"He's a hell of a creator" - George Clinton Reflects On The Legacy Of David Bowie
They may look like two entirely separate planet-jumping beasts, but it doesn't take an astronomer to realize that George Clinton and David Bowie are cut from the same comet. The two have been on parallel journeys throughout their respective half-century careers, each conjuring up rich jet-age mythologies, each with sponge-like absorption of the textures of their time.
And so, with Bowie's tragic passing, Starchild has delivered a few touching notes on the Starman in a short, but affectionate interview with Billboard. You can see Clinton musing on Bowie's larger-than-life stage persona, how he borrowed musical and stylistic cues from Bowie's iconic fashion sense and generally lamenting the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime creator. Read a few bits from George Clinton's reminiscences below and hit the link for the full script.
>>>Read the full interview (via Billboard)
Bowie's influence on Mothership Connection:
"Yeah, that actual song, "Fame," the feelings on that record -- they did the James Brown accent on the one, they hit it so hard. So when I heard him do that on "Fame" I thought, "Oh yeah, wow... 'Weee want the funk, get up off that funk, weee need the funk.'" [Laughs] You know, just that serious accent. James would do it in the music, and that was one of the times where [Bowie] did it with the vocals. He did it real light, but on the one. So yeah, I borrowed that one and it worked very well."
Taking cues from Bowie's stage antics:
"Well like I said, we were on the same theatrical page on the same time. It was kind of confirmation that what we was doing wasn't that crazy. Because after the rock operaTommy and Sgt. Pepper's and the musical Hair, that was the realm that everyone was in. But he animated it the same way I thought of doing it with Funkadelic. We wanted to take out the artists' names and put characters in it, and he did the same thing with his. So I thought that we were pretty much on the same page at the same time."
