George Clinton, one of the foremost innovators of funk, has had a lot to say about Detroit. Motor City was home to his beloved Motown label.
Clinton is the concept-building brain behind albums like Parliament’s Chocolate City and Mothership Connection and Funkadelic’s America Eats Its Young.
Here are some of the best quotes about Detroit from Dr. Funkenstein himself.
A “dream parade” of stars
The Parliaments (before they rebranded to Parliament), Clinton’s early doo-wop group, headed to Detroit to audition for Motown. They were struck by the array of stars arriving at the Motown headquarters.
Clinton told Vibe that “Detroit was the best place in the world to be. If you were looking for your heroes, they were all within that one block.”
He wrote in his memoir, Brothas Be Yo, Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?, “we saw all the legendary acts coming to the front lawn: the Temptations, the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye. It was a dream parade, but also a nightmare.”
The group’s confidence “evaporated” in the presence of these high-flying Motown acts.
As it turned out, Clinton wrote, “They really liked us,” but The Parliaments sounded too similar to the Contours and the Temptations, and the band’s appearance didn’t match the “visual perfection” that the label were after.
“Instead of one or two hooks, we’d have 10 hooks in the same song.”
Clinton told Rolling Stone in a 1990 interview that he learned one of songwriting’s most important lessons at Motown. He held a staff writing job at the label for a brief period in the ’60s.
That lesson was: write hooks – and lots of them.
“I learned how to write with clichés, puns and hooks,” he says. “So when I got Parliament-Funkadelic, I just went stupid with it. Instead of one or two hooks, we’d have 10 hooks in the same song. And puns that were so stupid that you could take ’em three or four different ways.”
As well as his work with Parliament-Funkadelic, Clinton has had a prolific solo career. ‘Atomic Dog’ is his biggest hit, and it’s chock full of earworm lines. Most obviously, there’s the chorus, which Snoop Dogg (then Snoop Doggy Dog) lifted for his own hit, ‘What’s My Name?’. Then there’s “Bow-wow-wow yippie-yo-yippie-yay”. You can go on – the whole song’s full of hooks that stay with you forever.
The video for ‘Atomic Dog’ exploded on MTV after the channel started airing videos from black musicians. The video is just about the most 1980s thing ever, full of the kind of effects you’d find in a retro After Effects template.
“Tornado-style” riots
In the 1960s, Detroit suffered from racial tension and discrimination, underfunding of public schools, a housing shortage, and a high rate of unemployment.
These factors led to the 1967 Detroit Uprising, and Clinton and the Parliaments played a show in the city without knowing that the riots had started.
“Even during our show,” he wrote, “when people started coming onstage, yelling and flapping their arms, we didn’t think much of it. That kind of thing happened not infrequently at our shows. But outside there were so many people in the street, running around tornado-style like they had been back in New Jersey, that we realized what was happening.”
“Detroit’s just a great place.”
Clinton told this very publication in a 2016 interview, “Detroit's just a great place. It started with the music that I like, but the whole area (is great). I like to go up to Mackinac and fish. I got a lot of reasons to like Detroit, but most of all, the music has always been the greatest part. I've been working with the kids. I know that the music is still there.”
Clinton’s fishing hobby, together with his knack for puns and twisting of clichés, led to the 1978 Parliament album, Motor Booty Affair. The record was full of aquatic lines like “You can tune a piano but you can’t tune-a fish” and “We’ve got to raise Atlantis to the top / With the bump / And the bop”.
“We’re going to keep fighting”
Clinton has an ongoing battle to reclaim the rights of his and fellow Funkadelic musicians’ songs. The battle is what inspired Clinton to write his memoir.
He accuses Michigan music publishing company Bridgeport Music of forging a document to hand over the rights.
Clinton is among the most sampled musicians in history, along with funk originator James Brown and his musicians, such as Clyde Stubblefield, responsible for the famous ‘Funky Drummer’ break.
Hip-hop and a host of other genres owe a debt to countless Parliament, Funkadelic, and George Clinton samples, but Clinton says the musicians have not received their dues.
Clinton told the Detroit Free Press, “There’s so much money in it. We’re going to keep fighting. It’s going to be historical right down to the end.”
