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Tavis: Beginning in the late '60s, he ushered in a funk revolution, first with his band 'Funkadelic,' and of course later, 'Parliament.' His songs became the soundtrack of the '70s, classics like 'Tear the Roof of the Sucker,' 'Aqua Boogie,' and of course, 'Flashlight.' In 1997, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, much deserved, but he's not done yet. Next week, his latest CD is due in stores. The disc is called, 'How Late do you Have to Be Before You're Absent?' And on October 11th, he and 'P-Funk' and 'The Movement' will be featured on a new Independent Lens documentary right here on PBS.

Tavis: George Clinton.

Clinton: --That make me feel good to see that there.

Tavis: How you living?

Clinton: You remember those days?

Tavis: I remember those days. How you been, man?

Clinton: I'm doing good, man, doing good. Things going my way, we got this new record finished after all these years. First record in ten years.

Tavis: --I'm glad you said that. You started putting records out back in '67, and for...

Clinton: '57.

Tavis: Was it '57?

Clinton: Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah, I said '67, '57. And for a good clip there, for most of those years, you were putting out records sometimes one, two a year. You were hitting a strong, you were clipping pretty hard initially.

Clinton: Sometimes three, yeah.

Tavis: Ten years for this. What happened? You slowed down on me.

Clinton: You got, you know, you have to go to the thing we call planned obsolescence. You gotta take a time off. Kids grow up and they just get tired of you, you know. And they don't want their parents' artists, and they don't want their sisters and brothers' artists, so you have to go...you know, go back for a minute.

Tavis: So you took a time out.

Clinton: Yeah, took a time out. Change your name for a minute. Come back as 'P-Funk Allstars' and then...

Tavis: Make my funk the 'P-Funk.'

Clinton: ...our clones start taking over, you know, the hip-hop. That's, you know, that's, funk is the DNA for hip-hop. Like my man was talking a few minutes ago. Yeah, funk is the DNA for hip-hop. So they kept things intact while we was, I was going fishing and getting in trouble and all that. Now we back.

Tavis: Yeah. Let me ask you, to that point. Maybe you didn't have to take a time out because while you were away for ten years, I...this is my own, I haven't done any independent research on this yet, but I can't imagine that there is any artist who has been more sampled by this hip-hop generation than you.

Clinton: Oh, that was the plan. That was the plan. You know, they get...they could only have little bits of funk. They didn't want to identify it, they didn't want to recognize it. Just enough to, you know, keep them dancing and, (unintelligible) wait a minute, that's the same...'Me, Myself and I', that's the same song. Oh, you know, just kept them on the dance floor. We didn't go nowhere, I went to the bathroom.

Tavis: Yeah. (laughs)

Clinton: And...we put out records here and there. We was on other people's records. Snoop, and Dre, and Ice Cube, and...you know, I'm still under cover, but I'm still around.

Tavis: Yeah. What do you make of the fact that you are the most sampled artist by this generation of hip-hop stars?

Clinton: Well, I made it easy for them. I put out a sample record. As soon as I saw them sampling...

Tavis: You sample the record, I'll make... (laugh)

Clinton: I put out a couple of...records, CDs, move the voices out the way, move the guitars out of the way, and put it out all kind of ways so they could become easy. I realized, any time, I look for music that--parents hate. I look for music that old musicians hate. That's gonna be the next music. So when I saw them put that music out and everybody was talking about oh, that ain't music, I hurried up and jumped on.

Tavis: Yeah. So that's...the benchmark. Whatever everybody, whatever parents hate...

Clinton: And musicians, old musicians hate, that's next.

Tavis: Jump on it.

Clinton: That's, hate is the quickest way to get to the...

Tavis: There you go. If the old musicians and the parents are hating on it, that's it.

Clinton: That's it.

Tavis: I like that.

Clinton: You get down on it. You get down on it. So I just like made it easier, you know, stuck my...kept my nose in everybody's business. You know, I was right there, so I was...a cool dude to everybody.

