GEORGE CLINTON AND HIS GANGSTERS OF LOVE PAY HOMAGE TO ICONIC SONGS

Orignial Gangster of Funk, George Clinton shares his thoughts on his latest project covering classic tunes he’s wanted to record for years.

Legendary Grandfather of Funk, George Clinton has released his latest album simply titled “George Clinton and Some Gangsters of Love” and the album, which was produced by Clinton and Bobby Eli, features cover songs and standards from the 50’s and 60’s, with a spin only George Clinton and his Gangsters of Love could provide. For the album, Clinton brought together a long list of friends and musicians like Sly Stone, Carlos Santana, El DeBarge, Kim Burrell, the RZA (of Wu Tang Clan), Shavo Odadjian (from System of a Down) and long time collaborators, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Just a few of the cover songs Clinton and his Gangsters of Love tore through include “Fever”, “Gypsy Woman”, “Let the Good Times Roll” and “A Thousand Miles Away.”

We caught up with George Clinton to get his thoughts on always wanting to do this cover album.

“These are songs I’ve been wanting to do for years. You know, if I would have still been doing the Doo Wop thing these are some of the songs I would have done. A few of the songs we did do like “A Thousand Miles Away” in ’57. We used to do those in ’57, ’58, ’59 and right through the 60’s. I mean I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time and waiting for a good reason to do it. And I found the best reason was not to have one, just do it.”

George Clinton also talked about how much his good friend Sly Stone contributed to the project and how excited he is to being working together on a lot of new material in 2009.

“Oh man, yeah he played keyboards on some, sang on some and he helped me define all of what I was doing all the time and we doing other stuff together. A lot of stuff we’re doing on his and ours. So we’re going to have a whole gang of new stuff. We’re starting all over together.”

George Clinton, the original director of the Mothership continues to have a very active tour schedule at 68 years young, as well as always working on new projects in the studio. George Clinton and Sly Stone are currently working on a tribute to Motown album, which he hopes to release by the end of 2009.