I’ve often heard band members that left, state that “the money wasn’t right”… other than Bernie’s wife not much is detailed… Yet some stayed for a very long time i.e. Mike Hampton. Can anyone provide some insight to this, how much were the members getting paid per show. Those late 70’s Worlds Greatest Funk played to stadiums, that must have generated millions.
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I’ve wondered this as well. You’ve got George saying the labels were in charge of paying everyone and that he had no idea they weren’t getting paid what they were owed. Saying band members were upset with him, when it was the labels they should have been upset with. All kinds of nonsense like that. It seems that there was a good but of quarrel about the payment and that they don’t seem to all agree on who was screwing them over.
I have no idea what it was like back in the 70s heyday but Citrus (former tech and guitarist for the late 90s/2000s era) broke it down once on the old One Nation forum and it was shockingly low how little he got paid. Clip also used to go public a lot with how upset he was at the low pay.
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Its touched on a bit in the doc on Netflix -Tear the roof off… I think its that one, its more of a band perspective and less of a George worship documentary.
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Well he did say on Funkentelechy it was a non profit organization.
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And funk is it’s own reward. And they be like: but hey I want cash! 
Yeah that’s the one. Tear the Roof Off documentary
@Rik_Lik, you should also check that Spin 1985 interview. It also touches on this subject. Welcome to the forum btw!
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heads I win, tails you lose!
That spin article was a great read and thank you. I’ve been a fan of p-funk since 1975, but my first album I ever owned was “The Clones of Dr Funk”and I’ve seen multiple tours, Earth Tour at the LA Forum, Flashlight Tour in Long Beach, Motor Booty/Worlds Greatest Funk Fest at the LA Coliseum and Anti Tour in Santa Monica. And a few in between… Regarding the topic, Archie Ivy did a very informative 4 part interview. He touched on the money issue. He insinuated that it wasn’t all George’s fault that p-funk indeed had been robbed and that Ms Worrel, was misguided.
Im really appreciative of this forum, and really looking forward to corresponding with my new funky friends. Please call me Rik
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Yeah Archie lay it out. Any type of entertainment bizzness is gonna be a crap shoot for any band. Let alone, one that approached the size of the P-Funks. The music bizz is especially slimy. Calvin is on record to say Parliament Funkadelic never did a thing for him financially. The thing is, I don’t think George came out of it with significant money either. Depends on who you talk to though. There apparently was some concern while on tour during the peak years. It started up with Jerome and some of the Casablanca agents or something. They were walking about holding up the Flashlight album in the lobby or something. Talking about how it just went Platinum. He was like well we ain’t seen no platinum $.
Indeed history is riddled with horror stories of how performers got ripped. With P-funk, take that to the nth power. When you think about the total history, all the samples, the commercials that use p-funk music. Arguably P-funk probably generated more revenue in more ways that just about anyone else in music history. Arguable of course.
At the time that Spin article was the absolute deepest read I had ever seen on them. I cherished that mag for the longest until it just fell apart.
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I heard Bootsy say, George was basically saying he wasn’t responsible for ANYTHING. Something surely went down during his first stint with the Funks. Jerome says he encountered Bootsy on the chitlin circuit somewhere about '73-74. Says Bootsy told him he would never, ever work with George again. When J-Romeo arrived at Detroit by '75 for the Mothership Connection, he was shocked to find Casper already up there in the camp.
And apparently some muggs in the band started some rumblings about how quickly Casper ascended the throne and became essentially the Prince of the P.
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Interesting P Kunspyruhzy theory… that doesn’t sound like a completely outlandish theory either. “Bootsy wasn’t worried about no watergate information being on no tape… sucka didn’t want y’all to dig on him tryna cop an ounce of that P dough…”
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I guess, what, a couple of years between America eats it’s Young and Up for the downstroke was enough to persuade Bootsy that working with George wasn’t so bad after all.
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I remember seeing Clip talk about it all the time.
Glenn and Jerome left mid-tour over the money issues. Honestly it’s hard to say who knew what and what say they had in it.
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Also, Billy and them left after Maggot Brain over financial disputes.
Welcome to the forum @eXilefunk!
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