A forgotten chapter of Toronto music history becomes an hour-long audio documentary as Funk Getting Ready To Roll airs Sunday August 12 on CBC Radio’s Inside The Music. The documentary tells the story of Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee George Clinton, his crew and their home base in Hogtown during the early 70s just before they hit big by mid-decade.

“They are in some way a part of the Canadian music scene and nobody acknowledges that” – Prakash John, on Funkadelic.

A forgotten chapter of Toronto music history becomes an hour-long audio documentary as Funk Getting Ready To Roll airs Sunday August 12 on CBC Radio’s Inside The Music. The documentary tells the story of Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee George Clinton, his crew and their home base in Hogtown during the early 70s just before they hit big by mid-decade.

Clinton had already been in the music business for 15 years before the winds of change blew him to Toronto, where he and several band mates would reside for nearly three years. He’d already survived band break-ups, hardscrabble times writing for Motown and a titanic consumption of LSD, Toronto offered a change of scene and new possibilities for Funkadelic.

Creativity blossomed. While in Toronto, Clinton and company stretched out stylistically and joined with local musicians to create the double album America Eats Its Young in 1972 as well as the bed tracks for many other records in subsequent years. Then circumstances shifted again and a recharged Funkadelic left town to pursue their convoluted journey to stardom.

Funk Getting Ready To Roll features interviews with:
George Clinton, ringmaster of funk
Bernie Worrell, keyboard genius
Frankie Kash Waddy, drummer, ex-JB’s to boot…
Cordell Boogie Mosson, bassist/guitarist, still with P Funk
Chris Tannis, former road manager/booking agent
Prakash John, ace Toronto bassist (Lou Reed, Alice Cooper)
Rob Bowman, York University professor of all things soulful

They reflect on the state of the band at the time, their personal lives and their memories of living and working in Toronto and Canada.

The documentary is hosted and produced by David Dacks.

(“Funk Getting Ready To Roll” teaser)

“Music journalist and DJ David Dacks has created a fascinating and multi-layered portrait of the iconic American funk and soul band Funkadelic with his documentary “Funk Getting Ready to Roll.” Dacks explores the time and experiences of key band members who moved to Toronto for a short period in the early ’70s. It became an important musical juncture for the band. Leader George Clinton, bassist Bootsy Collins and keyboard wiz Bernie Worrell (all were interviewed for this doc) were experimenting with new sounds, incorporating different instrumentation to create something uniquely P-Funk.”
Listen to the full radio show

“I was far from the first white teenage boy to fall under the spell of George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic’s cosmically sloppy funk. In that respect, my documentary Funk Getting Ready to Roll (airing Aug. 12 on CBC Radio’s Inside the Music) has been decades in the making. Over time, my fascination changed from worship to respect as the whole funk mob shifted from seeming like cartoon characters from another universe into real human beings just trying to keep their unique show on the road.”
Read the full blog entry by David Dacks for CBC Music’s R&B/Soul community that gives some great context to his documentary

“Boston, Toronto and Detroit had the most to do with us changing,” says legendary bandleader George Clinton, in the new CBC Radio documentary, Funk Getting Ready To Roll.”
Read the full Q&A by David Dacks