Episode 1184 - Bootsy Collins

Episode 1184 • Released December 17, 2020 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening my name is mark maron this is my podcast wtf i've been doing it a long time now

00:00:20Marc:A long time.

00:00:22Marc:Twice a week, every week, a new show.

00:00:25Marc:Since 2009, people.

00:00:28Marc:A new conversation.

00:00:30Marc:Every Monday and every Thursday, a new one.

00:00:35Marc:Always.

00:00:36Marc:Since 2009.

00:00:37Marc:Isn't that crazy?

00:00:40Marc:Through all the bad things, all the good things, all the peaks, valleys, plagues, deaths, we do it.

00:00:48Marc:We do the work here.

00:00:50Marc:We don't stop.

00:00:52Marc:If you're not familiar with the show or you're new to the show, welcome to the show.

00:00:55Marc:I talk for a while, then I talk to people.

00:00:57Marc:That's the deal.

00:00:59Marc:How's everybody doing?

00:01:00Marc:How are you?

00:01:01Marc:How's everything?

00:01:02Marc:You all right?

00:01:03Marc:Nothing's all right.

00:01:04Marc:I know that.

00:01:06Marc:I know nothing's all right.

00:01:08Marc:But some things are better, it seems, or almost better.

00:01:12Marc:I don't know.

00:01:12Marc:This fucking pig president is on his way out.

00:01:17Marc:which makes me happy.

00:01:19Marc:And if you find that disrespectful, I'll only respect the office as much as the president in office respects the office.

00:01:28Marc:And for any of you fascist clowns out there who decide to listen to me for whatever reason and justify your support of the pig, well, clearly, and I mean this objectively, there's something fucking wrong with you.

00:01:44Marc:Is that too harsh?

00:01:45Marc:Look, man, we're all just people.

00:01:47Marc:Some people are scared.

00:01:48Marc:Some people are sad.

00:01:49Marc:Some people are angry inside.

00:01:53Marc:And it seems like the people that are most against the idea that they're being fucked with are the most vulnerable to be fucked with because their triggers are so goddamn easy.

00:02:06Marc:When you're full of sadness and you're full of fucking anger and you're not processing any of your grief or your feelings of...

00:02:14Marc:Trauma, abandonment, bitterness.

00:02:20Marc:You got the easiest trigger in the world.

00:02:22Marc:You got a wide open door into your heart and mind.

00:02:26Marc:All you got to do is fucking stoke those fucking coals of contempt.

00:02:30Marc:And there you go.

00:02:31Marc:The doors just open up and anybody can fill your head with whatever kind of garbage they want and just throw it on your fucking already burning fire.

00:02:42Marc:That's across the board shit.

00:02:45Marc:Did I mention?

00:02:46Marc:I didn't.

00:02:48Marc:We have a pretty amazing show today.

00:02:50Marc:Bootsy Collins.

00:02:52Marc:I got pitched this.

00:02:53Marc:You want to interview Bootsy Collins?

00:02:55Marc:Fuck yeah, I do.

00:02:57Marc:Is he going to wear his star glasses and his top hat while I interview him on Zoom?

00:03:02Marc:The answer to that question is, yes, he is.

00:03:05Marc:He most certainly is going to wear his top hat and star sunglasses while you interview him on Zoom.

00:03:11Marc:But the big topper is he's going to have outer space as his background.

00:03:15Marc:Yeah, yeah, that's what happens when you interview Bootsy Collins on Zoom.

00:03:21Marc:I will say this.

00:03:21Marc:He did his ear pods or earbuds or whatever the fuck they are, those Apple things.

00:03:26Marc:They kept falling out of his head.

00:03:28Marc:So it gets a little tricky.

00:03:31Marc:But what a great conversation.

00:03:33Marc:If you don't know who Bootsy is, he is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member.

00:03:38Marc:He played in James Brown's band, the Pacemakers, back in the day.

00:03:42Marc:He is and was...

00:03:44Marc:member of parliament funkadelic he has lots of his own solo stuff he's basically the definition of funk his new album is called the power of the one what a thrill it was to talk to Bootsy Collins oh my decision to work I know I know it's peak COVID I know it's fucking insane I took the gig and I'm doing it and for some reason with all everything hanging in the balance you know I get tested every other day and we're doing the work it's like

00:04:09Marc:I'm having one of the best acting experiences of my life.

00:04:13Marc:I don't know if it's going to be the last one.

00:04:15Marc:I don't know why.

