George Clinton Believes He And Parliament-Funkadelic Lacked Motown “Charm”
Long before George Clinton became the “Prime Minister Of Funk,” he—like most artists in the late ’50s/early ’60s—had his sights set on Motown. Ahead of his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony, the famed artist opened up about how his audition for the soul music label became his funk origin story. The tale is part of his upcoming episode titled …And Your A** Will Follow from Audible’s Words + Music series and we have the exclusive preview (below).
Clinton, 82, recalled wanting to write songs like his hero, Smokey Robinson. He and his band, The Parliaments, drove from New Jersey out to Detroit for their audition at the esteemed label, with “about six of us in a Bonneville Pontiac.” They arrived early around 6:30 a.m. before the building opened, but once regular business hours hit, Clinton said it was packed.
“It was like being out at your high school, opening day, everybody out on the lawn and you recognizing these people from their stars,” he quipped as he reflected on who he saw. “That’s Stevie Wonder. That’s The Temptations. That’s right when they had their Motown review going around the world. So they all was there early this morning and we looking out the cars like little kids. So that blew our mind.”
Clinton believed, “Detroit was the best place in the world to be. If you were looking for your heroes, they was all within that one block. They was just becoming famous themselves. So we caught them right at that time and after we auditioned, they told us we were all right.”
He and The Parliaments performed one of The Contours’ songs, but the label said they needed to get their own songs. However, it wasn’t just a music issue; Motown also felt that they didn’t fit the Motown “criteria.” Clinton expressed, “We wasn’t six feet [tall]. That was the criteria. The Temptations was all six feet. They was wanting to judge everybody by The Temptations’ standard at that time because they were so cool. We looked like a ladder [noting of their varying heights].”
Clinton knew that he and The Parliaments had that “cool” factor, but according to him, “it just wasn’t that same kind of cool and we didn’t look like we could be what they call ‘charmed-schooled.'”
This led to the formation of Parliament-Funkadelic. “We just got funky to give us excuse to really not be charmful, but to be funny like The Coasters,” Clinton confessed. “We started wearing diapers. Everything that was anti-charm [we did] because we saw it coming. The culture was definitely changing.”
George Clinton will break down his “incongruous path from Motown to the Mothership” on Words + Music on Feb. 2 via Audible. With stories about his days delivering milk to Sarah Vaughan to creating the funky, illustrious catalog we know and love, Clinton’s episode will include live performances of select hits including “Atomic Dog,” “Flashlight,” and “Give Up the Funk.”
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