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| Funk Legend George Clinton Signs With Exclusive Solutions Management George Clinton, legendary singer/songwriter and innovator of funk music, best known as the founder of the group(s) Parliament/Funkadelic, has signed on with Exclusive Solutions Management. His new management Exclusive Solutions Management LLC (ESM) of Houston, TX, according to Clinton, "has been the best management experience of his career." After years of mistreatment Clinton was skeptical to work with new management; however he was won over by their commitment to helping him regain the intellectual property he had lost and seek restoration for him monetarily. ESM is an artist management company operating at the highest levels of ethics and integrity. Despite his success, George Clinton, the funk music legend, has received little monetary gain over the past three decades from his musical works. He is the creator of hits such as, "Flashlight" and "One Nation Under a Groove." Clinton's smash hit "Atomic Dog" is one of the most sampled songs in history, yet Clinton does not receive any compensation from it since he does not legally own the rights to the song. Clinton is determined to bring awareness to some of the issues he and other artists face with mismanagement in the music industry. Clinton is also fighting back against his former business partners and managers, Armen Boladian (Bridgeport Music, Inc.) and Nene Montes (Tercer Mundo). George knew early on the value of what he was creating and attempted to take steps to protect it by negotiating ownership with the labels (this was rarely done at the time) and worked hard to secure ownership of his masters, which at the time he did. In 1984 Clinton filed bankruptcy. Armen and Montes were entrusted to act on Clinton's behalf as administrators only. There were several documents that appear to have George's signature on them which turns most of his publishing and masters over to Boladian and Montes, which caused Clinton to lose all rights and financial gain to all of his songs. Clinton asserts that, being an artist whom worked so hard early on to take care of the business side of his creative works, he would not be so careless as to sign over complete rights to his music for a lifetime. This brings to the forefront the ethical relationship between artist and the third parties whom they entrust to take care of their business. Clinton has been entangled in various legal disputes for more than 20 years. The disputes have been against his management, record label, and publishing company all in an effort to recoup the money that he has lost through bad business dealings. Clinton's mission is to bring awareness to the injustice and unethical behavior that continues to take place in the music industry. Many of the legendary artists of the '60s, '70s and '80s were taken advantage of by managers, record labels and others and have not seen the financial compensation they deserved. Many are experiencing financial hardship while someone else is reaping the benefits of their life's work. A sadder reality is Clinton's mother, Julious G. Keaton, who died last week; however, Clinton is struggling to finance her funeral. Clinton, like so many artists, has experienced financial troubles throughout his career due to bad record label contracts and mismanagement practices. It is frustrating when you are a musical legend who has sold millions of records and spawned universal hits, but cannot pay for your mother's funeral. At 68 years old Clinton continues to tour annually to generate income. Clinton says he is not afforded the ability to live off the residual income of his life's work of which he wrote, produced, and created because individuals and record label executives took advantage of him. Clinton wants to make it clear that he has not monetarily benefited at all from the more than 300 infringement lawsuits filed on behalf of the works he created, nor was he the instigator in these suits. At a time when he should be able to live off his life's work, Clinton is struggling to provide for his family and give his mother a proper burial. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Jazz News :: home page |