
(31:32):
were showing out so much in the background. Bobby said,
this is the Bobby, this is the Bobby show. This
is not y'all show. He fired both of them. That's
when good, That's when Glenn came with us. You know,
Gary them said, you know he was singing the background
with you know, Bobby wo mack. He said, but he
(31:54):
goes he ain't got no job. And Gary and Eddie
and now Edie can sing his ass of him. Any say,
somebody can say, you really want to hear what they
sound like? Yeah? That dreaming right, yeah, dream it's up
(32:14):
from the down stroke. It's a lot of stuff with
you hear Old Lord, Why Lord, Old Lord. I'm sorry
to take that back father, opened our eyes.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, that's some singing backwards. Okay, that's that he's saying.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
No, you can you can hear forward too, yeah for yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So that okay, because well I know that that's open
our eyes backwards.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
On like you like, yeah, but have you heard it forward? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, I've heard the four person yes.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah, so that that group used to practice in my
bomber shop. That nade the gospel clubs, they're from Newark.
They used to practice in the barbershop. And so that's
why we was parted. We was partialshped to that song,
you know, uh from the gospel clefts they was they
was a mel and any just you know, we would
(33:10):
jump from gospel to jet you know anything. That's what
we did when we did free your mind, your ass
will follow. We were never gonna get caught in the
position of having to follow up. I want to testify,
you know. Forty five trying to get another forty five.
We went so far out because I mean remembering that
we was at Motown and that during that time we
(33:32):
know how to make a straight record. They a clean record,
and we knew what was we intentionally you know, got wrecked,
got tripped out and just free your mind. Your ass
will follow, you know, we just we You know you
got Martha the van Bella singing in the background, or
you know she wanted to what Yeah, yeah, I mean
(33:56):
we was. I'm telling you we had all of them,
was doing had didn't uh what's his name? Did his coffee?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Did his coffee scorpio? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Yeah, he played on I Gotta I Got a thing, Yeah,
I got a thing. He put on quite a few
of the songs, you know, Dennis Coffee. Really the engineers
didn't want to have his name put on the on
the record of Maggie Brain because we you know, I
was doing so much feedback and circling, you know, sound
(34:27):
on sound, and I ain't know what I ain't know
what I was doing. I was just doing what sounding
named Jimmy Hendrix, you know, And as long as I
keep it out of keeping out of the red, you know,
I was cool. And so I did. I did an
engineer when when he put his name on the record,
and years later like you.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Were engineer's nightmare even back then.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
Like oh hell yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Really. They were dressing up in those lap coats and
still trying to maintain levels and all those things.
Speaker 6 (35:00):
Oh they're trying to be you know, keep it normal.
But I mean, all we have to flashlight. I told
him when we did the handclaps on flash light, I
wanted they had to be so loud that if you
ran your hand across the CD, you feel the bumping it.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
This is yo, this bro, you let them talk.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is sixty years of music. Bro, Like we're not
gonna get it. This rapid fire like.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Just those other kind of those are the kind of
things that we you know. The baseline, Bernie was imitating
Larry Graham on a move. Yeah you hadn't heard no
moves do nothing but make sound effects. You're going to
make sound effects, but you didn't Nobody actually play the
bass line like a baby. Bernie had so much interpretation
(35:52):
of the mini move and the pro solos. He could
imitate anything he could. Joy was up there and they
programmed it and write it out and he'd be turning
off while Bernie's playing. And he can play like a
bass player, like on Flashlight. And we made Bernie the
lead instrument. The bass is the lead instrument on flash
(36:14):
Light in the hand class back up.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And that's just like you Bernie and.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
His brother.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Whis He told me that he's playing drums on Flashlight?
Is that true?
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Yeah? He played drums on Flashlight?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Wow?
Speaker 6 (36:32):
Wow, he played drums on quite a few, you know.
And our our bass player, Boogie played drums on quite
a few of his balance you know the song yeah.
And Gary Cooper, Gary Cooper, he played yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Okay, well boy, you brought up Glenn Goin's earlier. And
there's so many singers in the p funk year that
we can name. But dare I ask you of all
of the singers represented in that army, and that means
Gary down the winds, Davis for your money?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Who is your?
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Who is your? Michael Jordan, who is your? Who is
the singer? And this is everyone singer?
Speaker 6 (37:30):
Wow, that singer. It was gonna it would be Gary
and Juni because of the creativity. Not only did the
you know, the singing voice, they could come up with
parts and JUNI could come up with lyrics parts and
sing it. So, I mean, but then there's a lot
(37:53):
of me you can't take. You with Mayby, I mean,
she's like excellent. When Gary Cooper, you put Gary and Gary,
you get Gary, Peanut and Gary and them three together,
you can do anything. We never got a chance to
(38:15):
We never got a chance to see all what Glynn
was gonna do. He did everything in about two years
that he did with us.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Were you involved in that Quasar album that he did?
Speaker 6 (38:24):
No, that's that's when they that he was he had
three months to live when he got with us. He
was with us three years and then he left and
they did the Quasar album, you know, and then they
think they did Mutiny album. I didn't have anything to
do with either one of those.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
And he died at twenty four. Like to me still,
it's like when I hear when I hear Glenn Gons's voice.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
That's what I'm saying. He had that rants Allen on
him and he had complete controlled over any tone that
come out of his mouth.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Wow, back to my bone. Gary, in my opinion, is
your best animated voice sounding character. How are you able
because you know most music fans don't even know that
(39:27):
Gary is the voice of the group's slide fox Let's
Go all the Way right of which you know that
was a big hit in nineteen eighty five. And he's
singing in his natural voice. But how are you able
to convince your frontline army to adapt to these new voices?
(39:49):
And the same for Bootsy Collins as well, Like, how
are you able to tell them, like adapt your voice
to more of an animated tone, because to me, like
my bone is has one of the greatest animated voices ever.
Speaker 6 (40:05):
Well, when we we was on the roll, when and
when you got momentum going for you, when you're on
the road and you in that zone they call it,
and we had the character of Sir and those we
had the character of mister Wiggers uh cash for the
friendly Ghost. You know, we was into making cartoons, Rhymestone Rockstar,
(40:28):
Monster of a Dour Baby Baba. We was into making
toy music, you know, so it was easy for going
to go into it. Why are you asking that charge?
We had a thing in that zone. We was writing cartoons.
Then that's what motive. Booty Affair is the motion picture underwater,
(40:50):
you know them the rhythm it takes the you know
what saying, oh that's from you know. That's when your
boy Eli, you know, I bid off of that and
when I so DJ was getting ready to be the thing,
and that's when we did Mothership Connection. I was imitating
Frankie Krocker, in In Jocko and all of them. So
(41:13):
I could tell DJ was beginning to be the thing
because they was cutting them off of the radio. They
started to play five songs and no commercials and you
start missing, You start missing that DJ talking dedicated song
to your girl and da da and on that. Uh.
DJ started getting political, especially in Philly Georgie Woods. That
(41:35):
was my boy, you know. So we intentionally played our
own record on our record, w E f U k
we funk Cody freaking habit. For me, that was all
the sit that you're on your favorite DJ. You wasn't
hear it on the radio no more, so, I mean
let me hear it from me. We love dude, funk you.
(41:57):
All of that was our version of DJ. As soon
as we did that, they started having what you call
DJ pools. You started taking your record to the DJ
and they would tell you they record pools. They would
tell you who records should get played, you know, radio was,
and then no sooner than that. Then hip hop came
(42:18):
along the bucket. We just DJ's on record.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
And and that's what it's, that mothership connection. I have
to have to ask. It sounds like you got a
three on it to me, what is what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
You know what that means?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It was cool.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
All all that was was that what we called it,
a trendy chemical substance, whatever it's trending at that time,
the chemical consumption was happening. That's where we were at.
You know. It was just that language that people was
conveying with you. The street talk they do it nowadays
to just seem harsh because their kids they gonna make
(43:04):
it worse than yours. They're gonna do your ass no
matter how bad you did it. They gonna I don't
even say nothing to them, because if you say something
to them, you gonna make him do it work. They
know they got your attention, you know so. But that's
what it was, trending, chemical septance on it. Funk would
take a ten.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
That is is it true that for the for maggot
brain that you told Eddie Hazel to play like his
mom had died.
