P-Funk, now we used to think that we were funky until we came upon the P-Funk. And we used to trade off, you know, ideas of each other but one, this one concert I remember that was in Baltimore where they, they like drove this bass drum for about 15 minutes straight and that's all you heard for 15 minutes and it would get louder and louder and louder and then they'd bring the bass in and they'd drive that bass home and they'd drive that guitar home and then all of a sudden at the peak of it, George would appear. You know it was, Parliament was just fantastic, it was amazing, Parliament Funkadelic. We think that we're funky. Now, I mean we, we had our share of funk, funky stuff but they were actually the funk, funksters of all time. Bootsy, I mean, you know, Bootsy, Bootsy is the bass, the ultimate bass, it's just funk, it's just there, it's, it's always there. It was there with James, it's there now. If you go see Bootsy now, he's still, you know he's still the punk meister on the bass.

Don Cornelius, how important was he? He was our American black , if you could just give me that comparison.

Don Cornelius, very important, very important, Soul Train, Soul Train. Don Cornelius was like our, well, it was like Blackstand, American Blackstand, you know, like American Bandstand, well that was our shot at being similar, that was our whole show and Don Cornelius was, was, was our host. He, he was very important to the seventies and the music and all.

How important was he to helping to sell the music?

Don Cornelius was very important to selling records. I mean Soul Train in itself helped sell, you know boost the sales of a lot of black music because it gave us the exposure that we needed to, to have that we didn't have. I mean there were shows like Rock Concert and Midnight Special but there was, you know there wasn't enough black acts getting all the exposure that they needed until like a Soul Train, a Soul Train provided that for all of us to, to be, you know, to be seen and heard for that matter, you now. Don Cornelius is very important. Thank you Don.

Gamble and Huff, what did they mean to you?

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, songwriters, I, I can't even find a word to say how, how well and how much, you know, how many songs they've written. In fact … or Kenny told me one time, I went to see him 'cause I was trying to do some jewels. He told me, he said, yeah, …man, this music is nice. he said, that's, that's, that's Kool and the Gang style. He said but I know one thing, the world loves a good song. And that's what he told me and, and from that day forward I remember what he's saying about the world loves a good song. He writes songs for the world to, to hear and enjoy from, from now on. I mean Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and Tom Bell for that matter, I mean, you know the mighty three. Is there any more?

When you were struggling to find your sound, how did you finally find Kool and the Gang?

Okay. Finding Kool and the Gang, trying to find ourselves and our sound, I think what happened, eventually, we came into our own wind and this happened several times in our career, we came into our own the day that the A and R person said, you all got to do "Soul Makossa" because your records ain't selling. Okay, now, I mean we jazz musicians first. I mean we were playing jazz, we loved jazz sound, Coltrane, Miles Davis, everyone. But that day when he said to us, you guys have to record "Soul Makossa", that day Kool and the Gang became Kool and the Funky Gang because it was so easy for us to fail in the request and to record, record "Soul Makossa" that it, it caused us to go in that morning and record three songs that became our first gold records: number one, "Funky Stuff", "Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie". Those were, that, that, that was to me, Kook and the Gang was born as a funk, as a, they put their, you know, foot in it. In other words, this is Kook and the Gang and, and, and the fact that those records sold as many as they did is the proof of that. I mean and it's still influencing. That, at that point in time, Kool and the Gang became Kool and the Gang for real and it came clear. I mean up to that point we were like searching, trying to find things here and there. I mean we didn't do too bad with the

wait and everything but the wait sounded like Sly, I mean it did, you know,... you can make it. I mean we were thinking about that anyway but the day that he said, you have to record this song. We thought our careers were over, you know, so we decided to become super bad and that day, from that day, because behind the pressure, we became Kool and the Gang. We came into our own then. And that's when I, that's when I knew and I guess the rest of us knew, knew that we were Kool and the Gang from that day forward.

Tell me how these bands got so big?