00:04:16Marc:But, you know, I've decided to do something and I'm doing it because I had the opportunity to do it.

00:04:23Marc:safely as safe as possible we'll see maybe i'll get through it without getting covid maybe maybe the production will go all the way through without having to shut down because of covid happy to be working happy to be talking to you now look i know there's a lot of people in trouble right now i know there's a lot of people that can't work i know there's a lot of people who are sick who have lost people i've known people who are sick

00:04:46Marc:I don't believe that I've lost anybody personally to COVID.

00:04:51Marc:But I know my aunt and uncle just got through it.

00:04:53Marc:My cousins, kids had it.

00:04:56Marc:I know people around here that have gotten it.

00:04:58Marc:I know it's horrible.

00:05:00Marc:I know it's not anywhere near good.

00:05:03Marc:I know there's a vaccine.

00:05:04Marc:And now it's just sort of like, man, if I get this and kick it.

00:05:08Marc:Because I'm stupid.

00:05:10Marc:Before I get that vaccine, then that'll be a true fucking tragedy.

00:05:15Marc:A lot of true tragedies around.

00:05:17Marc:But nonetheless, I chose to take the gig.

00:05:21Marc:But I knew in my mind that, you know, if I'm going to be an actor or if I'm going to try to do it, I don't claim to be a great actor.

00:05:27Marc:I'm learning how to do it.

00:05:28Marc:You hear me learn how to do it on this show.

00:05:32Marc:But I knew how to challenge myself and I knew I had to do something different.

00:05:36Marc:I got offered this gig to play a guy who is definitely not me, who is definitely written as a Texan, and who is a different personality than me altogether.

00:05:49Marc:I didn't want to do it because I was like, this is crazy.

00:05:51Marc:I don't need to be on a set.

00:05:52Marc:It's COVID.

00:05:53Marc:I don't need it.

00:05:55Marc:But then I was convinced, and I've gone through this before, that it would be okay to do it, that the set's probably going to be safer than the supermarket.

00:06:01Marc:True.

00:06:02Marc:I believe that's true.

00:06:05Marc:But then there was the other element.

00:06:06Marc:Like I buckled the week before I was supposed to do this work.

00:06:09Marc:I was like, you know, God, I hope it gets shut down.

00:06:11Marc:I hope they don't do it.

00:06:12Marc:I hope the lockdowns will stop.

00:06:13Marc:I was afraid to do the accent.

00:06:15Marc:I was afraid to rise to the challenge.

00:06:18Marc:But I knew in my heart before I took this gig that if I'm going to be an actor, I have to take the risk of failing with a character who isn't like me.

00:06:30Marc:That was set in place.

00:06:32Marc:I didn't know if I was going to do it.

00:06:34Marc:But usually when I set it in place in my heart and mind, this isn't any sort of notebook shit.

00:06:39Marc:It's not like manifesting magic.

00:06:42Marc:It's just like I knew in my mind, in my heart, that that's what I got to do to move forward creatively in this particular mode, in this particular craft, if I'm going to grow.

00:06:53Marc:And that goes with anything, man.

00:06:57Marc:Pow!

00:06:58Marc:I shit my pants.

00:06:59Marc:JustCoffee.coop.

00:07:01Marc:I'm back.

00:07:02Marc:I'm back.

00:07:04Marc:So anyway, all that being said, it's been rewarding.

00:07:09Marc:And, you know, I've been more aware of doing the work.

00:07:12Marc:We did a scene a couple of days ago, me and Andrea Riceboro, who is a genius actress.

00:07:20Marc:Where, you know, it was a touching scene.

00:07:23Marc:It was really not a sad scene, but it was, you know, an open hearted scene.

00:07:29Marc:And both of our characters are slightly sad, a little bit heavy hearted characters.

00:07:36Marc:But this is a hopeful, beautiful moment between us.

00:07:39Marc:And we had to play it, and it was just really kind of stunning to try to stay in the work, to try to put something in place that I could count on, take after take, to get to the emotional place necessary for this scene to happen.

00:07:54Marc:And I tell you, man, we did it.

00:07:55Marc:And, you know, the last take, you know, I started choking up and, you know, the director said, cut.

00:08:02Marc:Do you feel satisfied?

00:08:03Marc:Can we check the gate?

00:08:04Marc:And I'm like, yeah, I'm crying.

00:08:06Marc:I kind of can't stop crying.

00:08:09Marc:And she's crying a little bit.

00:08:10Marc:He's like, are you all right?

00:08:11Marc:I'm like, I am all right.

