Dr. George Bernard Bernie Worrell, Jr. (April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016) was an American keyboardist and composer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He was a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Worrell was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. A musical prodigy, he began formal piano lessons by age three and wrote a concerto at age eight. He went on to study at Juilliard and the New England Conservatory of Music. As a college student around 1970, Worrell played with a group called Chubby & The Turnpikes (later to be known as Tavares). The drummer in that band was Joey Kramer, who left in October 1970 to be a founding member of the rock band Aerosmith. After meeting George Clinton, leader of a doo wop group called The Parliaments, Worrell, Clinton, The Parliaments and their backing band, The Funkadelics, moved to Detroit, Michigan, and became collectively known as Parliament-Funkadelic. During the 1970s the same group of musicians separately recorded under the names Parliament and Funkadelic, (among several others), but toured as P-Funk. Worrell played grand piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, Hohner Clavinet, Hammond B3 organ, ARP String Ensemble and Moog synthesizer, co-wrote, and wrote horn and rhythm arrangements on hit recordings for both groups and other associated bands under the Parliafunkadelicment Tha...