Speaker 8 (43:32):
I've always heard that story, and he said, fuck you,
and I knew that once I said it, he understood
the intense because it was a regular three quarter blue song.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
Ain't too much. But when you if he played it
psychedelically like he could do it, and with all the
echoplexes we had on it, and he was beginning to
manipulate the echo next, and I was manipulating the echoplex
in the studio on top of his. So it was
just a vibe. He could play all of the blues
and soul like Jimmy was doing all that he wanted,
(44:12):
and all those echoes on top of each other. But
that was some brilliant shit, especially when you took the
instrument other instruments out, take the base and drums out.
You ain't got nothing of the rhythm, guitar and the lead.
You could take up all the space with all those delays,
and it worked pretty real good with it because he
was so soulful. An't even the sound he made was
(44:33):
you felt it.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
You were born in North Carolina.
Speaker 6 (44:37):
Correct in Connapolis, Napolis, right outside of Charlotte, Canapolist.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Oh yeah, I'm from Greensboro, so I know I got a.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Whole bunch of family in Greenboro right now, a whole
bunch of family. I got a whole bunch of family, sisters, nieces, brothers.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
It might be that's home. How did you get from?
Speaker 7 (44:58):
Go ahead, say you're born in North Carolina, But I've
been to Plainfield a lot, and that's all they talk
about is y'all in you.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 7 (45:07):
It's like it's two different towns that got that you
the pride of.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
But I came from North Caroline plumb about ten years old,
to Virginia, Chase City, Virginia. In about ten. I went
to Newark, New Jersey, Okay, And that's where I went
to school that Nork I went to, you know Avon,
that was south side, same school. Shack went to Mars, Okay,
I went there. But I had a barber shop ten
(45:32):
miles outside of New York, which is Plainfield. I never
lived there. I just had the barber shop and shoveled
there every morning on the bus. The surs so funny,
and Plainfield was like suburbia. It was like, you know,
for rich folks, you know, middle class people, and then
they got really funk, got really funky. Hitting the late
(45:54):
sixties in the early seventies, you know, their riots and everything,
but it was some soul for folks there. You know what.
It just hit me.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
I worked with Nona Hendricks on a project a couple
a couple of years. A few decades back. She told
me that you were her original hairdresser.
Speaker 6 (46:14):
Is that undress I did? I did what you mean?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
Said?
Speaker 6 (46:22):
No, no, no, I used to wave here. They used
to have, you know, waves close to the end.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
O used to make the waves, the finger waves.
Speaker 6 (46:31):
Yeah, and she was she's living uh Jillian Trenton. Yeah, yeah,
I did both of them there and that you know,
we we we worked together for years though known. I
didn't know us in parents, you know, years later, just
for you know magazine, you know, PR but there in
(46:52):
Patty Sarah, they were like neighborhood punk and they were
spunking a long time. Eliament started fifty six. I think
they might have started in like fifty nine.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Really, so you.
Speaker 6 (47:07):
Let me ask you something. Yes, was your family Andrew
and the Hearts?
Speaker 4 (47:13):
My father was Lee Andrews.
Speaker 6 (47:14):
Yes, okay, I thought so, yeah, yeah, I'll go that
far back.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
Yeah. When I yeah, when I read that in the book, man,
I was like, Wow, this is my dad would love this,
Like my dad gets mentioned and divided soul in George's book. Well, no,
explain to me, You're like, I know that the Parliament
started off in uh as a do op group, as
typical for the day. Could you just explain like that
(47:40):
that that what that environment was like with trying to
break into do wop? And really I want to I'm obsessed.
I'm obsessed with Ray Davis for me, more than Melvin Franklin,
more than Barry White, more than anyone with a deep voice.
Ray Davis to me is the yeah he was to me,
(48:01):
how did you guys like form?
Speaker 6 (48:03):
Well? Which form? Like you know most kids in grade school?
I had two or three other people in the band
before them, but by the time we got to that lineup,
we went out to Detroit auditioned, didn't make it, but
I ended up writing songs for him. Then I did
a song called I Want to Testify, and I did
that song with Ron Banks from the Dramatics, Wow, Pat
(48:26):
Lewis from the Hot Butter and Soul, myself and the
guy named Eddie from the Holidays. That was the background. Course.
Parliament couldn't make it out to Detroit. We got a
hit record on that song, and that was the beginning.
That record carried us out into the world. I'm want
to test by it. Like I said, Vanilla for Lenister
(48:47):
guitars nams. That changed our life. We became Funkadelic that night.
Were getting tired of with the record companies with the
name Parliament couldn't use the name, so we took our
backup band, which Billy Edding burning them made them Funkadelli.
We became their backup singers and so you see the
(49:08):
five of them on the Funkadelic first Bunkadelic album. But
that that's how I did it with the record company.
And when funk Partmer got his name back, we did
a Parliament album called Osmia with Hollandoja. Holland stayed tied
up there for years and ended up on Castle Blanca
with Neil Bogart.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
How did you How did you meet Neil Boardguard and
how did you stay out of the disco phray because
everything that Neil did was theater and disco. How did
you stay before that?
Speaker 6 (49:41):
Before that, Neil was the king of bubble gum, thember
Neil did. He had Buddha Records. Oh, Wow.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
He had Border.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
Records, and he had Gladys Knight and The Fifty the
Stairs Steps and Curtis Mayfield and all of that. Neil
had that labor first. Then he had Hot Wax with
Hollandojo Holland, which was the Honeycombs. So he wanted us
to be on his label when he had Hot when
(50:11):
they had Hot Wax, you know, Hollandoji Holland. But they
put us on Invictis, so we missed Neil. A couple
of years later, when we got up for Invictis, I
looked Neil up and he had a new labor called
Castle Blanker. He took us and Kiss and Donna at
the same time. Wow, and we all went three different directions,
(50:34):
and he was so hot. They went through the disco thing. No,
I wasn't going. As close as I got to disco
was knee deep. That was my dad rescue dance music
from the blogs. You know, I like, I like disco,
but I didn't want to do the same beat on
every song. He you know, there was a silver Convention.
(50:54):
I was a civil convention free you know, no that
you know, but you can't. You can't do every song
like that. That's what that was my own thing. They
had measured your heartbeat. And when you start fucking with
music like that, no, it gets you know the facts
(51:17):
that shit in you know?
Speaker 4 (51:19):
So is that okay? Because also probably the most notable
thing about your your your concerts versus you're probably the
only act I know that will do a song slower
in concert than you do on the album. The anytime
(51:41):
I've ever seen Doctor Funkenstein performed, and any of those
like those seventies concerts, you guys go half the speed
of that and each song is like fourteen minutes, like longer,
way longer, and way slower?
Speaker 6 (51:57):
Is there? Like where you get we got got that from?
You ever see feel a Cool? Yes? Yes, they used
to do songs all day long for an hour, one
one song and it start on the song to me
in the afternoon and be dust and they be still
playing another version of that same song all kind of
(52:19):
And we used to do that back in the sixty
eight sixty nine when we first started Funkadelic. It was
a groove like a boom boom boom boom boom, and
we vamped that ship forever, and people were so fucked
up that they just we always fucked up. Everybody enjoyed
the groove all, you know, and it took us. We
(52:43):
are reels of the same song. We are reel we got.
They put up another reel and we keep going.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
And you tape them ships together. It's just one long
reel we got.
Speaker 6 (52:57):
You know how they say they have twenty four he
had seventy two tracks?
Speaker 4 (53:03):
Okay, and a man. Now we're doing rapid fire.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, I don't know other way to do this.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
Can you explain how pedro Bell comes into the system?
Speaker 6 (53:22):
And oh, that's good, that's good. When I moved to Toronto,
he's he's a you know, fan, used to write me letters,
you know, a fan, and he would draw on the envelope.
On the envelope, it looked just like the album covers,
the whole cartoon whatever, even they even drawing. He was
(53:42):
drawn on the envelope. The postmaster general. I thought I
was part of some kind of organization and they were
getting upset with me. But you know, was I asking me,
was I part of some And I told him, you know,
blah blah. But then I said, I want this dude
to do the album. Now says if draw that much attention,
and it sounded so clever. He was right out of
(54:05):
high school. I contacted him and he did had him
do Cosmic Slot. Yes. From then on it was like
I would have to tell him the story of what
I'm talking about, and he would give me his interpretation
of whatever that meant to him, and his and his
own weird ass language. He could write. He could write
(54:28):
his ass song, you know. But he did it intentionally
the same way he could draw, draw. He could paint
a picture that looked like a photo. Okay, but he
was he was fed up with that. He didn't like
doing that, so he did his own pagro bell art
and his own payro bell language, and that It was
funny to hear his interpret And I got him when
(54:49):
I did an album called some of My Best Jokes
of Friends Friends.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yes, I did that.
