George Clinton and P Funk paradoxy

[splanky]

I wanted to say a few things about the groups history and still respect
Bernie's passing. Like a lot of groups, Parliament and Funkadelic started out
as coming together of people who had been, more or less, friends and
associates. And, like a lot of groups, eventually one person was given or
took over the responsibility of becoming the leader. In P Funk, that was
George. No, he wasn't a talented musician, and even in his best days, the
most powerful vocalist but George created the direction for the groups
that got them the attention they deserved. Early on there was still a lot
of closeness as they worked to slay their competition. Everybody and their
momma back then walked in the shadows of Sly Stone and James Brown
and heard the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. George would later yell Ain't Nothing
But A Party, but earlier he tried to inject a lot of positive ideas and conscious
messages into the music. He was a reader and some of the lyrics in tunes
were actually from books such as As A Man Thinketh for Good Thoughts
Bad Thoughts [[from James Allen) and The Art Of Thinking for Presence
Of A Brain [[from Ernest Dimnet). He was also critical of drug dependency
particularly Heroin use. Why do you think they call it Dope, Dope? he said
in Loose Booty. George, when almost nobody else was doing it spoke out
on politcal issues, social issues, women's plights and