George Clinton, the leader of the legendary Parliament-Funkadelic has been chosen to receive the SESAC Legacy Award.
SESAC is the smallest of the three Performance Rights Organizations (the others are ASCAP and BMI) in the United States and will hold their 21st annual Pop Awards Show on April 13 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.
John Josephson, chairman and CEO of SESAC Holdings, said “When thinking of personalities that have shaped the sound of music around the globe, George Clinton is high on the list and we are so excited to present him with the SESAC Legacy Award at the upcoming Pop Music Awards in New York.”
Clinton started in the late-50’s with a doo-wop group called the Parliaments and eventually became a staff writer at Motown. In 1967, the Parliaments hit the top 20 on the pop and number 3 on the R&B singles with (I Wanna) Testify but followups were not hits.
In 1968, Clinton lost the use of the Parliaments name for a short time, so he changed the band to Funkadelic and started recording with a more psychedelic soul and funk sound. They released their debut album in 1970 while, in the same year, he also brought back the Parliaments, now known as Parliament, to record a different style of funk.
The two groups, which had primarily the same members, continued recording as separate entities throughout the 70’s scoring hit albums and singles including One Nation Under a Groove (Funkadelic) and Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk) and Flash Light (both Parliament).
In the early 80’s, legal problems caused Clinton to break up the two groups and he went on to record as a solo artist (Atomic Dog) and with the collective P-Funk All-Stars.
