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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's BĂȘte Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com

Monday, October 02, 2006


No, not that Parliament . . .



this Parliament!

I picked up the 2-CD Parliament best-of from the library today and read the excellent booklet notes by Greg Tate (whose book I really want to read). He says 3 things I've long thought about G. Clinton & P-Funk:

1) their style overlaps with Zappa sometimes;
2) Clinton is a unique & terrific lyricist;
3) their run of creativity ranks among the 20th-century Anglophonic vernacular greats, for breadth and intensity and variety of wonderfulness;

and Tate says it all better than I could. Regarding number 3, Tate lists Ellington, Miles Davis, and the Beatles by way of comparison, who would all make my list too.


(I would add the Beach Boys, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Mingus. And then I would feel bad about stopping -- Ornette! Woody Guthrie! Coltrane! Gershwin! And how can I leave out Louis Armstrong! And Elvis Presley! And Sister Rosetta Tharpe! And the Art Ensemble of Chicago! Irving Berlin! Fats Waller! And I still feel bad about stopping.)

(Update, later: Stevie Wonder, Nat King Cole, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson. Michel Legrand -- wait, he's not Anglophonic -- sure he is, maybe not principally, but he is. Ella. Streisand. Others . . . )
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