The Mother Ship Has Landed. George Clinton Live

Musician George Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina on July 22, 1941. His music career began in a barbershop where he created a doo-wop group called The Parliaments. Clinton regularly reorganized musicians in The Parliaments, later known as Funkadelic and then P.Funk All-Stars, to create new sounds. He had a number one hit on his 1983 solo album, Computer Games.

Early Career

Musician. Born July 22, 1941, in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, Clinton began his music career in the 1950's, while working at a barbershop in Newark, New Jersey. He founded a doo-wop singing quintet he called The Parliaments out of the shop's backroom. When Clinton headed to Detroit in the early 1960s to work as a staff songwriter for Motown, the group stayed in New Jersey but continued to work together long distance.

Landing a deal with Revilot Records, The Parliaments turned out their first hit with in 1967 with the single "(I Just Wanna) Testify," which landed at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B charts. The only member of The Parliaments to actually appear on the recording, however, was Clinton; no one else was able to travel to Detroit for the session, so studio musicians filled in.

Parliament and Funkadelic

When Revilot went bankrupt later that year, the group's name became tied up in litigation. In 1968, they renamed themselves Funkadelic, after Clinton's back-up band. In 1972, when Clinton was finally able to get back the Parliament name, the group began using both the Parliament and Funkadelic monikers, but under different record labels. Often referring to himself as "the Referee", Clinton mixed and matched the musicians and singers in his groups, which helped maintain a fresh, innovative sound.