00:08:14Marc:And, you know, we're all all right.

00:08:15Marc:We're acting here.

00:08:18Marc:And we sat out there in the dust of this field where we'd set up this set to do this bit.

00:08:23Marc:And both of us are sitting there in our chairs and our masks with teared up eyes.

00:08:28Marc:And it was like so satisfying to connect like that.

00:08:31Marc:And I just had to, it was just interesting to be part of it and to keep that fucking feeling going throughout all these takes.

00:08:38Marc:And then what I kept having to do to connect with her, her character,

00:08:42Marc:My character connecting with her character.

00:08:44Marc:By the last take, I literally was we had to enter a room and I had to get she didn't even see me do this.

00:08:50Marc:I was like very close to her just so I could look at her face up close and see her face and see her hair and know that like that, you know, that is tangible.

00:08:59Marc:That is tangible.

00:09:00Marc:a human face, hair.

00:09:03Marc:We're in this together.

00:09:04Marc:And I put in a place in my heart how I felt about that character, how my character felt about that character.

00:09:10Marc:And then you go into this and you arrive in the present if you're lucky.

00:09:14Marc:But I had to almost like smell her fucking hair to get in it.

00:09:18Marc:Now, I don't know what technique that is.

00:09:21Marc:And I don't know what I'm using.

00:09:24Marc:I've talked to a lot of people.

00:09:25Marc:There's a lot of ways to go.

00:09:26Marc:I don't know how it looks, but I do know this.

00:09:29Marc:That after we shot that scene and we got through it and the director said to me, it's like this character is so interesting.

00:09:34Marc:It's just like there's so it's almost like no ego to this guy.

00:09:38Marc:And I'm like, wow.

00:09:40Marc:Well, that that is definitely not me.

00:09:46Marc:It's just been an interesting experience, and I just want to share it with you.

00:09:51Marc:I know that a lot of you, you can't work, and you're frustrated, and you're sick, and you're broke, and this time is horrendous.

00:10:00Marc:It's horrendous for everybody.

00:10:01Marc:But I'm just sharing what I'm doing.

00:10:03Marc:Maybe at least you can get lost in that process.

00:10:06Marc:I decided to take the risk, and I continue to do it.

00:10:10Marc:And I'm just trying to live a life in the midst of all this.

00:10:14Marc:in the midst of terrible fear, in the midst of terrible reality, in the midst of a lot of things raining down on us that are horrible, I'm not going to let this part of my life suck if possible.

00:10:28Marc:Did I mention I roasted a chicken?

00:10:29Marc:So here's the deal with that.

00:10:32Marc:I've done it a lot of ways.

00:10:34Marc:And I've never been happy, really, because I always think it comes out too tough or too dry.

00:10:39Marc:And I think I'm overcooking it.

00:10:40Marc:But I've tried it on a slow heat.

00:10:41Marc:I've tried it on a higher heat.

00:10:43Marc:I've got the temperature right.

00:10:45Marc:But I think it really matters if you can get a fucking fresh chicken.

00:10:48Marc:I think some of these chickens you get like at Whole Foods that are already packaged in the refrigerator.

00:10:52Marc:They might have been frozen before.

00:10:53Marc:I don't know.

00:10:54Marc:But I just got like a fresh one.

00:10:56Marc:And all I did, I poked around at some recipes.

00:10:59Marc:Here's exactly what I did from a couple of recipes that I gleaned.

00:11:04Marc:I put the oven on 475, all right?

00:11:08Marc:And then I salt and peppered a chicken thoroughly inside and out.

00:11:14Marc:And then I let that chicken set in the fridge and

00:11:17Marc:salted and peppered for like 45 minutes.

00:11:20Marc:And then while that was happening and the oven was heating up, I stuck a large cast iron skillet into the oven to get it heated up to 475.

00:11:30Marc:And then I took the bird out of the fridge and I pulled the skillet out of the oven and I threw the bird in there.

00:11:36Marc:And the breast side up, is it?

00:11:39Marc:Yeah.

00:11:39Marc:But before I put it in the pan, I stuck a wad of rosemary, fresh rosemary in there.

00:11:43Marc:I just put it in the pan, sizzle, sizzle, stuck it in the oven for like an hour.

00:11:48Marc:You know, until the juices run clear, you stick a thermometer in 165 to 170.

00:11:54Marc:I took it out.

00:11:55Marc:It was fucking perfect.

00:11:56Marc:Because if you cook it high, I thought that automatically makes it tougher, dried out.

