Biography
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Born
15 November 1956 (age 67)
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Born In
Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States
Michael Hampton is a Funk Rock guitarist, composer and musical director and a Rock 'n Roll Hall of fame inductee with the band George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic in 1997.
He joined the Parliament Funkadelic tour at the Capitol Center in Landover MD 1974 after he was asked by one of the band members to perform at their after party, where he impressed George Clinton by demonstrating his skill as a fresh out of high school guitar prodigy. As the original lead guitarist Eddie Hazel's on and off presence, Hampton's performances became fixture of their concert over the years.
He started to teach himself picking up various numbers from the radio with a guitar given to him when he was 10 years old. During high school he took lessons from a Jazz guitar player, who taught him technique, from various scales to ghost noting which rooted deep into his signature style, simultaneous melody-chord-speed. This training helped him to establish his musical versatility and complexity to this day. While Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Albert King, Wes Montgomery were some of the biggest influence to him, he was receptive to many different genres and players.
Hampton's first studio recording was Bootsy's Rubber Band's album "Stretchin' Out In" (1976). As he built his unique solo style with precision and groove, George Clinton describes him "Perfected the concept to play solo with melody of the song." He has recorded leads on Parliament Funkadelic's hits and well known numbers on their live performances, such as "Maggot Brain" "Red Hot Momma" "Cosmic Slop" "Knee Deep" "One Nation Under A Groove", co-written "Mr. Wiggles" "Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?" "Adolescent Funk" " Funk Gets Stronger", as well as Clinton's side project Brides of Funkenstein "Never Buy a Texas From A Cowboy" Clinton's Solo "Stingy" as notable credits. He is also a multi instrumentalist including drums, keyboards, synth programming as credited on Funkadelic's album "The Electric Spanking of War Babies"
Besides being a main member of P-funk, Hampton has been playing and recording on various projects. In the best acclaimed P-funk spin off band, 420 Funk Mob, Deee Lite along with Bootsy Collins, he went out to world tour (1994), also appears on Bill Laswell's various projects with Bernie Worrel, recorded with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Too $hort's album (1992 & 1996) and worked on his studio project, co-written Digital Underground's single "Wussup Wit the Luv" (2003).
Hampton recorded his 1st complete solo album, Heavy Metal Funkason (1998) which emphasis on his rocker side. It features his heavy fuzzy guitar solo with psychedelic and earthy atmosphere from Funkadelic with straight rock groove.
In 2015, Hampton has parted the Parliament Funkadelic tour band and is working on his new materials includes his own Kidd Funkadelic Band, as well as collaborating with other artist across genres.
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