Speaker 6 (54:55):
He did what you talk about? I said, you come
up what you think I think? To think I'm talking about?
That was the funniest one in the bowl because I
didn't give him nothing to go.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
He would do the commentary and and all the the
mythology on it was that you were.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
Me and him. Yeah, tell him what I'm I'm telling
what I'm talking about. But he would interpreted and put
it in his language.
Speaker 4 (55:17):
Speaking of cosmic slop. Okay, the question I always wanted
to know, the first time that I ever heard cosmic
slop was in the most unlikely platform. I first heard
cosmic slop on the Cosby Show. Yeah, of which Robert
(55:41):
and Vanessa I remember that are doing their homework and
I hear cosmic slop and this is you know, it's
so weird because you know, now, Phil, a lot.
Speaker 6 (55:55):
Of music does not get a twist. He definitely was.
He definitely was.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
He yes, he will. That's that's one way we could
describe it. That's one way.
Speaker 4 (56:16):
That was revenge.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yeah, and you know I let it. I didn't know
what it was, but it was. It was during the
era in which like VCRs like at first started infiltrating
everyone's household and you recorded every show on the show,
and so I recorded and watched that episode like forty
two times. So, uh, my history teacher tells me, yeah,
(56:43):
that's from caadelic cosmic slop, And you know, it really
didn't hit me until I started digging in the crates
and then once I heard the lyric output. Of course,
you know, cosmic slaps about a sort of a regretful
mother that's treated.
Speaker 6 (56:59):
Like a jes because she has to turn tricks meet
her kids.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
And I'm like, how did this song wind up on
The Cosby Show? Did you have any warning whatsoever that
they used that song so prominently on that episode?
Speaker 6 (57:13):
No, I was surprised when I heard it too, But
I know he I know, he like Parliament. You know,
he was in Detroit for a while himself with a
record label, so he knew of us and it didn't
surprise me.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (57:27):
Well, speaking of TV, while we're on the TV movie
side House Party, you'll count your uh your cameo housewrights
the DJ?
Speaker 3 (57:35):
How did how that play?
Speaker 6 (57:38):
That was really fun? I still see play out in Tallahasse.
He comes here a lot of fam you but Reggie
husband that was his when he first got out of college. Yes, yeah,
his mother told me he was like that when he
was a kid. So he had posters and stuff. She thought, I,
you know, because that skirt I had on on one
(57:59):
of those boats, she say in the Wig at the
Wig on TV. She didn't know what was gonna happen
to him. And that's the same thing, same thing with Humpty.
He had that same poster. His mother says, she used
to carry it around with him. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (58:20):
Boy, So seeing all those groups that you influenced, man, Like,
what was that like for you? Did you feel like
inspired by? Did you feel like they were copying?
Speaker 6 (58:28):
Like what was your? You know, I love it. You
know that you're gonna feel good as hell, you know.
But it was always always like the one to be
like Motown, you know, all the different artists that was around.
That was family that that was a hell of a place.
We used to just ride by there and watch them
all in the front yard, so many stuffs, And that's
(58:50):
the way we felt, you know, with Boots scene Roger.
A lot of people don't know we did Roger more
about to the Elms, you know, all about making that record,
like how that was Funky Bounce, the song he had
called Punky Bounce. We took the little snippet of the
first part of that song and cut tate. We copied it,
(59:11):
copied it, cut it with a tape, copy, copy, cut it,
and then tape tape and tape it together. Second we
stampled it. They didn't have a sample machine yet, so
we just know just loop, just cut that loop piece
until we got like ten seconds or something like that,
and then we looped around a pencil round the head
(59:32):
of the two track machine and just let it loop
around it and until we got ten minutes of it.
The ten minutes and then put that on two on
the twenty four track and back and then called Roger
back and he hated it. He hated Oh, he hated it.
But that was the deal. We gave him the deal. Yeah,
(59:56):
that's why we got him this deal that it wasn't
We had to use that as the name because that's
his younger brother. I told him, make up another He
didn't want it to be Roger. Make up another name.
You know, there's some money for you this. We was waiting.
His record was gonna be on Uncle Jam. Remember Yeah,
(01:00:18):
his record was gonna be on that. So we made
that just in the meantime so you can get some money.
We put it out in the record hit so Big,
They had to become zap and he hated it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Circle back to you. After that, After hit what was
he was?
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
They ended up leaving.
Speaker 6 (01:00:37):
They were they were, they were so big, they were
so big. And then then we then they put out
I did grape Vine, You did that the grape Vine,
More Bounce, and there's one more Uh only have eyes
for you? Yeah, I just I just started him to
(01:00:58):
doing it. I didn't finish with him. But and there's
one that Wilson picking up again with thing great by
midnight hours and I said, those songs you can always
do and and get you know, get on the radio
back at that time and end up doing them all
and they worked pretty good for him.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Did you work on the Roger solo album as well?
Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Or just the first album that was that was that
was the album that was supposed to have been on
Uncle Jam. That was Uncle Jam's album.
Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
We paid so doing Roger do it? All that stuff is?
Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
All that stuff was done from Uncle Jam.
Speaker 7 (01:01:35):
Wait, hold up, As you can see, we are just
scratching the surface when it comes to the legendary and
iconic George Clinton.
Speaker 6 (01:01:43):
So I'll tell you what we're gonna do.
Speaker 7 (01:01:45):
We're gonna split this thing into coming up next Wednesday,
Part two of George Clinton. And if you think you
found out something this episode, wait until episode two. Yeah,
Part two of our sit down with George Clinton. Quest
Loves of Heart Radio and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
What's Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey all, It's on pay Bill from Team Supreme. For
this classic episode of Questlove Supreme, we are speaking with
the incredible, the Only George Cliffe Parliament Funkadelic Part one,
George updates QLs and something's going on with his music
while taking a look back at an incredible sixty five
year career. This was taped in mid twenty twenty during
those early days of the pandemic, so Team Supreme was
still learning to get along virtue. But the quality of
(00:27):
the conversation is amazing. I love this one.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I hope you enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
The Ladies and gentlemen Funk upon a Time and a
galaxy far away and the land of cheese steak Utopia. Well, well,
(00:53):
the five year old April head boy with dreams, aspirations
and power hour of creative abundance, and he wished upon
a star one day that this young and would utilize
his talents so that one day he could bug and
pester from the Jesus out of his musical idols who
(01:15):
raised him. And this is that moment. Ladies and gentlemen,
you know the show, and you know the crew. You
know Fonte. You know six Steve unpaid, Bill Laya. Let
us get into it. This is the moment I've been
waiting for all my life, my first real conversation with
(01:35):
God himself.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
George Ship, Yes, yes, all of that, uh North Carolina building.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
How that sounds like some ship I wanted to say
to Smokey Robinson and I was growing up. Man.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Now you know, I know, man, this is This is
a rare moment where you know, I have access to
somebody that has had major input on my all of
our creative juices, I mean all of us are everybody?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We all your sons?
Speaker 6 (02:17):
Yea illegitimate?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
All right. I'll try not to make it this like
it's your eulogy, but you know this is definitely Where
are you right now?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
I'm at home. I'm in Tall, Florida. I'm sitting back
and kicking it, and I'm been painting and shit, I've
been chilling. This has been the RESTful part of my life.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Really good.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
I ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Stay in that bubble wrap.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
No, I'm cool.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Is this the first real rest that you you've gotten?
Speaker 6 (02:52):
You know, since I was a teenager. I put it
like that, We've been on the road since we was
twenty two when Testifact came out, right, Okay, I had
never left the road since then. We lived on the
road and moved to city to city and you know,
raised kids, get married, moved country and c you know.
(03:12):
But this is probably the longest that we've been down
and not doing anything.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
And you're not at all, are you?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Oh? Hell no, because I had to do it this time.
So I take it like, I don't stress myself. If
I can't do nothing about it, I do the best
I can and funk it. You know. I have a
good excuse to paint, and we make music now. I mean,
we were sending ship back and forth on nineteen studio
only about five miles from here. But I send this
(03:43):
ship down there in back. I don't even chance that ship.
But I don't know. I'm I have I go fishing.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I know you're big on fishing. Like,
are you doing a lot of that now?
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Oh? Oh hell yeah, that's the only I sneak to
the boat, get on the boat, we mask up. But
I do a lot of that. Okay, I've been I've
been chilling for real, just and you know, luckily been
chilling that you know, ready for it this time, right,
because we got a lot of ship that's getting ready
to come out when this thing is go down. We
(04:18):
was working on some bad ship, you know, with the
group the kids, they was killing them. We was getting
ready to do some hell of ship. But it's good
because it gave us a chance to sit down and
get it together and do it properly.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
That's good.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
At the same time, you know, I just got a
lot of my catalog back, you know, yes, oh yeah,
I got it back. Now I'm going getting ready to
go through some things that publicize it. You're gonna see it.