00:12:00Marc:No, it makes that fucking skin nice and crispy.

00:12:04Marc:So I don't know if I can repeat it.

00:12:06Marc:I've been trying to repeat these recipes I'm working on to make sure that I...

00:12:12Marc:You know, that it's not a one-off.

00:12:14Marc:But it fucking came out beautiful.

00:12:17Marc:And tonight, tonight I'm going to dredge some sand dabs and cornmeal and fucking cook them.

00:12:24Marc:Yeah, that's right.

00:12:26Marc:I'll be dredging sand dabs.

00:12:28Marc:What are you up to?

00:12:31Marc:All right, Bootsy Collins, you guys, this is serious.

00:12:34Marc:As I said before, he was having some audio issues during this talk.

00:12:37Marc:He couldn't get the earbuds to stay in his head.

00:12:41Marc:Those little ones, those Bluetooth earbuds or whatever the fuck they are, earplugs, what do they call them?

00:12:46Marc:So the quality goes up and down a bit here, but it's still a solid connection and a good talk.

00:12:52Marc:And it's fucking Bootsy Collins.

00:12:55Marc:And if you want to picture it,

00:12:56Marc:He's wearing his fucking star-shaped sunglasses and his top hat.

00:13:01Marc:And he's talking to me, trying to keep his earbuds in.

00:13:04Marc:And behind him is outer space.

00:13:09Marc:This is me and Bootsy Collins.

00:13:12Guest:Mark?

00:13:19Marc:Yes.

00:13:20Marc:Hey.

00:13:21Marc:What's up?

00:13:22Marc:How you doing, buddy?

00:13:24Guest:Everything's good, you know?

00:13:25Marc:Bootsy Collins.

00:13:27Marc:How's, uh, you know, where are you at?

00:13:29Marc:Where am I talking to you from?

00:13:30Marc:Oh.

00:13:30Guest:I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio.

00:13:33Marc:That's your hometown.

00:13:35Guest:Yes, yes, yes.

00:13:36Guest:And, you know, what can I say?

00:13:39Guest:We're on lockdown.

00:13:40Guest:Yeah.

00:13:41Guest:And, you know, hey, nothing never changed.

00:13:45Yeah.

00:13:45Marc:When you're in lockdown, do you find yourself playing?

00:13:50Marc:I mean, you got a lot of time over there.

00:13:53Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:13:54Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:13:54Guest:Well, actually, that's the main thing that pretty much keeps us sane around here is the music.

00:14:00Guest:You know, we got a studio here and then we got one across the way.

00:14:06Guest:We try to stay very creative because this is definitely a good time to be creative.

00:14:14Guest:That's really all you got to focus on is trying to keep it together and be creative.

00:14:21Marc:Yeah, and I think that being creative and putting out the stuff, it does definitely help you keep it together and not think about how seemingly terrible everything is all the time.

00:14:31Guest:yes yes yes and you know that's what this this album really is all about you know just you know trying to put some um some at ease in the uh uneasiness of what's going on you know it's uh you know it's pretty deep nobody nobody expected it you know um and hit everybody at once so it's like

00:14:54Marc:Yeah, no one's getting out from under this.

00:14:56Marc:We're all on the same page.

00:14:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:14:58Marc:We're all equally fucked in this plague time.

00:15:02Guest:Exactly, exactly.

00:15:04Guest:But, you know, it's like, I don't know, you know, I guess it's probably good for us in a way, in a crazy way, but...

00:15:14Guest:You know, I don't know, you know, they stopped, they took all our gigs.

00:15:18Guest:I mean, you know, it's like, you know, can't nobody go to work.

00:15:22Guest:I mean, you know, especially the musicians.

00:15:24Guest:I mean, everybody is in the same pot.

00:15:26Marc:Were you going to tour on the record?

00:15:28Guest:Well, we was going to try to, you know, put some things together.

00:15:31Guest:But, you know, when that kind of happened, it started snatching everything, even the great ideas, started snatching all of that because, you know, it was like,

00:15:41Guest:You know, we can't even focus on that no more.

00:15:44Marc:So when you do it, when you do a record like this, I was listening.

00:15:46Marc:It's weird because yesterday, here's what I did yesterday.

00:15:49Marc:I listened to Food for Thought.

00:15:52Marc:I've got I got the JB's Food for Thought.

00:15:55Marc:Oh, wow.

00:15:55Marc:And then I listened to the power of the one yesterday and today.

00:16:00Marc:So now I got the beginning and the end here.

