- Coming up on "One Detroit", contributor, Cecelia Sharpe talks with Dr.

Funkenstein himself, George Clinton, and fellow funk artists Maurice "Pirahnahead" Herd about Detroit's influence on their music.

Plus, we'll take you behind the scenes of the Purple Rose Theater Company's current play, "The Classic King."

Also ahead as part of our caregiving initiative, we'll hear from a Detroit woman whose journey led her to launch a newspaper to help other caregivers.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit".

- [Narrator] Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco, a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator 2] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - Just ahead on "One Detroit", we'll talk with the playwright and cast members of "The Classic King."

A play about car culture that's on stage at the Purple Rose Theater Company in Chelsea.

Plus, we'll share the first in a series of conversations with caregivers about the challenges and rewards of caring for loved ones.

But first up, Detroit played an important role in the groundbreaking career of musician George Clinton and his group Parliament-Funkadelic The city's United Sound Systems recording studio was home to Clinton's P-Funk Lab for nearly two decades.

"One Detroit" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ, caught up with Clinton at the Detroit Opera House.

She spoke with him and fellow funk artist, Maurice "Pirahnahead" Herd about producing music that became a cornerstone of African American identity.

(gentle music) - What up, though?

- What up, though?

What attracted you to Detroit?

- Man, Motown records.

- Motown records.

- Motown records.

If you anywhere in this country from 59 to 69, this was where it was at, this was heaven.

For as music being made was concerned, this is where everybody wanted to be.

- And how were you a part of Motown?

Were you in the mix?

- Oh, I bugged him to death.

We auditioned at Motown, Martha Reeves auditioned us.

- Wow.

- And she was a secretary, she hadn't even had a head record herself yet.

- Wow.

- She audition for Mickey Stevenson.

We didn't make it then, you know.

We wasn't tall enough, we wasn't, you know, suave.

We was little short ones and, you know, so, but we was from New Jersey, so that wasn't, well we weren't from Detroit.

We drove out here to audition, but I wasn't giving up.

And then I came out here to audition for Mr.

Wingate.

Ed Wingate, he owned Golden World Records.

- Golden World, yeah.

- You know, they had the dramatics in Edwin Star and JJ Barnes.

Then that was the second big company in Detroit at the time.

Got a job out there and we ended up doing a record called, "I Want To Testify."

- Revilot.

- Yeah, Revilot for Daron Taylor.

And we did a record for him and it was testified it was a hit.

We didn't make it to Motown, but by the time we got the hit, Motown was just getting ready to move to California.

So we realized that uh-oh, we late, we got here, but we late.

We put out "Testify," it was a hit.

The next record was "All Your Goodies Are Gone."

You could tell we was influenced by something other than Motown on that one.

We immediately tried to see what the Beatles were doing, Sergeant Pepper and all of that English invasion.

So we started changing right then.

Right after "Testify" we started changing.

- Wanna shift gears and jump into your time at United Sound Studio.

- Oh boy.

- Yeah.

- That was a fun day.

- Oh, some fun days.

- Yeah.

- You made United Sound your home for about 20 years, Studio A became the P-Funk Lab.

- Yeah.

- What made United Sound Studio so special that you stayed there so long?

- I know the sound, I mean just the sound.

In the history of people that recorded it prior to us, I mean, they went back to the 40s and stuff.

They did radio commercials so they was pretty much the sound of radio throughout the country.

You didn't know it, but that was the studio did most of the commercials for everything between here and Chicago.

General Motors, Fords, everybody did their commercials there.

So it had a relationship to the radio that people didn't even know.

Not only that, Motown recorded that prior to their own studio.

And when they couldn't get into the studio, United was the choice, and it had the same kind of vibe as Motown had.

It had a little more bottom though, but it had the same vibe.

Especially when we came there and with Bootsy.

Bootsy had a bass that had.

(Piranha laughing) Each string on the bass had its own output.

- Yeah.

- He had a track for everything.

