George Clinton says the Boston Tea Party, Led Zeppelin and LSD opened the "gate" to P-Funk:
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The world can thank Boston for the ’70s funk revolution.
OK, Boston and LSD.
When George Clinton . . . arrived in Boston in 1967, he still favored suit-and-tie r&b. Then he dropped acid and went to see Led Zeppelin.
“Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Vanilla Fudge, King Crimson, we saw them all or we played shows with them,” Clinton said . . . “We got turned out on acid and these British bands. We had to have funk in our music, but we were also moving through the Vietnam War, the Beatles and Sly Stone, and psychedelia. We came through all this as it fed into our music.”
This and so much more fed into the cosmic slop of Clinton’s bands Parliament and Funkadelic — now collectively known as P-Funk. Clinton did heavy social commentary (“Chocolate City”), science fiction-disco mashups (“Mothership Connection”) and face-melting rock (“Maggot Brain”). . .
“Paul’s Mall, the Jazz Workshop and Sugar Shack, there were great clubs in the city, and we were part of that,” he said. “It was in Boston where Miles Davis saw us and stole our drummer. When Davis steals your drummer, you know you’re doing something right.”
See: George Clinton claims Boston opened ‘Gate’ to P-Funk,' Boston Herald, February 13, 2015. "