00:16:03Marc:Right.

00:16:07Guest:So that is so true.

00:16:09Marc:I heard I listen to you with the J.B.

00:16:12Marc:'s, you know, at the beginning of whatever you were becoming.

00:16:16Marc:And then, you know, I listen to the power of the one.

00:16:19Marc:And you've got the people that you work with.

00:16:22Marc:To me, the interesting thing about the bass.

00:16:25Marc:Yeah.

00:16:25Marc:Is that I imagine when you started, you know, the bass, you know, you're a support instrument.

00:16:30Marc:And then at some point, yeah, at some point you evolved into the instrument.

00:16:35Marc:And then, but you still like, you know, because you define something, you get people who you've influenced, who owe you a great deal of creative debt, but also people who like to play with you.

00:16:47Marc:I mean, on the new record, The Power of the One, I mean, I didn't even, I didn't even know George Benson was still around.

00:16:53Yeah.

00:16:53Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:55Guest:You know, we kind of keep in touch, you know, like by phone or however we can, you know.

00:17:03Guest:But yeah, man, it was like he was somebody that I always wanted to do a record with.

00:17:11Guest:And, you know, and never got around to it.

00:17:14Guest:You know, it's just because I got stuck on funk, you know, starting out in funk.

00:17:20Guest:Once I got with James Brown, it was kind of like solidified that that's what I do.

00:17:25Guest:That's all I do.

00:17:27Guest:You know, that's that's all the music I like.

00:17:29Guest:You know, it's like you get right.

00:17:31Guest:you get pinpointed in whatever you're doing, that's what you are.

00:17:37Guest:You know, that's cool.

00:17:39Marc:Well, it's not like, but you definitely leaned into it.

00:17:43Marc:It's not like you were fighting it at all.

00:17:45Guest:Exactly.

00:17:46Guest:No, I was loving every moment.

00:17:48Guest:I was loving it.

00:17:49Guest:Every moment of it.

00:17:51Guest:But, you know, I kind of grew up around a whole lot of different, you know, genres of music.

00:17:56Guest:And I was loving a lot of different genres.

00:17:59Marc:Well, when you were a kid, because that's really my question, because I know a little bit about some music and not so much about other music, but there seems to be a point where, you know, funk was invented.

00:18:11Marc:And you seem to be close to the source of that, because, like, you know, I don't know where that jump from R&B to...

00:18:19Marc:to soul, to funk happens, but there is definitely a groove shift that occurs.

00:18:26Guest:Yeah, I totally agree.

00:18:28Marc:Now, when you were growing up, what were you growing up around in Cincinnati over there?

00:18:33Guest:Oh, man.

00:18:35Guest:Well, I'll tell you, the guitar influence that I really looked up to was Lonnie Mack.

00:18:41Guest:Him and my brother, because my brother was playing a lot of the Lottie Mac stuff.

00:18:50Guest:And if you remember, well, you may not have been around in that time, but

00:18:55Guest:Lonnie Mack and a lot of other guitarists was doing a lot of instrumentals.

00:19:02Guest:Wes Montgomery.

00:19:03Guest:I mean, East Catch was like... Freddie King.

00:19:07Guest:Yeah, the top of their game.

00:19:09Guest:Speaking of Freddie King, he recorded here in Cincinnati.

00:19:14Guest:No kidding.

00:19:15Guest:Yeah, and so I got a chance to meet him over at King Records.

00:19:19Guest:And speaking of King Records, you know, that was like a whole meltdown of all kind of genres of music.

00:19:26Guest:Oh, that's right.

00:19:27Marc:So King Records was in Cincinnati?

00:19:30Marc:Yeah, and that's where I got started.

00:19:32Guest:Oh, man.

00:19:33Guest:That's how I got hooked up with James Brown, you know?

00:19:36Marc:Yeah, because all those first, like Cold Sweat, that's on King Records.

00:19:39Marc:All those early James Brown records on King Records.

00:19:42Marc:Who ran that place?

00:19:44Guest:Sid Nathan.

00:19:45Guest:He owned and operated it and had...

00:19:48Guest:everything under one roof that's the thing that really really got me who are some of those other artists so you were a kid when did you start playing i started when i was like eight nine years old uh and i was i was messing around with it because my brother played you know guitar and he was like eight years older than i so he was a teenager you know and so he was deep in it

00:20:13Guest:Oh, he was deep in it.

00:20:15Guest:And big brothers, you know how they treat their younger kids.

