Concertwire.com

George Clinton is the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and is a solo funk artist as of 1981. He has been called one of the most important innovators of funk music, next to James Brown and Sly Stone. Clinton is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Clinton started his career in junior high, founding The Parliaments, a barbershop doo-wop ensemble. Clinton then began experimenting with harmonies, melody and rhythm and taking cues from the psychedelic movement, setting himself apart from the Motown era. By the early 1970s, the group’s tight songs evolved into sprawling jams around the funkiest of rhythms. They dropped the "S" from the band name, and Parliament was born. Around the same time, Clinton spawned Funkadelic, a rock group which fused psychedelic guitar distortion, bizarre sound effects, and cosmological rants with danceable beats and booming bass lines which became the definition of funk. Clinton’s collaborators included master keyboardist Bernie Worrel, guitarist Eddie Hazel, bassist Bootsy Collins, saxophonist Maceo Parker, trombonist Fred Wesley. On stage, spectacle ruled the day, with various shows featuring an enormous mothership, outrageous costumes, and marathon performances.