George Bernard "Bernie" Worrell, Jr. (born April 19, 1944) is an American keyboardist and composer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Ice Cube called him the best keyboardist he has ever heard. Worrell was born in Long Branch, New Jersey and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. A musical prodigy, he learned to play the piano 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. He then met George Clinton, then the leader of a doo wop group called The Parliaments. Soon, Worrell, Clinton, The Parliaments and their backing band (Funkadelic) moved to Detroit, Michigan, and became Parliament.