00:20:20Guest:So I was always not allowed.

00:20:23Guest:I was always rejected.

00:20:25Guest:Annoying.

00:20:26Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:27Guest:And it's like, and his responsibility.

00:20:30Guest:Because mama didn't play that.

00:20:32Guest:Mama didn't play that.

00:20:35Guest:Do not mess with her baby.

00:20:38Guest:So it was like I was caught in a web.

00:20:42Guest:I always wanted to please my brother, but I know he don't like me to be around.

00:20:47Guest:I know he don't want me to touch his guitar, but I got to.

00:20:50Guest:I just got to.

00:20:53Guest:So when he's off doing his paper route, I didn't get his guitar out of the closet, and I'm just wearing it out.

00:21:01Guest:I'm listening to Lonnie Mack, and I'm just wearing the guitar, learning note for note.

00:21:06Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:21:07Guest:And, you know, anything I could hear or see, I couldn't see too much of anything around that time because I was too young.

00:21:17Guest:I couldn't get in clubs, you know.

00:21:19Guest:Sure.

00:21:20Guest:And so, you know, it was a different time than now.

00:21:22Guest:Now, you know, you got music everywhere, you know, but then you had to have your own radio.

00:21:28Guest:either your photograph flair and transistor radio hadn't even came in yet damn so was your brother playing in a band in high school uh not a band in high school he he had a band um of cats he just put together you know because everybody was you know not everybody but a lot of people were just corner musicians you know like out on the corner right playing on the corner you know and

00:21:55Guest:And that's the that's the style that I picked up very early because I didn't like hanging around with kids my age because to me, it just wasn't really about nothing.

00:22:05Guest:What was about something was those jazz players, you know, Wilbur Longmire, Wes Montgomery, all these cats that hung around.

00:22:14Guest:and and played in these clubs i wanted to be around these cats and my brother had to had the passcode to get in you know everybody loved him because he was supposedly the uh one of the great guitars out of cincinnati ohio and so i got a lot of people that um

00:22:33Guest:That gave me, you know, like a pass card, not only because I was a young kid trying to learn how to play, but because I was his brother.

00:22:42Marc:Well, that's interesting because I never really thought about that until just now that that the sort of like the through line.

00:22:48Marc:of what became funk was really more jazz bass than blues bass, wasn't it?

00:22:54Guest:I would think so.

00:22:56Guest:And I would say it was kind of like a combination of those elements because that's what I was kind of absorbing myself.

00:23:07Marc:at that young age even without even knowing it you know you're not but it's not like the because like if you were in chicago you'd be taking in wolf and muddy and all those cats and that's a whole different thing but but i love listening to wolf i mean yeah of course of course i got hip to all of this because of my brother right right because he was like eight years older he knew that guy yeah see you had the records you had the records around the house

00:23:36Guest:Yeah, and we finally got something to play them on.

00:23:42Guest:I was always at the mercy of somebody else playing a record for me.

00:23:47Guest:Like the people down the street, around the corner.

00:23:50Guest:Listening in the hallway.

00:23:52Guest:Yeah, I was always at the mercy.

00:23:54Guest:So that's a part of being funky.

00:23:57Guest:Right.

00:23:58Guest:Right.

00:23:59Guest:When you're always at the mercy of somebody else allowing you to hear something down the hall, across the street, upstairs, sticking your head out the window.

00:24:10Marc:It sounds kind of sounds like, you know, someone asked Tom Waits once years ago, I read in an interview, someone asked Tom Waits what his favorite music was.

00:24:17Marc:And he said, an AM radio across the street.

00:24:20Guest:Across the street.

00:24:23Guest:Hey, man, that's so true.

00:24:25Guest:That is so true.

00:24:26Guest:And that's the way I was learning stuff.

00:24:30Marc:So when did you pick up a bass?

00:24:32Marc:How are you on guitar now?

00:24:34Marc:Did you decide you didn't want to play guitar?

00:24:36Guest:No, what happened was I wanted to play in the band with my brother and he was my whole inspiration.

00:24:43Guest:We didn't have a father.

00:24:44Guest:Phelps Collins, Catfish Collins, Catfish Collins.

00:24:48Guest:He was my whole inspiration.

00:24:50Guest:You know, it was my mother, my sister and my brother.

00:24:54Guest:That's what was in the household.

00:24:55Guest:You know, and so, and I was the baby, you know, I'm the baby boy.