United, we had a special sound that no matter what we did, I mean you can just walk in there not thinking something was anything and when you finish like "Atomic Dog," that was a track being played backwards, I just got on there and started talking.

- Yeah.

- And next thing I know, it had that magic on it that no other place could do.

- Piranha, I wanna get your take.

What was your intro into United sounding?

- It was around '82, '83.

I was, you know, danking around on the east side, you know, learning to play with cats in the neighborhood.

You know, we was staying out of trouble 'cause it was a lot of trouble that you get into on the east side of Detroit.

Bootsy had this group called Godmoma.

It was a lady named- - Oh yeah.

- Cynthia Gerdy.

- Cynthia.

- And Tony.

And she grabbed us, it's like, "I'm gonna take you to see a studio."

And she was working for Don Davis at the time.

And we went over there and I think it was Greg Water, Jim Viti who said, "George isn't here yet."

So Don was like, "Yeah, just go down there and just check the studio out."

Viti was showing us around and things like that.

I think you and Chong came in.

After that was just like, wait a minute, I just met this guy who owns a bank and runs the music business, and Dr.

Funkenstein.

That's what I wanna do.

It became a thing for family, that's always been the P-Funk lab, you know what I mean?

Learn to record with with, you know, that guy Italian, the Jim Vitti, you know- - Sound.

- Yeah.

- Just how to do that.

Cutting tape.

Dude was slicing tape and doing edits and things like that.

So you know what I mean?

That's what we saw all of that.

That and the disc.

- And the disc.

- Yeah.

You realize you can do whatever in a studio, I mean like whatever you want to do, you know what I mean?

How y'all used to do them claps.

- [Dr Funkenstein] Oh yeah.

- Live claps.

- Live claps.

- Live claps and- - Yeah.

- They thought it was a machine.

- And we would do it for 10 minutes.

I mean, nowadays you can do four bars, two bars- - And then loop, cut, paste it.

- Loop it digitally.

No, back then you had to do it "Flashlights," you had to do it for like seven minutes and your hands can't get tired.

- You gotta maintain the energy.

- You gotta, so only certain people could do it, you know.

- Yeah.

- You can't get miss one 'cause the sounds has to be constant, and that's what "Flashlight" was the beginning of it.

- Yeah.

- I wanna jump into showing you an album.

You take it and tell me your United Sound memory.

- Okay.

- [Cecelia] I noticed that also the hand clappers did get credit on these albums.

- Oh yeah, we gave hand claps credit.

- Yeah.

- Like I said, people want to get funked up.

I was imitating Frankie Crocker, the New York disc jockey.

"Good evening, do not attempt to adjust your radio, "there's nothing wrong."

You know, so I was into R&B DJs at the time.

"Mothership Connection."

I was trying to do an album with one story line all the way through.

We did it on "Motor Booty Affair" when most of the songs relate to the same story.

We got thrown off track on this one because some of the tracks sound so good, we had to put 'em in there anyway.

Then well, of course, "Tear the Roof Off The Sucker."

And what was good about that, we were able to get it on CKLW here.

If we take off, ♪ Tear the roof off the mother sucker ♪ CLW said, we'll put it on if you take the "tear the roof off the mother say."

And once we did that, it was all over.

- Yeah.

- Biggest memory from this album?

- "Clones of Dr.

Funkenstein."

Wow, this is a good one.

I got on a plane in Dallas, Texas and then when I got off, I had to get on a train, it was the first day they used the trains to go from one terminal to the next.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- When I got on there, there was a book on the seat of the train and it said, "The Clones," two faces, one face in the same person.

I thought the book come with the train, you know, it was the first day of the train, it just makes sense that it.

So I opened it up and it was talking about Steve Swanson and this doctor was cloning salamanders, taking one and making hundreds of them that you'll be able to eventually one day be able to clone people and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then I realized this sound like it's serious.

And so when I got to Portland, Oregon, I went to the library 'cause you know, I'm trying to find different concept now this sounded interesting.

