Giving up the funk

George Clinton's new CD covers doo-wop classics

George Clinton (shown in Detroit in July) got help from Carlos Santana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Sly Stone for his new CD. (Elizabeth conley/the detroit news via ap)

HAMPTON, N.H. - The irrepressible George Clinton, the anything-goes ringleader of the long-running psychedelic soul circus known as Parliament-Funkadelic, likes to paint when he's not making music. Some of his artistic influences come as no surprise - the surrealistic flights of Salvador Dali's fancy, the base instincts of Pablo Picasso. But he also claims to be inspired by Norman Rockwell. Now there's a certifiable odd couple.

"I put everything on the canvas," explained Clinton recently, backstage at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom before a gig. To the grand wizard of the Cosmic Slop, the stage and studio have always been just two more kinds of canvas.

For his new album, "George Clinton and His Gangsters of Love," out Tuesday, the bandleader enlisted the help of Carlos Santana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and funky recluse Sly Stone to cover the kind of old-school jams the 67-year-old Clinton grew up on. Sly and El DeBarge hold down the album-opening version of Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar"; the Chili Peppers, whom Clinton produced on their 1985 album "Freaky Styley," help orchestrate a playground romp through Shirley & Lee's "Let the Good Times Roll."

"I called in all my chips on this one," says the garrulous, tarpaper-voiced Clinton, in between large forkfuls of takeout steak tips and broccoli. "That was my first love, doo-wop. I didn't want it to be nostalgic, or making fun of it. I was looking for the right time to do it."

Understanding what makes an oldie-but-goodie such as "Sway" or "Our Day Will Come" tick is something he learned from Berry Gordy, back when he worked as an in-house songwriter at Motown, Clinton says.

"No matter who needed a song, we'd do that kind of song," he recalls. "Berry said, 'You may not like it, but if it's selling, find out why.' " The example he mentions might have come from Rockwell's jukebox: "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On the Bedpost Over Night)."

Trying to fathom many of Clinton's outlandish creations - the 10-minute epic "Maggot Brain," say, or his UFOs-from-the-ghetto "Mothership Connection" concept - will only tie the mind up in knots. Better to take P-Funk's most pointed advice: "Free Your Mind . . . and Your [expletive] Will Follow."

Even the lineage has always been messy. Clinton's parallel groups of the 1970s, Parliament and Funkadelic, produced such colorful funk stalwarts as Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell and provided freewheeling haven for on-again, off-again James Brown refugees such as Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker.

With legal problems arising over the use of the band names, Clinton began releasing albums under his own name. Several supporting members, such as guitarist Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton, have stuck around for decades. In the chaotic dressing room at the Casino Ballroom, pot-bellied singer-guitarist Garry "Starchild" Shider shuffles past in his trademark oversized diaper, gulping from a tall can of Heineken.

Asked how many guitarists he's currently touring with, Clinton looks stumped. Six? he wonders, looking to Hampton for help. Hampton thinks it might be eight.

"To me, it's always been the people's group," says Clinton, who typically lays out an idea - a simple groove, a horn riff - and then lets his musicians take it as far afield as they dare.

"It comes from anywhere, with everyone throwing in," says the mischievous, gray-bearded maestro, wearing his customary fright wig, a cluster of plastic toys and trinkets dangling from strings around his neck. "I look around for people popping their fingers. If they ain't popping their fingers in two or three bars, something's wrong."

"He has ideas, and he lets you use your ideas," says Belita Woods, a sweet-voiced soul and disco veteran from Detroit who has toured with the P-Funk All Stars since the early '90s. "He lets you know that your idea means something. You don't have to be a superstar to say, 'George, how about this?' "

Woods is featured with Clinton on the new album's "Sway," the mambo hit popularized by Bobby Rydell and Dean Martin. Clinton had originally targeted Santana to play on the track, but the guitarist preferred to contribute to Clinton's version of "Gypsy Woman," written by Curtis Mayfield, one of Santana's heroes.

"Curtis was Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitar player, too," Clinton says. "I couldn't say no."

It was Santana, of course, who kicked off the music industry's infatuation with all-star guest appearances with 1999's "Supernatural" album. Clinton claims he has enough material in the can to support a second "Gangsters of Love" outing. That one would be all Motown.

The old music, he says, is ripe for reintroduction to the age group that makes up much of his jam-happy audience these days.

"The 20-year-olds, they don't even know it," he says. Yet a song like the doo-wop standard "Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite" is embedded "in their genes," he suggests, breaking into the familiar bass vocal.

It's time for the band to hit the stage. Clinton will stay behind, making an exultant entrance in plastic shades and a huge white hoodie a half-hour or so into the party. The crazy quilt of P-Funk fans on the ballroom floor begin roiling on the opening downstroke. One guy in a foam dolphin suit crowds his way to the lip of the stage.

"Are you ready for the insanity?" a disembodied voice intones. George Clinton was ready a long time ago.