00:25:00Guest:So, you know, so mama, you know, mama wasn't going for when, when big brother was like, you know, wearing me out, you know, like when he caught me with his guitar, you know, mama had to stand in the middle so that I wouldn't get crucified, you know?

00:25:16Marc:So she had to train, train your brother to treat you nicely.

00:25:19Guest:Yeah.

00:25:20Guest:Yeah.

00:25:22Marc:But did you eventually become pretty close?

00:25:25Guest:Well, after he learned, he had to learn that I was serious because both of us was jokers, first of all.

00:25:38Guest:And then I would say, I want to do this and I want to do that.

00:25:43Guest:I want to be an artist.

00:25:44Guest:I want to draw.

00:25:45Guest:And those are the things that I did do.

00:25:49Guest:Even before I started playing music or practicing, I was drawing and things would come to me in my head.

00:25:58Guest:I would want to paint them and put them down.

00:26:01Guest:So I was so interested in art.

00:26:03Marc:Did you do any of the cover art on any of the records?

00:26:06Guest:uh not not as far as personally doing it myself but the ideas yeah different ideas I was full of ideas I mean you know that was that was going everywhere so to get to get down with the the guitar thing what happened was uh my brother needed a bass player yeah and one night you know one night it was like

00:26:29Guest:my bass player can't make it.

00:26:32Guest:I can't find another to sit in.

00:26:34Guest:Do you want to play bass?

00:26:37Guest:And it was like, do I want to play bass?

00:26:40Guest:So that was like the best question in the world.

00:26:43Guest:The only thing that was worrying me was I didn't have a bass.

00:26:49Guest:So then I had to go real funky on him.

00:26:52Guest:I had to say, well, if you could get me four bass strings,

00:26:56Guest:I will be your bass player tonight.

00:26:58Guest:And sure enough, he got me four bass strings.

00:27:01Guest:And that silver tone guitar, that $29 guitar, I put four bass strings on it.

00:27:08Guest:I had to unwind the strings at the top where you put the string in the hole and tune it.

00:27:16Guest:I unwound that, put them all on there and tuned it up.

00:27:20Guest:And I said, let's go.

00:27:22Guest:My brother couldn't believe it.

00:27:24Guest:He couldn't believe it.

00:27:25Guest:He said, okay.

00:27:27Guest:And I had never played bass before.

00:27:29Marc:But it already sounded funky then.

00:27:31Marc:You didn't even have to do nothing.

00:27:32Marc:Just by coincidence, you're playing that bass.

00:27:36Marc:It's probably getting picked up on two of the string pickups, right?

00:27:41Guest:Right, right.

00:27:41Marc:Because a big, fat string.

00:27:43Marc:What did it sound like?

00:27:45Right.

00:27:45Guest:It sounded great.

00:27:47Guest:I mean, nobody, nobody, I'm serious.

00:27:51Guest:Nobody believed the sound I was getting out of that.

00:27:54Guest:And I wasn't even trying to get a sound out of it.

00:27:58Guest:I just wanted to play with my brother.

00:27:59Guest:It was convenient.

00:28:01Guest:You had to adapt.

00:28:01Guest:Yes, yes, yes.

00:28:03Guest:And then what was really so stupid was once I played with my brother and he started liking it, you know, I was already loving it, but my brother started accepting me.

00:28:15Guest:You know, like, wow.

00:28:16Marc:How old were you then?

00:28:19Guest:I was like 15, 14, 15.

00:28:22Guest:Okay.

00:28:23Guest:And, you know, I had started growing up.

00:28:26Guest:I had been playing guitar in a church, you know, in churches with different friends of mine and a group called the Christian Heirs.

00:28:36Marc:That's where I really.

00:28:38Marc:Oh, Christian Heirs.

00:28:39Marc:So gospel, gospel groove.

00:28:42Marc:Oh, see, that's where it comes from, too.

00:28:44Marc:Yeah.

00:28:44Guest:I would say it came from there first.

00:28:48Guest:At 11 years old, I was playing in gospel, in a gospel quartet.

00:28:53Marc:But you know what I'm trying to figure out?

00:28:55Marc:At some point, there was only a couple of blues guys that would do maybe one chord, maybe throw in that four and then come back to the one, but don't do the five at all, right?

00:29:06Marc:Right, right.

00:29:07Marc:But with gospel and with church music, that groove of moving, you could stay on that one chord.

00:29:13Marc:Yeah.

00:29:13Guest:You could stay there all day, all night.

00:29:16Guest:When in doubt, bam.

00:29:21Guest:And that's what it was all about, that groove right there.