I go to the library and asked them was there anything on cloning.

The lady told me, she said, "Due to the freedom of information, "we're not allowed to give books on those."

It was taboo at the time.

So that, of course, soon as you say taboo, you really got me going now.

- Yes.

- But you know- - She said you can actually get a book called "Charity of the Gods."

- Wow.

- Or "The Island of Doctor Moreau."

I got "Charity of the Gods" and the whole album is this.

- Wow.

- That's what- - So the concept was based upon stuff that you read that was science fiction?

- It was science fiction.

- Yeah.

- Okay this.

Oh wow, that's deep.

See now that's the way we dressed in school, when I was in school.

- Okay.

- Tailor made suits.

- Okay.

The tailor made suits.

- You know, all of that.

- Just slick.

- A friend of mine was, he was trying to show how much he could be deep with us and he was just getting with us so he just wrote on a note in Intellikey.

- Aristotle.

- It had a nice ring to it, but what does it mean?

And he said, an entity reaching its maximum potential as opposed, you know- - Yeah.

- To something.

And I said as opposed to placebo.

He said, "Sounds good."

(Cecelia laughing) So that became "Funkenteleky Versus the Placebo Syndrome."

"Flashlight" is the weird one because that was- - Oh man- - Bernie playing bass on the synthesizer as opposed to Bootsy playing bass.

- That was the first time that happened.

- First time that happened.

- That really happened like that.

- And the (hums).

- Jewish melody, right?

- That was- - Bar Mitzvah.

- My friend's Bar mitzvah.

- Yeah.

- I remembered his bar mitzvah (hums).

He was like, I was like, - And it just came back to you- - It just came back.

- During that moment.

- I didn't even think of it.

- That's crazy.

- It's just, okay that fits that and it worked.

He lived right down the street, went to school together and his mother, "George, Myron come in for soup and sandwiches."

(people laughing) Your bar mitzvah.

I didn't know what a bar mitzvah was.

- Hey.

- But that was his thing.

- I said okay.

So when I finally said it in the magazine, maybe a couple years ago it went viral.

- Last one.

- Okay, yeah, this one is the good one.

- Yeah.

- Because see, this is 1982 going in to '83.

- [Piranha] Wow.

- [Dr Funkenstein] This was the first one that I did on my own name.

- Oh man.

- So I did this record under George Clinton.

- The first time you used your name.

- The first time I used my name period on the record.

We put out "Loopzilla" first.

- [Piranha] Don't touched that radio.

- People loved it.

- Bad Record.

- But so immediately "Atomic Dog" took off without even saying anything.

- Yes.

- That went crazy And it was all over, to this day, it's still like that.

- One of the first people to play that was the Electrifying Mojo.

- Yeah.

- And when we heard it, you know, it was like, yo, what was that?

- Yeah.

- You know that whole thing, I mean it was such a jam because of the backwards drum thing in there.

- What was going on with that?

- Yeah.

- The tape was on back when we was putting effect on it and I was getting high at the time, didn't know what I was doing.

I'm busting and starts rapping, you know, like thinking they was trying to record without me.

- Yeah.

- You wasn't about to miss your spot.

- Wasn't about to miss his spot.

- And once I got in there, I didn't know what to talk about.

So you hear me?

"This is a story of famous dogs, "for the dog that chase his tail will be busy."

I'm trying to think of something to say.

- Yeah.

- And how much I feel like that, and I did it just like that, and they left it like that and sang harmony around it.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- But you know what I mean, it was just like one of these things, man, y'all had such a magic.

- All recorded at United Sound Studio.

- The current production at the Purple Rose Theater Company in Chelsea pays tribute to Michigan's love of cars.

"The Classic King" is a comedy directed by the theater's founder actor Jeff Daniels.

It tells the story of four salesmen trying to deal with a changing auto industry in metro Detroit.

"One Detroit's" Chris Jordan has the story.

(chair scraping) - I know this guy in a hog just landed in the truck lot.

Eye patch, beard down to his navel.