Well, you know, actually what happened was, you know as we feed from each other on the road we noticed that, we noticed that P-Funk, you know in order to compete, that, that P-Funk would bring an army, they had an army on stage, they, you know it was like, when, when Parliament and Funkadelic came together it was, it was just too much for us to deal with so we tried to, to compete in a sense, you know. And we tried to get it through that space thing and so we added like three, four female singers and we had more people other than our, you know our regular core unit with seven people just to try to stay afloat. And Earth, Wind and Fire they brought more members on, on stage with more horns and singers so just to compete our band had to become a, a bit larger, just to, just to stay afloat of all that. But P-Funk they just came with, with the bomb basically, that was it. I mean all, I mean all those people and then they'd flip it and then the, the Brides would come out and, and then the, the what is it the Horny Horns and the Macy on them, it was just too much and we just couldn't hang with that thing. It got too large. And the ship, my man and the ending was over. Boy that was, that was a great time, that was great.

Okay, you know I would say that we all influenced each other a lot. I know, I, I really can't feel the effects that we had on other groups but I, I, I hear it, I hear it in the horn changes and different things like that, you know, in different groups like Earth, Wind and Fire, P-Funk. But you know I, I remember seeing George on 8th Avenue, this is long before P-Funk or Parliament was born, and he had a hair cut, now his hair cut was so innovative, like, he was smiling, George was always smiling, right. And he had stars cut, he had a bald head with a little, he had stars shaped, cut, hair cut in his hair way back in 1969 and '70. Now this was George Clinton. I mean and just that alone, he gave us the courage to go ahead, here you want to try that. You know George, he'll do that. And that encouraged me to wear this wig that, the funky man wig I used to wear to come on stage with, this big white, multi-color Afro wig. I used to wear that on the stage. But George was the, you know he and Sly, Sly with his different clothes and things like that and Earth, Wind and Fire with their slick shiny and everything, you know, and the Jacksons and all of us, you know, we all kind of feed, you know, fed off each other. But George was like different. George Clinton was really like real, really ahead of his time, he was really different.

The Ohio Players.

The Ohio Players, now I'm from Ohio. So they are the funky worms, Ohio Players. Ohio Players, you know, they, they're, I don't know, you know they're just, I mean it's hard to describe that time period without being there, you know. If you, you would have to have been there to actually to feel what was the movement of everything that was going, going on back there. I mean after the sixties, we're coming into this, this struggle thing and we, we landed in the seventies and everything got real air. You know what I'm saying, like, they saw, [SINGING] This is the age of the Aquarius, or whatever that was going back then. But that whole time period, I mean was like a airy kind of thing and the Ohio Players, you know, they, they were right in there. The men that got it, you know, got it, they took it, the road a little different there when they got into fire and into different things.

Could you talk about what affected you and what was happening at the time.

What's going on? Marvin Gaye, such a great influence. What was going on at that time period was, I mean there, there was so much going on that he captured everything that was going on at that time. I mean it was like this war, the Vietnam War, I mean and we were struggling, tryin to come out of, or trying to get identity, trying to make a transition into the seventies, trying to become something. We, you know, we are somebody. We had all these slogans and everything but that album was such a, a, a impact, I would say on the world at that time. And I do believe that was one of the all time largest selling albums there. But what's going on? It, it reflected actually what was going on, you know, what's happening? You know, how you doin brother? You know, that's, that album like really tied us together I think. It was like a blessing from God I think that album 'cause it just touched on a lot of things that, that would, that actually was happening man, so.

The funk story.

