Dr. Funkenstein, PhD
FEATURE: George Clinton takes a victory lap through Boston
By Chris Faraone
Originally published in the Boston Phoenix (February 2012)
We are all George Clinton’s babies. A lot of us are even his grandchildren, from hip-hop heads and hard-rock fans to frat boys and teeny boppers. Bastards of the British invasion are products of the Parliament-Funkadelic maestro and his former bassist Bootsy Collins, who lent a bounce to acts like the Rolling Stones to re-invent themselves in the ‘70s. Hip-hop heads owe an even bigger debt: a great deal of the genre’s defining artists — from the varied likes of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre to De La Soul — built towering careers on rhythms that Clinton first imagined and animated through a number of ace artists over the years.
For people who relish this heritage, visits from Clinton summon family rituals that involve pregnant spliffs, primal dancing, battered eardrums, and sick days. Now that he’s 70, it’s especially important to spend quality time with Poppa Parliament when he’s in town. So when I heard that he’d be blessing Boston for a week — playing a P-Funk show at the Wilbur and picking up an honorary doctorate at Berklee — I made it a priority to soak everything in. Some people regret missing opportunities to pry stories out of their beloved elders. I didn’t want to have to write that lament. Clinton’s been interviewed thousands of times over the past half-century, but he has more tales to tell than most mortals.
The first time I met him, at Crash Mansion in New York City, George was puffing on a joint the size of a toilet-paper tube. I asked one of his handlers if anyone ever asked George to put it out. He looked at me: “Not. Once. Ever.” When I last met him, back in 2009, Clinton broke me off a rare gem about how “Give Up the Funk” was a dis track directed at his stylistic son David Bowie, who he felt had bit the Funkadelic steez. This time, he explained how his legacy is even linked to Jon Bon Jovi: back in the ‘60s, when he needed cash for studio time, Clinton used to labor for the rocker’s dad on the New Jersey waterfront. Imagine that — George used to work on the docks. Like I said, it’s always something with this guy.
GROOVIN’ AT THE WILBUR
I’m not the only P-Funk progeny in line for beer at Clinton’s show at the Wilbur Theatre, where his Boston romp begins. To my front is a lumberjack-looking white guy with an electric red beard who first saw P-Funk at Woodstock ’99 — he drove in from Springfield for tonight’s festivities. Behind me is an older black dude from Providence whose initial mothership sighting was in 1976. He’s seen Clinton 16 times since.
Back inside, the Godfather of Funk is halfway through a 20-minute spin on “Mr. Wiggles.” The crowd is grooving, and an orgy of dancers — one of whom is sliding around on roller skates — deliver the expected eclectic frenetics. The show is wild despite the absence of Garry “Starchild” Shider, the group’s iconic guitar master, who died of cancer two years ago and who used to chase George around in a diaper.
Though the vibe is undoubtedly Parliamentary, there’s something notably different about Clinton, who’s waving his orchestra through long, tantric jams in a crisp white suit and a tilted brown fedora. Among fans, there’s some chatter about his clean appearance until P-Funk muse and hype man Michael Payne explains to the crowd, “Yes — that’s George Clinton, but there will be none of that guy with the rainbow-colored hair tonight.”
THE GUY’S GOT CLASS
Three days after the Wilbur gig, Clinton sits on stage at Berklee College of Music among veteran mothership co-pilots. They’re speaking to students in a black-music class — most of whom seem well-versed in the funk. The school invited the band to drop knowledge all week, but before they celebrate the music itself, questions prompt Clinton to explain his chic new look. He’s decked out in a double-breasted periwinkle number with a patterned tie, matching handkerchief, and a jet black hat.
“Not long ago I dressed up for my granddaughter’s graduation, and I realized that I hadn’t had a suit on in 20 years,” Clinton says. He then shares memories about rehearsing in the Plainfield, New Jersey, barber shop that he owned and operated in the early ‘60s, back when he kept his neighborhood looking fresh. “My job was to make people cool — I used to wear suits every day. I just wanted a switch, so lately I’ve been suited up.”