Ben Crump is my lawyer, you know, civil rights part
(04:50):
of it.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Right right? What would this mean for funketeers everywhere? Like,
are we all?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
I'm a matter of fact, I want everybody that has
worked with us that that's gotta be got a beef,
you know, the contact Sheila Jackson, Lee, we all we're
all doing together. She wants me to get all the
people that has a beef together so we can make
a one proper announcement. All those people get their copyrights back.
(05:23):
They can get them back right now. They you know,
recapture their copyrights. Said although this is this I'm telling
this is the civil rights. This is gonna be a
civil right. Yeah, like I said, yeah, how long is this? Well,
I've been I've been in the battle almost thirty years,
but I've been, you know, fighting to get it to
(05:44):
that level of you know, get it to where the Congress.
I was with John Kanye's he took it up for
a long time. You know, we couldn't get up the past.
But now every you know, it's the copyright capture thing
is over now. So I got a lot of min
in on time, and a lot of other people got
theirs in. They just don't know it, and they're not
(06:05):
telling and they're not telling them that they got it.
They trying to make them think that they have to
fight it something they don't have to fight. It's theirs now.
So we're gonna make a big announcement, especially everybody with us,
but not only us, a lot of people that work
with us, even the people that sample the music. They've
been in long enough now for some of their rights
to be coming back to them. Yeah, you know, Prince
(06:28):
Prince got his back, you know. So it's that it's
that time and this generational wealth. It's what it's about
you can't you can't pass it onto your airs if
they tie you up, which is what they're trying to do, right,
you know, trying to make it. There's a whole new
law thing going on that you know, you they tell
(06:48):
you just how they do it. And we got the help.
We got the writer report, the Child Jackson need to
explain all those things that needed done. So if you
know anybody that's stuff that's that's having a problem with
the copyright recapture, yeah, they should definitely get in touch
with Ben Crump and Child jacksually or myself.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Wow, So does this mean that for the first time
your post seventy six funk a deck delic catalog will
finally see the light of day, Like Yeah, Nomina One,
Nation on the Groove or Uncle Jim or Hardcore Jolly.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
I got that album that masterback, Kneed Deep, I got
those back. I own those two. I was I was
hesitant to put them out till I got them all
off the market people that was putting them out illegally.
I had to clean it up first, So I got
I owned those been on those for a long time,
but lawyers was keeping me from getting to them. You know,
(07:49):
but I got those and especially need to be in
one nation. That's why you hear so much about Antomic Dog,
even your capital stuff. I got Atomic Dog, the computer game.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
So loop Zilla all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
Yeah, so now we put all of them in. And
that's what we're making sure that that whole catalog recapture
thing is. You know, it's it's true for Elvin's president
and his family. It's true for John Lennon and his family,
So it need to be true for everybody that that
don't got nothing to do with race.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So what does this also mean for the westbound catalog?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Same thing?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, same thing. So is armand but lady and is
he still alive? Is he still alive?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
He's still alive. He's still alive, and and all that.
That's all that's from a big issue. It's gonna be
a big issue because it's you read the book, the
book I put out, You read the Jane Peters thing
in the back.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
That's you got to explain to the audience. Yeah, and
that's the thing recapture.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So I want to treat.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I'm gonna try to not ask such a your questions
because this is not just might be a book. So
I might have to break it down. Can you explain
to them the situation right now? I'm so elated that
that you own this stuff now, I know you've been
trying for the long.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Yeah, I had the book, the brother's video, like George,
ain't that phone count hard on? You know? That came
out and it was out for a while, and they
took me to court on that book. So I'm still
in court five years later for the book. Yeah, I
mean the thing was to kill that information, to kill
(09:35):
the information in that book. They said that the deformation
of the farm because I told everything that was he already
said himself, you know, in deposition. But yeah, they got
me in court right now. The main thing is to
keep it slowed down to where I can make no moves.
You know. Long. I've been in court for the last
(09:56):
fifteen years with my lawyers and and him and Armor
and the major record companies. So all of that's coming
to a head now because they're gonna investigate the whole
copyright recapture. We got our back, but we need everybody
to get out of the way to let us make
those collections because it's still hard to collect from the
(10:17):
different societies. If you know, if you ain't got your
powerful set of people behind you and lawyers. You know,
that's pretty hard for them because they got to be
in business. They got business with the companies, so they
mess up their business trying to protect you, especially a
catalog as big as ours. There's a lot nobody don't
nobody want to get at us. But they've been stealing
(10:40):
with that, you know, But they'll go down fighting. That's
a lot of you're talking about a lot of years,
a lot of careers of people that sample those songs,
use those songs, license those songs that we never not
only myself, but none of the band members. You hear
them all something. No, they didn't get money. I agree
(11:00):
with them, they didn't get it.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So I'm sorry, just for claborication.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
You're saying that you guys never received anything from any
of these songs until.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
No, No, I ain't gonna say never receive anything. I'm
talking about that sampling and that license, and no we don't.
We're not. We don't be participating in that at all.
You know, we got Atomic Dog recently in that three years. Okay,
but no, no, the money. Even since I got it,
(11:30):
I've been fighting my own lawyers to get the money
that's owed to me for it. The main thing was
to get it out of my possession right and you know,
and they did that for a long while. But I
thought it, I got it. I got it back, paid
four million dollars to my own lawyer. You know, take that,
(11:50):
pay got it back.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Just to clarify it, what I was going to say
is probably the most endearing thing about your personality is
the fact and your business acumen was the fact that
you were so open to working with rappers because unlike
your counterpart, and I use this word lightly, of course,
(12:17):
you know, people consider the pillars of soul music and funk,
you and James Brown. James Brown's attitude towards it was well,
I hate samplers, sampling, you know, rapper sampling my music
and all that stuff, but really not seeing that that's
going to just bring it back and make it. And
you called it early in an interview, like even in
(12:37):
the mid eighties that no, I like, they asked you, like,
what do you think about you know, day lost soul
taking you know, needy for me myself and I and
you were so open to it. You're like, that's great
because what it will do is it will lead a
whole flock of people to my music and to my
concerts and whatnot, Like you saw the vision of it.
So it's not that you're anti sampling and reached structuring
(13:00):
the music, but the fact.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
That pave me my money.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, so many people have.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
To you know, right part of it, the sampling part
of it, I welcome. I welcomed the sampling part of it.
You know, they got them too. Most of them didn't
get paid either.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I've gotten bit by armored a few times almost.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
And we never got anything that and he was doing
that on behind of us. He's supposedly we never got
any of it, got any of it. So now that's
what's happening. And now that's getting meant to be open
up and everybody will be able to see that nobody
in the band got their money or the other artists
(13:47):
that had you know, all the companies band together on
those sampling because nobody wanted to acknowledge it. So now
it's going to come out because we didn't fade the wait,
we didn't die all. We're supposed to be out of
here by now. But we said one nation and the group.
We meant that we uncle Jim's Army. We was on
the March then, and the clones with the sampling, to
(14:07):
me was just the clones. You have to have DNA
clones to make something new. That's what making the music.
When we said clones of Dr Funkenstein, we meant that
that far back we knew it wasn't gonna be music
on television. How they sell those k tail packages that
you didn't have to worry about that, no more, nobody
got paid for that. The new thing was gonna be samples.
(14:30):
And they didn't know how far they were gonna get
away with it. Not the artists that do. A Kid's
gonna make music whatever way they can, whatever new way
they have to, they gonna make music. And I'm welcome that.
I just have to learn how to participate, how to
hang in there. But the business people around that used
us against each other. You know that he don't want
you to sample it, he charging you. Most artists wouldn't
(14:53):
even talk to me. They were scared to talk to
me because they thought I was mad about the samples.
They told them, you know, and and I'm assuming you
so everybody knew that. But like I said, it's coming
out now, and yeah, and they sued me for the book.
In the book, you know, I'm the last one in
(15:15):
five years. Everybody else they got sued with me got off,
and I'm still there, you know, hoping I would go away.
That's what I did, Shake Shake the Gate and Medicaid
Fraud Dog. I did those two albums just to reignite
my energy, you know, to start to get the kids
going and the and that's how I inspired I was.
