Amp Fiddler

Amp Fiddler

The Detroit producer, keyboardist, singer and collaborator of George Clinton and Moodymann weaves tales of riotous ’80s funk and ’90s R&B

For Joseph “Amp” Fiddler, it’s been a lifelong journey of musical discoveries. After starting out in the group Enchantment, he became spellbound in the early ’80s by the sounds of Parliament and Funkadelic – and through hard work and determination, it only took two years before George Clinton hired him as a keyboard player.

Under Clinton’s glittering wings, from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s, Amp Fiddler surveyed the tones and textures of dance music’s relationship with funk, soul and R&B, and brought his knowledge into the studio, working with house and techno producers like Moodymann, Carl Craig and Theo Parrish, and pop and soul masters like Maxwell, Prince and Sly & Robbie. As well as becoming a seasoned collaborator, over the years Amp Fiddler has released dozens of singles and EPs and five solo albums, the most recent being 2016’s Motor City Booty, a riotous adventure through electronic funk. Oh, and he introduced J Dilla and Q-Tip to the Akai MPC. In these excerpts from his densely-packed Fireside Chat, Amp Fiddler regales host Jeff Mao with studio tales that cross four decades.

My mom bought a piano before I was born. I’m the youngest of five; everybody was involved in music in one way or another. My older sister was constantly playing Motown. My sister under her was a hippie, and around the time that I was coming up she was bringing Black Panthers in the house and listening to all kinds of obscure music from rock & roll to blues to soul to funk. My brother under her was a jazz head and had a big record collection. I went to Federal Department Store with the brother who was next to me, Bubz, and my dad. I wanted a pogo stick, my dad said, “No,” and instead he bought my brother a bass guitar. I watched Bubz playing bass for a year, he really got good. Musicians were coming by the house all the time and I was like, “Wow, this is cool.” As I got older my mom kept asking me if I wanted to take [piano] lessons. I went one day and I was like, “No, I can’t do this. This is terrible.” I hated it.

Everybody in my neighborhood was playing some kind of instrument. Garage bands [were] very prevalent at that time and everybody was jamming and playing together, so my friend Bill and I would go and steal pedals so that he could come back to the house and freak the guitar out and get some wild sounds. I was like, “Man, I’m tired of stealing shit. We’ve got to stop this.” I saw this sign saying [piano] lessons were seven dollars for half an hour. I signed up for lessons with this old lady, Ms. Whitney. She was about 87. I studied with her for a year and a half, and then I started going to college.

I have been a part of a lot of Detroit music in different ways. We are all passionate and we are a community of musicians that respect each other and love what we all do. I have friends who just happen to be musicians and producers, and we all respect each other so much that we share the music with each other with no boundaries.