Funkadelic (real name - George Clinton) is a jazz singer. He was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina on July 22, 1941.

As a teenager in Plainfield, New Jersey, Clinton straightened hair working in a local barbershop, where he also founded a vocal group called the Parliaments. They struggled through the ’50s and most of the ’60s, by which time Clinton had moved to Detroit to work as a staff writer for Motown. In 1967 the Parliaments had a major hit with Clinton’s “(I Wanna) Testify” (no 20 pop, no 3 R&B), a straight love song. The Parliaments’ next charted single, “All Your Goodies Are Gone” (no 21 R&B), suggested Clinton’s future direction. Hanging out with Detroit hippies and listening to local hard-rock bands like the MC5 and the Stooges influenced Clinton’s approach to music, and he began to contemplate making a radical change in the Parliaments’ sound.

Early Funkadelic albums built a cult audience. Parliament/Funkadelic concert appearances featured Clinton jumping out of a coffin, musicians running around in diapers, smoking marijuana, and simulating sex acts. On both Parliament and Funkadelic albums, Clinton wrote about the dark realities of funk - which he had elevated to a philosophy - utilizing negative imagery from the Process Church of Final Judgment and clear-eyed wit; he wrote for denizens of “Chocolate City” surrounded by “vanilla suburbs.”

Parliament’s 1974 hit on Casablanca, “Up for the Down Stroke” (no 63 pop, no 10 R&B), introduced Clinton’s concepts to a wider audience and helped Funkadelic get signed to Warner Bros. Parliament’s Mothership Connection and gold single “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker” (no 15 pop, no 5 R&B) made Clinton and company a major concert attraction. From 1976 to 1981, Clinton’s salesmanship and success landed recording contracts for many P-Funk offshoots: Bootsy’s (Collins) Rubber Band, Eddie Hazel, the Horny Horns, Parlet, Bernie Worrell, the Brides of Funkenstein, Phillippe Wynne, Junie Morrison, and Zapp.

In 1983 Clinton began a six-year sabbatical from the pop limelight, during which time his music showed up in rap and hip-hop; “Atomic Dog” became one of the most-requested dance-floor songs. In 1985 he produced the Red Hot Chili Peppers second album, “Freaky Styley”. Clinton returned to music making in 1989 with “The Cinderella Theory”.

In 1993 he and P-Funk performed at President Clinton’s Youth Inaugural Ball. Later that year he released “Hey Man...Smell My Finger”, but the album was not a commercial smash (peaking at no145), it appeared as though Clinton’s career was back on the upswing. In the summer of 1994, he appeared on the Lollapalooza Tour. In 1997 the Parliament/Funkadelic conglomeration was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A follow-up album, “T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership)”, reunited Clinton in the studio with Worrell, Collins, and other original P-Funk sidemen for the first time in more than a decade. The record peaked at no 121 in 1996 and was followed that same year by Greatest Funkin’ Hits (no 138), which gathered modern remixes of his work and included such guests as Coolio, Digital Underground, and Ice Cube. Two years later Clinton returned with a concept album about dogs and the drug war called “Dope Dogs”.

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