(15:38):
Once I got the book out, I'm ready to make
brand new music with whatever we're going from here. This
is a new generation.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know. I'm glad you mentioned that. Normally I start
from the beginning, but I think for this particular one,
I kind of wanted to start go backwards. Definitely, the
Medicaid Fraud Dog project. Can you, for one, what is
your obsession or what is the the ideology behind dogs
(16:09):
in the metaphor your metaphors for everything. But because that
album in particular is such a clever outlet, like political
commentary but using dogs as your main characters, what what
was the genesis of that album?
Speaker 6 (16:28):
I did called Dope Dogs right, Yes, indeed, okay, Dope Dogs.
I have a whole story for that that I wanted
to do cartoons, animation and everything, but I never would
give it to anybody because I have all the characters,
and so I tried to do as many you know,
dog related songs just to keep that concept alive. So
(16:49):
I use it in Medicaid Fraud dog because it was
based on laboratory studies on dogs, when they used to
do studies on dogs for perfumes and ship like that.
That member, that's when the dope dogs come from. Not
only the drug dogs, but this time the dogs were
sniffing out the political bullshit in the in the Obamacare,
(17:12):
you know, all the different names they want to call it.
On the political drug scene, everything is about dope. Everything's
about drugs. The whole world is talking about how they're
gonna get their medicaid, okay, and so that whole thing.
The dogs are sniffing out that information, and most of
us are being hooked on stuff on medicine and create
(17:33):
new diseases with the drugs they give us. They given
the certain drugs and those drugs to give you side effects,
which to be a whole new flock of patience. Okay,
now they do. That's what I'm saying, And it's designer,
designer side effects, like designer drugs. That's the era we
(17:54):
live in now, where we evolve into some you know,
between robots, androids, human and that shit's gonna be a
blurred line in a minute, you know, it's you know
and wait, So the dog is take a dog to
sniff that out. The instincts of a dog is primal.
You know, whether this maiden or whether it's sniffing out
(18:16):
whatever you're training to sniff out, learn it. And if
he's sniffing out the drugs, you get high from sniffing
on drugs. So the dog's gonna have it, so they
have to. You know, the dogs are doped up. So
these are the dogs, the characters. I got this dope dog.
They all got their own relationship to drugs, whether it's
(18:39):
a police dog or whether it's a dope dealer who
like to make their dogs fight. And the dog and
the dogs are like, shit, you don't you used to
give me a reward, you know, used to give me
a joy, true sniff a treat. You know, that's how
they how they train the dogs so that they don't
even want to get a dog no treat. You know,
(19:00):
these dogs get together and they got their own like
you know, remember the Ninja Turtles. These dogs are like that,
you know, kind of like who Tang clan, you know.
And they they got a thing on drugs. They don't,
you know, they impartial to the political book, you know, discrepancy.
(19:22):
They just deal with drugs. So that's my part, My
partiality to sucking with dogs and drugs.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Makes sense.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Now we can't hear the news.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
You know, got more dogs for us.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
I got one that's coming I got one that's coming out.
That's that's gonna hurt you. Oh man, oh yeah, who dogs?
You know it's gonna be they're gonna be stepping on it.
You know how they be doing dancing to Atomic Dog. Yeah,
they're gonna stop. They're gonna stepping on this. They're gonna
be stepping up. They're gonna be stepping up this and there.
(20:00):
I dare your booty not to move your but your butt,
your butt to betray you.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I when that happened, I love it, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
From when she shaked by itself and you ain't got
nothing in voluntary?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, can How long did it take to make the
Medicaid Fraud Dog album? You know I I thirty eight
years but since the last Parliament record, but.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Well between that would shake the gate and that it
took about three years, you know. But I had a
couple of songs that I was hold on to the
I've done maybe five or six years ago. Then I
just kept them, kept them until I got them right.
I did them a thousand different ways, but medicaid fraud.
When I got the concept together, I got Fred Wesley
(20:55):
down there, I got you know, Chris Days. You know,
I knew the people that I needed for that outside
flavor to what we were doing now. And we were
sampling our own self, but now we're learned. Everybody else
was sampling, and then everybody got scared to sample anymore,
so we started sampling that self.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You're I think you're your best sample source.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
So that's only right, but you know, it's still is
it's an art form to picking that shit out.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
How many reels do you reckon of just unused source
material do you have?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
And can we have them?
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
Because for me, for me.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Like my all time favorite p funk song is new Spaceship,
a song which musically is created twenty years before you
even completed it in ninety seven, So how many other
like uncooked is do you have just sitting in the
vault that could come out today and still work. Have
(22:05):
you heard?
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Have you heard the sample some of this and sampled
some of that? All right?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I have a slight confessional, yes, so check this out.
I purchased sample some of this, sample some of that.
Never opened it because I think in my mind, I
always thought, well, this probably throwaway stuff. And you know,
I'm sure that all the prime P funk stuff is
on actual P funk records. And so it wasn't until
(22:33):
I talked to DJ Premiere. This is about four or
five years ago, and I asked him a question about
a sample. It was a NA sample and he says, oh, yeah,
these drums I got because my favorite premiere sounding drums.
I asked like, where do you get these drums from?
And he said, the George Clinton sampled some of this,
(22:54):
some of that PET like, so NAS's represent drums come
from that practice. All of the Hard to Earn album,
the drums come from that. Some of Jaybrew's second album,
The Wrath of the Math mind Blown. And then when
I went to it, I wanted to kick myself because
like it took me fifteen sixteen years to open up
(23:18):
this record. If I just had the patience and just
sat down and listened to it, I could have been
ahead of the game.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
But you know, Eric Sermon used to use it of
that too. Yes, I gave I gave. I gave him
a copy of it down at Gallous Austin studio, and
most people, like you said you said, they didn't open
because people like, if you give it to them, then
it's not interesting that they could find it. So it
took a lot of people a long time to even
(23:48):
look at it because we were saying here, Now, what
I was saying about that album is that most of
where those samples came from, we have the whole tracks
to those songs. Those are songs came out in the
Family Series, but a lot of the them came out
at all. So those that's what A lot of those
samples came from. The songs that were released, you know,
(24:11):
except for maybe some of the film was in the
Family Series, which a lot of people don't know about
those Easterns.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Well, I was gonna say, even with the Family Series. Okay,
so there are some captain obvious questions. I'm gonna ask
you the Junior Marrison song on that family series Super Spirit,
Super Spirit. I think that's the most eccentric creative moment,
and in a life that was always eccentric. Can you
(24:40):
talk about Juni Morrison and how like, what's his what's
the process of his creativity? At least how did you?
My god, how did you utilize it?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Me and him, we did like person myself, I do
my part and do you you do your party and
say it back. We didn't question the Whatever I did
was lokay. Whatever he did, I knew. I just had
to figure out what my part was, and that's to me.
We started to do and it's a song on that
Famihi's called Tryune Yes. Yeah, that's when we actually was
(25:16):
getting ready to actually come up with a concept. He
thought I was weird and I thought he was weird.
So we got along really good on the weirdness part
of it. And we couldn't get quite together, you know,
because of the political stuff that was going on around
us that we had no idea who was actually being orchestrated,
(25:40):
you know, And that's a whole other story that we
could talk about later. But we could never get together
even when we was doing computer games I was, you know,
of course the you know at the time I was
into my drug thing. But I always commnaged to figure
a way the work, to get the work done. But
you can't get the work done and watch people that's
(26:02):
you know, intentionally trying to keep you from getting the
work done. That's a little more than you're bargaining from
what you say. I'm getting sucked up. You don't realize
when you get fucked up, you fuck up everything. You know,
everything around you get fucked up. You know, it takes
you a minute to grow up, if you know, to
get out of that, if you unless you can wigre
(26:22):
your ass out of it. Before the duo, but that's
what the Junie and I had a lot of stuff
we was was gonna do and even like a medicaid fronto.
I had to call him get him out of retirement.
You know, you know he's going trying to do nothing.
He was doing some electronic music, but he wasn't trying
to deal with the business. But I got in the
(26:45):
same thing when we did, when we did the pour
a phone, got got Booty and him the you know
the summer swim, the some some swim song. I know
every time I do a song with him, it's gonna
be a level of cleverness and real and you know, intentional.
(27:08):
He know what he's doing. He can do what he wanted,
you know, he do what he wants to do. Once
he analyzed what era w in, that's all we have
to think about, is what era is this? It's not
our old days. It's knew whether they doing that, what
is the feel? He analyzed it like that, and he
used to come up with the arranger whatever the kids,
(27:28):
and we would relate to kids. I think I said
that before. I always try to relate to nine, ten, eleven,
and twelve. Then the ones you got bubble gum, they
get on your nerve everything they think about. But if
you notice, that's the music that always comes back, the
music that gets on your nerve that you know, how
could they get away with this? That's the way it was.
