By Mel Shields, Sacramento Bee

The MontBleu on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore seems to be getting more active entertainment-wise this year. Changes have been made, and the showroom, dark most of last year (including weekends) is lighting up more often in 2011.

The bookings are mostly edgy, with nothing middle of the road. This week, for instance, features one entertainer who has been attributed by rappers as one of their major influences, along with one of the most famous of all those rappers.

George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic appear Jan. 30. Clinton is undoubtedly one of the major innovators of what has come to be known as funk music, along with James Brown and Sly Stone. He began his musical career forming a doo-wop group, along the line of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, calling them the Parliaments.

Then came the years of the P-Funk All-Stars and groundbreaking albums like “Loopzilla” and “Atomic Dog.”

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