The funk story. Okay, we, I mean we, we did a, we, you know we did our share of funk. In other words, we had our funk, ah, ah, share of funk. I mean coming up with funky stuff, I mean that, that's a phrase, - can't get enough of that funky stuff. But after that, what happened was, this whole funk revolution became like to the forefront and we just couldn't get funkier than P-Funk because when they came they put their stuff on the one, I mean it was like, Every time that one came they were dropping it. They talking about 80 ace today, they was dropping them bombs on the one back there in the seventies. Now Earth, Wind and Fire when they did "Shining Star" it, it was on the one but it was more, a more sophisticated kind of one because the rhythm on "Shining Star" is like, it's like and it was like real, like eso., like esoteric or spiritual kind of thing, you know, you know, they had these voices like that but Majors came, that stuff was all on the bottom, straight on the bottom, it was like just roll right over everything, you know what I'm saying, P-Funk, you just roll right over everything. But the funk story lives on. It starts with James Brown. Well, actually it may start way back with who knows? But it's a feeling in your soul - funk. But the story of the funk, we all got a piece of that funk.

How would you compare P-Funk, Earth, Wind and Fire…

Earth, Wind and Fire and the P-Funk, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, hmm, hmmm, P-Funk, I would say P-Funk is more raw, close to earth like a earth sound. You know they stayed right into earth, the earth sound even though they had a lot of stuff going on up top and George was talking about a lot of issue, you know, and a whole nother language. Earth, Wind and Fire, on the other hand, was, was close to more of air, like a spiritual air sound in the difference. Although Earth, Wind and Fire, I'm not saying that they weren't funky, they were more technical and, and, and sophisticated in the funk that they did whereas P-Funk kept that stuff right down through the bone, I mean it was just there. I mean you could play that record right now, play that record right now, "Make My Funk the P-Funk" - I wants to get funked up. And that's what we were doing back then. But Earth, Wind and Fire was saying, you know, be shining stars, you know, every one of us can be a shining star. And this is all coming from - [SINGS] You can make it if you cry. I know that's not the song but it's the same thing, you know, saying everybody has the stuff. So I mean we all influenced each other as we went along. We were a little different in the fact that, okay, the funky stuff thing was like totally spontaneous. I mean it was totally spontaneous. I mean it was like so full of frustration at that point that we just said, alright, forget this, this is just [SINGS] Can't get enough, you know, of that funky stuff. And then, every time I tries I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, yeaaaah, keep on trucking, you know. Funk, I mean it's there in the boogie, you know, the boogie is back again. It's all a part of the same things. We're saying the same thing in the funk but the, the heaviness between Earth, Wind and Fire and P-Funk is sort of parallel in a sense. It's sort of parallel. It's just that P-Funk was just the bomb and Earth, Wind and Fire was the, the spiritual side of that thing.

Do you remember when "Off the Wall" came out? Did you have a response to that music?

"Off the Wall", when I, when I first heard "Off the Wall" I, ah, I listened to it it was, 'cause you know I love Quincy, I mean I listened to it and I thought it was great. I mean there's Michael's, you know, return, so to speak. Not really, he's just, he, ah, a perfection in Michael Jackson, in the music but the music was very pop. There was some funk in it 'cause Rod Templeton, I met him before, we, we discussed a lot of things that, you know, musical exchanges that we talked about that he did, ah, from listening to our music and I didn't know of Rod Templeton until "Heat Wave" and then when I found out that he had done that album, you know, the, the combination of him and Quincy and Michael together, it did, it went into a pop, a pop thing. And, you know, until Thriller, I heard Thriller, I knew that was a hit. I knew the whole album was like better than "Off the Wall" when I first heard it.

What was special about …?

Well when I first heard it I knew it was a hit. It, it just, the way that it sounded, the lyrics, I mean everything just worked, I mean worked more so than "Off the Wall" for me, you know. "Thriller" I had a hard time getting with but I kind of like groovin to that but everything else like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", that, those records were like a combination of everything that we wanted to hear at the time and he just seemed to capture it. It's the same thing with "What's Goin On", the album "What's Goin On", the same thing with any major album like "That's the Way of the World", you know the, the, the "Mothership Connection" album, these albums to me are like peaks just like the wild, ... wild, in the funky stuff, that's like a peak in, in a time period, you know. And, ahm.