(27:49):
When we came out with powerful, powerful, power, powerful, What
the hell are y'all talking about? That was due same
thing come along, you know, kids, take get back to
elementary and it meant to get on your nerve, to
get your os out of the way. But if you
pay attention to him, how danced with you? As I can,
(28:12):
but otherwise I'm gonna recognize it and try to hang
at least paying attention to what they do. I can
spot a young artist even knowing anything about it. I
would have bet my life on let's say, Rihanna.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
With S O S.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
Cardi B as soon as I heard her. There's certain
type of styles that's meant to provoke him. But certain
people have an artistic thing about it. Certain people can
take like Frank Zapfler, he could do he could go
all the way out with but he was intelligent as
hell with what he was doing. And he wasn't even
(28:50):
doing drugs. That's that's really out there.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Was that always your theory because a lot of I'll
say that, a lot of the themes of your initial
wave of Funkadelic a p funk word ice yeah, laced
in the nursery rhymes and limericks. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
And me and Bernie Bernie myself only throw the cartoons
was you know, cartoon used classical music, Okay, you know,
so Bernie could play anything he wanted to play in them,
and at the height of it, how intense and intellectual
would get, he could still play Mary have a little
lamb in there.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
He didn't that.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
That's how comfortable he was, you know, and the jazz
thing he had his time was impeccable. He was just
free to do what he wanted to do. And at
the same time we had Eddie Hazel and Billy Bass
who was probably the Funkys Roys kids, and then Gary
Side later on. They even church kids. They all went
the church together, you know, Glenn going. The whole neighborhood
(29:59):
was and they was on fourteen and fifteen when I
met him, I had a barbers shop. They hung out
and bought Billy his first guitar. Eddie is Eddie had
the guitar, but I both Billy his person. Okay, really,
so you brought Eddie Hazel his first guitar, not Eddie's first.
Eddie had one the Big Gipson had the Big Gibson,
(30:20):
but he was like fifteen years old. I bought him
his first rock and roll and he played the Big Gibson.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
For a long time really, but when he.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Got to the studio, you know, yeah, I had to
get him all because we didn't know we we played
with the Vanilla Fudge and they had the Damps and
they let us choose that ship and we heard what
we sounded like. We went back to Mannies in New
York and bought everything that We spent all the money
we had and got the loudest We was the loudest
(30:51):
member of the band in all of the East Coast.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
I mean we Oh, I was I wanted to ask
you had mentioned him in passing Glenn Goings. He was
like my favorite singer out of the coming amazing and
he died so young.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
What was his story kind of what was his deal?
Speaker 6 (31:10):
Him and Gary shot all like I said, they all
went to church together. He was a ram Salent freak.
Really yeah, oh man, that was him and him and uh,
what's the d J Rogers. They saw the background, they
saw the background for Bobby woo mack okay, and they
(31:32):
were showing out so much in the background. Bobby said,
this is the Bobby, this is the Bobby show. This
is not y'all show. He fired both of them. That's
when good, That's when Glenn came with us. You know,
Gary them said, you know he was singing the background
with you know, Bobby wo mack. He said, but he
(31:54):
goes he ain't got no job. And Gary and Eddie
and now Edie can sing his ass of him. Any say,
somebody can say, you really want to hear what they
sound like? Yeah? That dreaming right, yeah, dream it's up
(32:14):
from the down stroke. It's a lot of stuff with
you hear Old Lord, Why Lord, Old Lord. I'm sorry
to take that back father, opened our eyes.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, that's some singing backwards. Okay, that's that he's saying.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
No, you can you can hear forward too, yeah for yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So that okay, because well I know that that's open
our eyes backwards.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
On like you like, yeah, but have you heard it forward? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, I've heard the four person yes.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah, so that that group used to practice in my
bomber shop. That nade the gospel clubs, they're from Newark.
They used to practice in the barbershop. And so that's
why we was parted. We was partialshped to that song,
you know, uh from the gospel clefts they was they
was a mel and any just you know, we would
(33:10):
jump from gospel to jet you know anything. That's what
we did when we did free your mind, your ass
will follow. We were never gonna get caught in the
position of having to follow up. I want to testify,
you know. Forty five trying to get another forty five.
We went so far out because I mean remembering that
we was at Motown and that during that time we
(33:32):
know how to make a straight record. They a clean record,
and we knew what was we intentionally you know, got wrecked,
got tripped out and just free your mind. Your ass
will follow, you know, we just we You know you
got Martha the van Bella singing in the background, or
you know she wanted to what Yeah, yeah, I mean
(33:56):
we was. I'm telling you we had all of them,
was doing had didn't uh what's his name? Did his coffee?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Did his coffee scorpio? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Yeah, he played on I Gotta I Got a thing, Yeah,
I got a thing. He put on quite a few
of the songs, you know, Dennis Coffee. Really the engineers
didn't want to have his name put on the on
the record of Maggie Brain because we you know, I
was doing so much feedback and circling, you know, sound
(34:27):
on sound, and I ain't know what I ain't know
what I was doing. I was just doing what sounding
named Jimmy Hendrix, you know, And as long as I
keep it out of keeping out of the red, you know,
I was cool. And so I did. I did an
engineer when when he put his name on the record,
and years later like you.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Were engineer's nightmare even back then.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
Like oh hell yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Really. They were dressing up in those lap coats and
still trying to maintain levels and all those things.
Speaker 6 (35:00):
Oh they're trying to be you know, keep it normal.
But I mean, all we have to flashlight. I told
him when we did the handclaps on flash light, I
wanted they had to be so loud that if you
ran your hand across the CD, you feel the bumping it.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
This is yo, this bro, you let them talk.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is sixty years of music. Bro, Like we're not
gonna get it. This rapid fire like.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Just those other kind of those are the kind of
things that we you know. The baseline, Bernie was imitating
Larry Graham on a move. Yeah you hadn't heard no
moves do nothing but make sound effects. You're going to
make sound effects, but you didn't Nobody actually play the
bass line like a baby. Bernie had so much interpretation
(35:52):
of the mini move and the pro solos. He could
imitate anything he could. Joy was up there and they
programmed it and write it out and he'd be turning
off while Bernie's playing. And he can play like a
bass player, like on Flashlight. And we made Bernie the
lead instrument. The bass is the lead instrument on flash
(36:14):
Light in the hand class back up.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And that's just like you Bernie and.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
His brother.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Whis He told me that he's playing drums on Flashlight?
Is that true?
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Yeah? He played drums on Flashlight?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Wow?
Speaker 6 (36:32):
Wow, he played drums on quite a few, you know.
And our our bass player, Boogie played drums on quite
a few of his balance you know the song yeah.
And Gary Cooper, Gary Cooper, he played yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Okay, well boy, you brought up Glenn Goin's earlier. And
there's so many singers in the p funk year that
we can name. But dare I ask you of all
of the singers represented in that army, and that means
Gary down the winds, Davis for your money?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Who is your?
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Who is your? Michael Jordan, who is your? Who is
the singer? And this is everyone singer?
Speaker 6 (37:30):
Wow, that singer. It was gonna it would be Gary
and Juni because of the creativity. Not only did the
you know, the singing voice, they could come up with
parts and JUNI could come up with lyrics parts and
sing it. So, I mean, but then there's a lot
(37:53):
of me you can't take. You with Mayby, I mean,
she's like excellent. When Gary Cooper, you put Gary and Gary,
you get Gary, Peanut and Gary and them three together,
you can do anything. We never got a chance to
(38:15):
We never got a chance to see all what Glynn
was gonna do. He did everything in about two years
that he did with us.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Were you involved in that Quasar album that he did?
Speaker 6 (38:24):
No, that's that's when they that he was he had
three months to live when he got with us. He
was with us three years and then he left and
they did the Quasar album, you know, and then they
think they did Mutiny album. I didn't have anything to
do with either one of those.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
And he died at twenty four. Like to me still,
it's like when I hear when I hear Glenn Gons's voice.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
That's what I'm saying. He had that rants Allen on
him and he had complete controlled over any tone that
come out of his mouth.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Wow, back to my bone. Gary, in my opinion, is
your best animated voice sounding character. How are you able
because you know most music fans don't even know that
(39:27):
Gary is the voice of the group's slide fox Let's
Go all the Way right of which you know that
was a big hit in nineteen eighty five. And he's
singing in his natural voice. But how are you able
to convince your frontline army to adapt to these new voices?