- Box not in too good a shape.

- Neither is the biker.

- Don't all jump at once.

- [Chris] The Purple Rose Theater Company's rehearsal space in Chelsea.

Early January, a rehearsal for "The Classic King," a new play by Richard Johnson, directed by Jeff Daniels.

The play follows the staff of a struggling car dealership in Detroit.

- They're just trying to stay afloat, they got 30 days to do it, the banks put some pressure on the dealership and it's four guys trying to to get through the month.

- You know, you missed 100% of the shots you don't take.

- You gonna pay danger money?

- All right, good, do it again.

Really good, really good, really good.

- [Chris] Playwright Richard Johnson had a long career in automotive journalism as the print editor of "Automotive News."

After he retired, he decided to write a play set within the industry he'd spent his career covering.

- I always thought the industry was fascinating.

I mean, not just, you know, designing and selling cars, but just the way people talked.

I used to be at dinners, at industry events and hear guys talk and wanting to throw a tape recorder on the table just so I could capture it because they had their own way of speaking.

And when I retired a few years ago, I thought it would be fun to try to work this into some kind of drama setting.

I had thought that the history of the Ford Motor Company would make a good play and I was dumb enough to actually attempt to do that.

You had great characters, Lee Iacocca, and Henry Ford II, and Robert McNamara, and great cars like the Mustang, and I thought this is a story here.

My ex-boss at "Automotive News," great guy by the name of Peter Brown who's on the board of the of The Purple Rose, said that is pretty good.

He liked it, showed it to Jeff, Jeff immediately said, "There's no way in the heck "that this is gonna work on a stage "because it's so long, "it has maybe 30 characters in a hundred scene changes "in the whole thing."

- Easier to produce.

- But he said, "Come on in, "let's talk about some other ideas."

And it was in those meetings with Jeff, together we came up with the idea of a used car dealership yeah, and very focused, one stage, four characters, much easier to do.

- [Chris] And so this play was very much developed at the Purple Rose?

- Oh, absolutely.

- I had a buddy at the Harley shop down the street, called him, they bid on it, boop deal.

Only motorcycle I ever left.

- Ah, nice work, Braden.

- Thanks Mike.

- Beginner's luck.

- I'll take any kind of luck I can get.

I play Mike, who is the owner of the dealership.

He's at his wits end trying to keep the place afloat.

He is beating back the competition, the large pervasive competition in doing all that he can to rally the troops to his.

- I play Jerry Flanagan, he's been working with Mike for Mike at Starlight Classic Cars since he was a kid.

Selling cars runs in his family, it's in his blood.

His dad did it, his grandfather did it.

So this is the world Jerry is comfortable in.

- See that got a live one.

- So do we.

- At what stage do you guys as actors come into the process of work shopping and developing these original plays here?

- Pretty early on.

Yeah, we've done readings of Rick's play probably a little over a year ago.

He would rewrite, we would do other (indistinct), I know we did a handful of readings so that Rick and Jeff could hear it out loud, do a bunch of rewrites and that.

So we were involved pretty early on.

Rick's constantly working stuff, we're working stuff.

Seeing what lands, what doesn't, and making adjustments every minute of the day.

- Listening and collaboration is so important.

And you see the work grow as we put it up, go through iterations, have the feedback.

I had an idea who Mike was and then showed up in the room and threw it all away.

(people laughing) - Yeah, yeah.

- One of the important things is that allowing yourself, you listen to your scene partner and allowing that to inform some of your choices.

- He did it, he did it, he did it.

Is this the high five?

- This, yes, yes.

- Yeah.

- Great.

- Nice work Brayden.

- Thanks Mike.

- Boom, high five like that, like that.

And boom, your cue, you can go, you can do whatever you want, beginner's luck, then hit it with- - I'll take any kind of luck I can get.

- Oh, don't take that for a, that ain't casual.

That's a, no, you're wrong, I need a lot of luck I can get.

- It's alive, the material is alive.