Tavis: Yeah. Take me back, I want to ask in a second how 'Parliament' and 'Funkadelic,' two bands initially, that became one.

Clinton: Okay.

Tavis: But--before I ask a question about 'Parliament Funkadelic,' I want to ask about the sound. We were talking about people sampling your sound. How did this sound, that may be an impossible question, but how did you create this sound, that is so distinctly yours?

Clinton: Well, it created itself, and not necessarily distinctly mine, it's just that I recognized all other music as I was growing up. From Doo-wop, through Motown, through rock and roll, you know, through the, you know, into the '60s jazz and everything. And I just put them together. Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke's, and Aretha Franklin's, and everybody. Beatles, everything that worked, one thing you learn in Motown, if it worked, there's some part of it that's good, whether you like it or not. So you have to figure out what it is that's good about it, and use it.

So I just put things together. If it's the same personality, that you say, distinctly mine, it's crazy. That's what makes it sound like that's his, 'cause nobody else probably wouldn't do it. We made a record called, 'I Want to Testify' in '66. And when that record, by the time we made that record, we was already old school. I mean, we was, 'Temptation' was out, (unintelligible) and everything, but we both started looking like the 'Ink Spots.' Right about the time we made it.

Tavis: (singing) 'If I didn't...'

Clinton: Yeah, you know what I mean? And we're, you know, we was already, music was changing. We have to try to get to Vegas and, you know, the Copacabana, and so white boys coming over here with jeans on there, holes in the pants, talking about, you know, finger on it and everything. We said, 'Wait a minute. We've been going the wrong direction.' You know what I'm saying. We was trying to get cool and slick, and they was coming, trying to get funky. So I said, 'Okay.' Turn right around in mid stream. (unintelligible) We'll meet you somewhere. But we turn around, and went back to funky, and they saw us do it, and they turned around, too. They got 'Psychedelic Shack' and 'Cloud Nine.' They turned around and came right back right behind us.

But we went all the way crazy. We didn't just like turn around slowly, we turned around and jumped in the garbage can and got sheets, diapers, wigs, anything we could get. We saw, okay, they gonna be, they gonna be funky. They gonna be bums. We know that one, we came from that, we was raised in that. Plus, I had a barbershop, I did people's hair. I knew how to make people cool, so.

Tavis: Now I know some people have a hard time believing, looking at you on this monitor, that you actually started in a barbershop.

Clinton: I know.

Tavis: But that's how you started, doing hair.

Clinton: We made people cool. So we know what cool is. Ugly as hell when this is (unintelligible). What have they done? So that I have no problem with looks. I can change whenever I need to change.

Tavis: How important, though, I mean today, they say image is everything. How...and certainly image is terribly important, but how important was it to your point back then for you all to create this style that was so far out that...

Clinton: It was really important for us, because we was almost too old to do it. We was almost too, we was 23, and it was almost, you know, the kids don't, they ain't looking at you...old, because that. So we had to like get past that point of trying to be sex symbols. We went all the way crazy, it was psychedelic days. Everybody was wrecked anyway. So it was like, go crazy. So we just tried to catch up with Jimi, and he got ten of us up there looking crazy as hell, wrecked out of our minds, and so we was instantly brand new, and nobody judged us by, you know, age or nothing. And they haven't since. Because it's just, we so far past that, it's, you'd have to be a rocket scientist. But that don't count no more.

Tavis: Tell me how 'Parliament Funkadelic' came to be.

Clinton: Okay, 'Parliament' was the group in the barbershop.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Clinton: Suits, ties, and everything. By the time we got, like I said, with the hit record, we couldn't keep the ties and the suits clean anyway. You know what I'm saying, that was the hardest thing in the world. If you see any group backstage, you realize how dirty this stuff is up on stage. Yeah, so that was a hassle anyway. So when we had the chance and didn't have to wear them, we threw them away, okay, now we could be funky. But it was 'Parliament,' you know what I'm saying, 'Funkadelic,' we took the band and we got it in trouble with the group. That first record I told you about, was a hit, the company folded. So now we can't use that name 'Parliament' no more.