(39:49):
And the same for Bootsy Collins as well, Like, how
are you able to tell them, like adapt your voice
to more of an animated tone, because to me, like
my bone is has one of the greatest animated voices ever.
Speaker 6 (40:05):
Well, when we we was on the roll, when and
when you got momentum going for you, when you're on
the road and you in that zone they call it,
and we had the character of Sir and those we
had the character of mister Wiggers uh cash for the
friendly Ghost. You know, we was into making cartoons, Rhymestone Rockstar,
(40:28):
Monster of a Dour Baby Baba. We was into making
toy music, you know, so it was easy for going
to go into it. Why are you asking that charge?
We had a thing in that zone. We was writing cartoons.
Then that's what motive. Booty Affair is the motion picture underwater,
(40:50):
you know them the rhythm it takes the you know
what saying, oh that's from you know. That's when your
boy Eli, you know, I bid off of that and
when I so DJ was getting ready to be the thing,
and that's when we did Mothership Connection. I was imitating
Frankie Krocker, in In Jocko and all of them. So
(41:13):
I could tell DJ was beginning to be the thing
because they was cutting them off of the radio. They
started to play five songs and no commercials and you
start missing, You start missing that DJ talking dedicated song
to your girl and da da and on that. Uh.
DJ started getting political, especially in Philly Georgie Woods. That
(41:35):
was my boy, you know. So we intentionally played our
own record on our record, w E f U k
we funk Cody freaking habit. For me, that was all
the sit that you're on your favorite DJ. You wasn't
hear it on the radio no more, so, I mean
let me hear it from me. We love dude, funk you.
(41:57):
All of that was our version of DJ. As soon
as we did that, they started having what you call
DJ pools. You started taking your record to the DJ
and they would tell you they record pools. They would
tell you who records should get played, you know, radio was,
and then no sooner than that. Then hip hop came
(42:18):
along the bucket. We just DJ's on record.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
And and that's what it's, that mothership connection. I have
to have to ask. It sounds like you got a
three on it to me, what is what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
You know what that means?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It was cool.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
All all that was was that what we called it,
a trendy chemical substance, whatever it's trending at that time,
the chemical consumption was happening. That's where we were at.
You know. It was just that language that people was
conveying with you. The street talk they do it nowadays
to just seem harsh because their kids they gonna make
(43:04):
it worse than yours. They're gonna do your ass no
matter how bad you did it. They gonna I don't
even say nothing to them, because if you say something
to them, you gonna make him do it work. They
know they got your attention, you know so. But that's
what it was, trending, chemical septance on it. Funk would
take a ten.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
That is is it true that for the for maggot
brain that you told Eddie Hazel to play like his
mom had died.
Speaker 8 (43:32):
I've always heard that story, and he said, fuck you,
and I knew that once I said it, he understood
the intense because it was a regular three quarter blue song.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
Ain't too much. But when you if he played it
psychedelically like he could do it, and with all the
echoplexes we had on it, and he was beginning to
manipulate the echo next, and I was manipulating the echoplex
in the studio on top of his. So it was
just a vibe. He could play all of the blues
and soul like Jimmy was doing all that he wanted,
(44:12):
and all those echoes on top of each other. But
that was some brilliant shit, especially when you took the
instrument other instruments out, take the base and drums out.
You ain't got nothing of the rhythm, guitar and the lead.
You could take up all the space with all those delays,
and it worked pretty real good with it because he
was so soulful. An't even the sound he made was
(44:33):
you felt it.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
You were born in North Carolina.
Speaker 6 (44:37):
Correct in Connapolis, Napolis, right outside of Charlotte, Canapolist.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Oh yeah, I'm from Greensboro, so I know I got a.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Whole bunch of family in Greenboro right now, a whole
bunch of family. I got a whole bunch of family, sisters, nieces, brothers.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
It might be that's home. How did you get from?
Speaker 7 (44:58):
Go ahead, say you're born in North Carolina, But I've
been to Plainfield a lot, and that's all they talk
about is y'all in you.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 7 (45:07):
It's like it's two different towns that got that you
the pride of.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
But I came from North Caroline plumb about ten years old,
to Virginia, Chase City, Virginia. In about ten. I went
to Newark, New Jersey, Okay, And that's where I went
to school that Nork I went to, you know Avon,
that was south side, same school. Shack went to Mars, Okay,
I went there. But I had a barber shop ten
(45:32):
miles outside of New York, which is Plainfield. I never
lived there. I just had the barber shop and shoveled
there every morning on the bus. The surs so funny,
and Plainfield was like suburbia. It was like, you know,
for rich folks, you know, middle class people, and then
they got really funk, got really funky. Hitting the late
(45:54):
sixties in the early seventies, you know, their riots and everything,
but it was some soul for folks there. You know what.
It just hit me.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
I worked with Nona Hendricks on a project a couple
a couple of years. A few decades back. She told
me that you were her original hairdresser.
Speaker 6 (46:14):
Is that undress I did? I did what you mean?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
Said?
Speaker 6 (46:22):
No, no, no, I used to wave here. They used
to have, you know, waves close to the end.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
O used to make the waves, the finger waves.
Speaker 6 (46:31):
Yeah, and she was she's living uh Jillian Trenton. Yeah, yeah,
I did both of them there and that you know,
we we we worked together for years though known. I
didn't know us in parents, you know, years later, just
for you know magazine, you know, PR but there in
(46:52):
Patty Sarah, they were like neighborhood punk and they were
spunking a long time. Eliament started fifty six. I think
they might have started in like fifty nine.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Really, so you.
Speaker 6 (47:07):
Let me ask you something. Yes, was your family Andrew
and the Hearts?
Speaker 4 (47:13):
My father was Lee Andrews.
Speaker 6 (47:14):
Yes, okay, I thought so, yeah, yeah, I'll go that
far back.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
Yeah. When I yeah, when I read that in the book, man,
I was like, Wow, this is my dad would love this,
Like my dad gets mentioned and divided soul in George's book. Well, no,
explain to me, You're like, I know that the Parliament
started off in uh as a do op group, as
typical for the day. Could you just explain like that
(47:40):
that that what that environment was like with trying to
break into do wop? And really I want to I'm obsessed.
I'm obsessed with Ray Davis for me, more than Melvin Franklin,
more than Barry White, more than anyone with a deep voice.
Ray Davis to me is the yeah he was to me,
(48:01):
how did you guys like form?
Speaker 6 (48:03):
Well? Which form? Like you know most kids in grade school?
I had two or three other people in the band
before them, but by the time we got to that lineup,
we went out to Detroit auditioned, didn't make it, but
I ended up writing songs for him. Then I did
a song called I Want to Testify, and I did
that song with Ron Banks from the Dramatics, Wow, Pat
(48:26):
Lewis from the Hot Butter and Soul, myself and the
guy named Eddie from the Holidays. That was the background. Course.
Parliament couldn't make it out to Detroit. We got a
hit record on that song, and that was the beginning.
That record carried us out into the world. I'm want
to test by it. Like I said, Vanilla for Lenister
(48:47):
guitars nams. That changed our life. We became Funkadelic that night.
Were getting tired of with the record companies with the
name Parliament couldn't use the name, so we took our
backup band, which Billy Edding burning them made them Funkadelli.
We became their backup singers and so you see the
(49:08):
five of them on the Funkadelic first Bunkadelic album. But
that that's how I did it with the record company.
And when funk Partmer got his name back, we did
a Parliament album called Osmia with Hollandoja. Holland stayed tied
up there for years and ended up on Castle Blanca
with Neil Bogart.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
How did you How did you meet Neil Boardguard and
how did you stay out of the disco phray because
everything that Neil did was theater and disco. How did
you stay before that?
Speaker 6 (49:41):
Before that, Neil was the king of bubble gum, thember
Neil did. He had Buddha Records. Oh, Wow.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
He had Border.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
Records, and he had Gladys Knight and The Fifty the
Stairs Steps and Curtis Mayfield and all of that. Neil
had that labor first. Then he had Hot Wax with
Hollandojo Holland, which was the Honeycombs. So he wanted us
to be on his label when he had Hot when
(50:11):
they had Hot Wax, you know, Hollandoji Holland. But they
put us on Invictis, so we missed Neil. A couple
of years later, when we got up for Invictis, I
looked Neil up and he had a new labor called
Castle Blanker. He took us and Kiss and Donna at
the same time. Wow, and we all went three different directions,
(50:34):
and he was so hot. They went through the disco thing. No,
I wasn't going. As close as I got to disco
was knee deep. That was my dad rescue dance music
from the blogs. You know, I like, I like disco,
but I didn't want to do the same beat on
every song. He you know, there was a silver Convention.