- It's that owning the business and.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

- And walk right into that beginners luck thing.

Then hit him with that and then get to your office.

- That's the amazing thing about Jeff who will, the vision he has when he watches these guys rehearse, well, here's 15 ideas of how you could do this better and he just rattles 'em off, he's so good at that.

And it's, again, one of the many things I'm amazed about as I watch this process.

- He'll watch us throw, you know, a dozen behavioral ideas in one moment and gives us the freedom to do that.

And then says, yeah, just pair it down, make it about this, that and the other.

He's so good at simplifying the complexities that at least I tend to bring in when I'm working.

Just the wealth of experience and knowledge having that in the room is so helpful.

It's a love letter to the car enthusiasts.

Really, at the end of the day, it's a celebration of that world and that community.

Even if you don't know a lot about cars, if you're from Michigan, you're gonna understand just because our car culture here in Michigan runs deep.

You know, first and foremost, it's really funny.

These guys, how they interact is hilarious.

The world that when you walk into the theater, you're stepping into this very vivid world.

- It's one act, it's a bullet train, there's a lot going on.

It's a great story and wonderfully executed.

(people laughing) - Good, one more time, really good.

(feet shuffling) - As part of our ongoing coverage on caregiving, "One Detroit" is launching a series of conversations with local caregivers.

We've captured their personal stories about the challenges and rewards of caring for others.

First up is a conversation with Detroiter Patricia Wrencher, following her experience caring for family members, Wrencher decided to help others by creating a newspaper with caregiving information and resources.

Here's her story.

(gentle music) - I first came into caregiving just observing my mother who was caring for her mother, my grandmother who lived to be a hundred, and she lived in the family home with my mom and I just sort of, from a distance, I helped and filled in when I needed to, but I never realized the complexity of it.

So it was grandma first, and then after she passed, about five years later is when mom's health began to decline.

And we had a five year run, I was here.

There's just two of us, my sister and I, my sister was in California, and five years in then dad began to decline.

And so I had a 10 year run with both mom and dad.

I knew nothing about healthcare systems really, I didn't know about long-term care, I didn't know the difference between Medicaid and Medicare.

I didn't know anything and I was 50.

If I had known what I know now, I would have started with Detroit Area Agency on Aging where they could have plugged me into different services.

Mom had to go into a nursing home, dad was at the family home, which was about 10 blocks from each other, which made it easy.

I got a job with the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State and I had a old journalism degree.

I call it a 20th century journalism degree.

So all of that, once I realized that this was something that a lot of people were struggling with, I said, and this was early on in the caregiving, people need some place where they can go and get the information.

Through my advocacy work with the state, once I worked at Wayne State and then I sat on the Michigan Commission for Service for the Aging and I learned how the dollars flowed and what they went to, I learned that there were very few dollars that went towards marketing of resources so a lot of programs were underutilized.

So I said, when I get through this, I'm gonna come up with a newspaper and inform people and educate people about what's available.

I titled the paper "Urban Aging News" and it's a quarterly and it launched in 2015.

I circulated to all three counties, Wayne, Oakland and McComb, to senior centers, a lot of churches.

I used to run a piece in the paper where we highlighted caregivers and most of them would say, and I had to agree with them, that caregiving mom and dad or one of the parents, maybe one of them that they weren't as close to that it really brought about them being closer to their parent.

It's a awesome responsibility and that became very clear to me.

I'm totally responsible for mom, I'm totally responsible.

And I guess, I mean, she was totally responsible for me at one point (sighs).

But it makes you very clear that that's what caregiving is.

And if you love the person, you wanna make sure that you're providing them with this as excellent a care as possible.

(gentle music) - We will have more caregiving conversations on future episodes of "One Detroit."

Plus you can see other caregiving stories at onedetroitpbs.org.

That'll do it for this week's show.

Thank you for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Brought to you in part by Impart Alliance, Ralph C. Wilson Jr.

Foundation, and by.

Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator 2] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(gentle music)