So we took our little brothers, the young, the band, we named them 'Funkadelic.' We became their backup singers. They was our backup band, we became their backup singers. But we had to do the singing on the record for them, so we stayed together, there was ten of us, we stayed together. Now we're 'Funkadelic.' And people recognize all as 'Funkadelic,' but they see only five of them on the album cover. But (unintelligible) was 'Funkadelic.' The name became accessible again about five or six years later. We cut an album as 'Parliament,' 'Chocolate City,' (unintelligible). Now we got two groups.

Says, I'm never gonna let that happen again. We gonna have more than one way to make a record. So Bootsy was one of the guys who was playing with so many, now he too dynamic, you get your band, and we gonna put you a record out by yourself. You know, he's a whole 'nother entity. So we cut Bootsy. So now that's three groups. Five of them, I mean, six of them, seven of them, and ten of us. And we had background singers that was in the studio with us all the time, which incidentally was 'Hot Butter and Soul' with Isaac Hayes.

Tavis: Isaac Hayes, absolutely.

Clinton: They was with us at the, all this time, too.

Tavis: 'Black Moses.'

Clinton: Okay, right. Hey. So then we took, got some 'Brides of Funkenstein,' 'Parlette,' (ph) Freddy Maceo (ph) from James Brown band, with Bootsy. We got the 'Horny Horns,' everybody around us, I say, they cut a record. We cut 'The Roadies,' we was getting ready to cut 'The Lawyers' by the time when they slowed down. Everybody's a frustrated musician anyway.

Tavis: I see, yeah.

Clinton: So that way, no matter who's hot, I'll be a 'Bride of Funkenstein' if I have to. Whoever got a hit record, that's who we become. And that was, you know, but when they got ready to put us down, they said it was all (unintelligible). You know, and it went that way, and must have been that way. We put out a record, one, 'Dope Dogs,' we put out (unintelligible), we put out records all this time, so people knew we was around. (unintelligible) and we'd fight in the courtrooms over the music, you know. Like I say, on that sampling, acts was paying for the music, the artists, all them, artists was paying, the money was taken from them. But the companies wasn't giving it to us. So we still in court for that.

Tavis: Yeah. You still putting it down, though. Tell me about this new CD right quick.

Clinton: That one there, you got a hold of that.

Tavis: Double CD.

Clinton: Double CD. 25 songs.

Tavis: 25 songs.

Clinton: We go from (unintelligible) you know, is on there. I mean, we got Jazze Pha, I mean it's, I mean, we got some of everybody on that. J.G. Money (ph), Too Short's on, you know, on the remixes. We got almost everybody you can think of in there somewhere. 'Parliament Funkadelic,' Bootsy, 'Brides,' 'Horny Horns,' all of that stuff.

Tavis: You gotta have a double CD to put all them on one piece.

Clinton: Oh, yeah. And we've been holding the good ones up for all this time, 'til we made sure we got a good record out. You know, so that's, we'll be here on the ninth at the Greek Theatre, you know, and like I say...

Tavis: --You're touring around the country for it, then.

Clinton: Oh, yeah. We in--there'll probably be the 'Chili Peppers' will be there with us, and a few other acts. It's gonna be crazy at the Greek.

Tavis: He is the 'funk master.' The new CD, 'How Late do you Have to be...'

Clinton: 'Before You're Absent.'

Tavis: '...Before You're Absent.'

Clinton: Bend over. Tail ain't nothing but a long booty.

Tavis: George Clinton, still doing his thing. George, nice to see you.

Clinton: Good to see you, man.

Tavis: Glad to have you. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local radio listings. Thanks for watching, good night from LA. And keep the faith.