(50:54):
I was a civil convention free you know, no that
you know, but you can't. You can't do every song
like that. That's what that was my own thing. They
had measured your heartbeat. And when you start fucking with
music like that, no, it gets you know the facts
(51:17):
that shit in you know?
Speaker 4 (51:19):
So is that okay? Because also probably the most notable
thing about your your your concerts versus you're probably the
only act I know that will do a song slower
in concert than you do on the album. The anytime
(51:41):
I've ever seen Doctor Funkenstein performed, and any of those
like those seventies concerts, you guys go half the speed
of that and each song is like fourteen minutes, like longer,
way longer, and way slower?
Speaker 6 (51:57):
Is there? Like where you get we got got that from?
You ever see feel a Cool? Yes? Yes, they used
to do songs all day long for an hour, one
one song and it start on the song to me
in the afternoon and be dust and they be still
playing another version of that same song all kind of
(52:19):
And we used to do that back in the sixty
eight sixty nine when we first started Funkadelic. It was
a groove like a boom boom boom boom boom, and
we vamped that ship forever, and people were so fucked
up that they just we always fucked up. Everybody enjoyed
the groove all, you know, and it took us. We
(52:43):
are reels of the same song. We are reel we got.
They put up another reel and we keep going.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
And you tape them ships together. It's just one long
reel we got.
Speaker 6 (52:57):
You know how they say they have twenty four he
had seventy two tracks?
Speaker 4 (53:03):
Okay, and a man. Now we're doing rapid fire.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, I don't know other way to do this.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
Can you explain how pedro Bell comes into the system?
Speaker 6 (53:22):
And oh, that's good, that's good. When I moved to Toronto,
he's he's a you know, fan, used to write me letters,
you know, a fan, and he would draw on the envelope.
On the envelope, it looked just like the album covers,
the whole cartoon whatever, even they even drawing. He was
(53:42):
drawn on the envelope. The postmaster general. I thought I
was part of some kind of organization and they were
getting upset with me. But you know, was I asking me,
was I part of some And I told him, you know,
blah blah. But then I said, I want this dude
to do the album. Now says if draw that much attention,
and it sounded so clever. He was right out of
(54:05):
high school. I contacted him and he did had him
do Cosmic Slot. Yes. From then on it was like
I would have to tell him the story of what
I'm talking about, and he would give me his interpretation
of whatever that meant to him, and his and his
own weird ass language. He could write. He could write
(54:28):
his ass song, you know. But he did it intentionally
the same way he could draw, draw. He could paint
a picture that looked like a photo. Okay, but he
was he was fed up with that. He didn't like
doing that, so he did his own pagro bell art
and his own payro bell language, and that It was
funny to hear his interpret And I got him when
(54:49):
I did an album called some of My Best Jokes
of Friends Friends.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yes, I did that.
Speaker 6 (54:55):
He did what you talk about? I said, you come
up what you think I think? To think I'm talking about?
That was the funniest one in the bowl because I
didn't give him nothing to go.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
He would do the commentary and and all the the
mythology on it was that you were.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
Me and him. Yeah, tell him what I'm I'm telling
what I'm talking about. But he would interpreted and put
it in his language.
Speaker 4 (55:17):
Speaking of cosmic slop. Okay, the question I always wanted
to know, the first time that I ever heard cosmic
slop was in the most unlikely platform. I first heard
cosmic slop on the Cosby Show. Yeah, of which Robert
(55:41):
and Vanessa I remember that are doing their homework and
I hear cosmic slop and this is you know, it's
so weird because you know, now, Phil, a lot.
Speaker 6 (55:55):
Of music does not get a twist. He definitely was.
He definitely was.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
He yes, he will. That's that's one way we could
describe it. That's one way.
Speaker 4 (56:16):
That was revenge.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yeah, and you know I let it. I didn't know
what it was, but it was. It was during the
era in which like VCRs like at first started infiltrating
everyone's household and you recorded every show on the show,
and so I recorded and watched that episode like forty
two times. So, uh, my history teacher tells me, yeah,
(56:43):
that's from caadelic cosmic slop, And you know, it really
didn't hit me until I started digging in the crates
and then once I heard the lyric output. Of course,
you know, cosmic slaps about a sort of a regretful
mother that's treated.
Speaker 6 (56:59):
Like a jes because she has to turn tricks meet
her kids.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
And I'm like, how did this song wind up on
The Cosby Show? Did you have any warning whatsoever that
they used that song so prominently on that episode?
Speaker 6 (57:13):
No, I was surprised when I heard it too, But
I know he I know, he like Parliament. You know,
he was in Detroit for a while himself with a
record label, so he knew of us and it didn't
surprise me.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (57:27):
Well, speaking of TV, while we're on the TV movie
side House Party, you'll count your uh your cameo housewrights
the DJ?
Speaker 3 (57:35):
How did how that play?
Speaker 6 (57:38):
That was really fun? I still see play out in Tallahasse.
He comes here a lot of fam you but Reggie
husband that was his when he first got out of college. Yes, yeah,
his mother told me he was like that when he
was a kid. So he had posters and stuff. She thought, I,
you know, because that skirt I had on on one
(57:59):
of those boats, she say in the Wig at the
Wig on TV. She didn't know what was gonna happen
to him. And that's the same thing, same thing with Humpty.
He had that same poster. His mother says, she used
to carry it around with him. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (58:20):
Boy, So seeing all those groups that you influenced, man, Like,
what was that like for you? Did you feel like
inspired by? Did you feel like they were copying?
Speaker 6 (58:28):
Like what was your? You know, I love it. You
know that you're gonna feel good as hell, you know.
But it was always always like the one to be
like Motown, you know, all the different artists that was around.
That was family that that was a hell of a place.
We used to just ride by there and watch them
all in the front yard, so many stuffs, And that's
(58:50):
the way we felt, you know, with Boots scene Roger.
A lot of people don't know we did Roger more
about to the Elms, you know, all about making that record,
like how that was Funky Bounce, the song he had
called Punky Bounce. We took the little snippet of the
first part of that song and cut tate. We copied it,
(59:11):
copied it, cut it with a tape, copy, copy, cut it,
and then tape tape and tape it together. Second we
stampled it. They didn't have a sample machine yet, so
we just know just loop, just cut that loop piece
until we got like ten seconds or something like that,
and then we looped around a pencil round the head
(59:32):
of the two track machine and just let it loop
around it and until we got ten minutes of it.
The ten minutes and then put that on two on
the twenty four track and back and then called Roger
back and he hated it. He hated Oh, he hated it.
But that was the deal. We gave him the deal. Yeah,
(59:56):
that's why we got him this deal that it wasn't
We had to use that as the name because that's
his younger brother. I told him, make up another He
didn't want it to be Roger. Make up another name.
You know, there's some money for you this. We was waiting.
His record was gonna be on Uncle Jam. Remember Yeah,
(01:00:18):
his record was gonna be on that. So we made
that just in the meantime so you can get some money.
We put it out in the record hit so Big,
They had to become zap and he hated it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Circle back to you. After that, After hit what was
he was?
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
They ended up leaving.
Speaker 6 (01:00:37):
They were they were, they were so big, they were
so big. And then then we then they put out
I did grape Vine, You did that the grape Vine,
More Bounce, and there's one more Uh only have eyes
for you? Yeah, I just I just started him to
(01:00:58):
doing it. I didn't finish with him. But and there's
one that Wilson picking up again with thing great by
midnight hours and I said, those songs you can always
do and and get you know, get on the radio
back at that time and end up doing them all
and they worked pretty good for him.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Did you work on the Roger solo album as well?
Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Or just the first album that was that was that
was the album that was supposed to have been on
Uncle Jam. That was Uncle Jam's album.
Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
We paid so doing Roger do it? All that stuff is?
Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
All that stuff was done from Uncle Jam.
Speaker 7 (01:01:35):
Wait, hold up, As you can see, we are just
scratching the surface when it comes to the legendary and
iconic George Clinton.
Speaker 6 (01:01:43):
So I'll tell you what we're gonna do.
Speaker 7 (01:01:45):
We're gonna split this thing into coming up next Wednesday,
Part two of George Clinton. And if you think you
found out something this episode, wait until episode two. Yeah,
Part two of our sit down with George Clinton. Quest
Loves of Heart Radio and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
What's Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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