Few performers flip switches like Clinton. In 1970, he led his first group, the Parliaments, away from safe R&B pastures and into the sonically scrambled Maggot Brain era. From there, he went on to produce a kaleidoscopic catalogue — as well as a colorful cast of characters — that would set the bar for everything unique and cool for decades. A Berklee student asks where he got so much funk: “I was born in an outhouse,” Clinton responds. “That’s the truth — I almost got wiped out.”
Despite aiming “Give Up the Funk” at Bowie, Clinton is unrestrained these days in bestowing begrudging props on British invaders. “They wanted to be funky,” he says about the Beatles and their ilk. “We showed them just how funky we could be. We knew how to be poor. We could do that. That’s when we started taking bedsheets out of the Holiday Inn and wearing them as diapers onstage.”
The impromptu Pampers, Clinton says, originated around the time of his now-legendary set at Boston’s Sugar Shack in 1972. That show remains clear in the memory of John Kellogg, the iconic entertainment attorney who serves as an assistant chair of the music business/management department at Berklee. Introducing Clinton to students on Wednesday, he gushed about his own induction to the P-Funk family. Kellogg booked the band as a student at Syracuse University, and was invited to join the caravan to Boston, where he accompanied Funkadelic to the ’72 Sugar Shack gig.
The Kellogg-hosted event focuses on P-Funk’s business dealings, specifically Clinton’s history of getting screwed out of sample royalties — a byproduct of legal loopholes and the enduring scumbaggery of Rasputin-like record exec Armen Boladian, who years ago secured rights to Clinton’s lucrative publishing through less-than-honest means. Despite that, Kellog explains that a number of Clinton’s hits legally revert to his ownership next year. And Funkadelic made plenty of money over the years — in their commercial prime, they scored the kind of big-budget contracts that evaded most black acts from their era.
“At one point everybody in the band got a vehicle,” Clinton says to the musicians before him. “We had 28 of them, and mine was a spaceship. . . . If I could do it again, I’d do it the same way. As an artist, you’ll do whatever it takes to get famous. Things might happen along the way, but you can always clean that up later. Nothing should stop you from taking that first shot.”
ENCORE
Tonight’s session with the Berklee P-Funk Ensemble — yes, there is such a thing — is the third rehearsal of Clinton’s career, give or take a few that might have slipped his memory. Other than prepping for Lollapalooza — the first time his band ever had to play for a tight hour, as opposed to their usual four-to-seven-hour marathons — Clinton says, “We barely ever rehearsed. I’m like a traffic cop. I just look at the audience and figure out what they want. That’s called funk.”
Clinton corrects the student vocalists on some lyrics from “(Not Just) Knee Deep” — it’s “she turns me on and out,” not “on and on.” But he’s generally hands-off, like in 2006 when he surprised the Berklee ensemble during a rehearsal to offer simple advice: “Even though it’s funky, you still have to pay attention.” Discussing the following night’s encore concert at Berklee Performance Center, he assures that there’s no need to plan exactly when he’ll jump on stage with the ensemble. “Just play the way you want, and I’ll find my way in,” says Clinton. “Don’t let me disrupt you.”
By showtime, all of Berklee is abuzz over P-Funk. Awarding Clinton an honorary doctorate degree, the school’s president, Roger Brown, takes the podium sporting Bootsy shades and a fat prop medallion. The setting is ironic. At the start of his career, Clinton says engineers didn’t want their names on his albums, since the twisted levels were enough to bruise a musician’s resume. Forty years later, one of the most esteemed music schools in the country has made the title Dr. Funkenstein official.
The ensemble jams through a medley of P-Funk staples — “Flashlight,” “Mothership Connection,” “Aqua Boogie” — and Clinton can’t help but come out from backstage for at least a little bit of every song. Wearing a sterling silver suit and pearl white fedora, he plays off of his young singers and commands the horn section through a series of climaxes. By the end, he’s on stage surrounded by students, faculty, and a number of his relatives and band members.
Bowie and Bon Jovi aren’t here, but hundreds of Clinton’s children are in the house, dancing as best we can in the fixed auditorium seats. This is the energy that’s kept the mothership soaring for so long. If the average grandfather feels pride around a few bambinos, then Clinton’s the luckiest man alive, his family tree taking root in all of us. Watching him in so much glory, I sense that the good doctor might actually live forever. As for me — after spending a week with George Clinton, I could go tomorrow for all I care.