00:29:25Marc:Right, right.

00:29:26Marc:That's it.

00:29:26Marc:Okay.

00:29:27Marc:So that's where you got the foundation of your guitar playing, but now you're playing with your brother and he's playing the Lonnie Mack covers or what?

00:29:37Guest:He's playing Lonnie Mack.

00:29:39Guest:You know, it was like a top 40s thing.

00:29:41Guest:You know, all bands, you know, had to play music that people was listening to, you know, and what was...

00:29:50Guest:what was really grooving to people.

00:29:53Guest:And, you know, most musicians paid a lot of attention to what people liked.

00:29:59Guest:And then they would play that in the nightclubs because there was a lot of nightclubs.

00:30:04Guest:And that was the thing was to be in a band, to play in a band at nightclubs and anywhere else, you know, you could play at.

00:30:13Marc:So you were like 15 when you were doing that?

00:30:15Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:30:16Guest:I started off definitely.

00:30:18Guest:They thought I was 18, 19 because I was tall.

00:30:21Marc:And you're playing your silver tone with four bass strings on it?

00:30:25Guest:Four bass strings.

00:30:27Guest:Okay.

00:30:28Marc:How long did you play that silver tone with those bass strings?

00:30:31Guest:Until I got actually James Brown.

00:30:35Marc:So wait, your brother's band was the Pacemakers?

00:30:38Guest:Yeah, he started the Pacemakers with.

00:30:40Marc:So that was the band you were playing in and the club was doing covers and stuff?

00:30:43Guest:Yep.

00:30:44Marc:You never did a record?

00:30:45Marc:Pacemakers never did a record?

00:30:48Guest:No, not that I recall.

00:30:52Marc:Well, you would know.

00:30:54Guest:Yeah.

00:30:55Guest:No, no, we never, we never, you know, but, but what happened was we started to play in Charles Spurling, an A&R guy from King records was searching for new and upcoming rhythm sections and musicians.

00:31:11Guest:So it came by the club and checked us out and was pretty, he was pretty blown away.

00:31:17Guest:And all we were doing,

00:31:18Guest:we're playing covers, you know?

00:31:21Guest:And so he wanted, he wanted to, but we were tight.

00:31:25Guest:I mean, we were tight.

00:31:26Guest:We practiced every day.

00:31:27Guest:I mean, so our whole thing was music.

00:31:29Guest:Everything then was around music.

00:31:33Marc:So this was the, this was the late sixties.

00:31:35Guest:Yeah.

00:31:36Guest:This is like a 67.

00:31:40Guest:Yeah.

00:31:40Guest:Like in 66, 67 around in that time.

00:31:43Marc:so shit was getting pretty crazy right music was getting pretty crazy rock music was getting crazy you know soul music was getting crazy so james brown's he's already kind of shifted out of that that old timey thing into a bigger a bigger sound and a kind of a more uh groovy uh presentation he's coming he's coming into out of sight pop has got a brand new bag oh yeah yeah yeah that's when we start hanging around king records so the a and r guy says come by

00:32:12Guest:Well, he wanted us to come by so we could be his band, you know, because he was producing so many different artists.

00:32:20Guest:Bill Doggett.

00:32:21Marc:Right.

00:32:22Marc:He needed a studio band.

00:32:24Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:25Guest:To make the hits.

00:32:27Guest:So we come over there and start doing things with him and people start hearing about us.

00:32:32Guest:And James started hearing about us, too.

00:32:35Guest:And so he wanted to test us out.

00:32:38Guest:And we had no idea what was going on with James Brown production, but he wanted us to go out on the road with Hank Ballard.

00:32:46Guest:And so that was our first and real test was, you know, that was like going out for the first time with Funkadelic.

00:32:56Guest:Right.

00:32:56Guest:You know, I mean, going out with Hank Ballard, you would think it was pretty sane.

00:33:01Guest:You know, that should be pretty cool.

00:33:02Guest:You know, it's harmless.

00:33:03Guest:You know, he's just going to sing, you know.

00:33:06Guest:Yeah.

00:33:06Guest:But the antics, you know, behind the scene was so deep.

00:33:10Guest:Like I said, it was like going out the first time with Funkadelic.

00:33:16Guest:Every time you're out with Hank, you're out with Funkadelic and you don't know exactly what's going to happen that the day of the show, the night of the show, the night after.

00:33:26Guest:I mean, it was just...

00:33:28Guest:Like what?

00:33:30Marc:Like what would happen?

00:33:32Guest:Well, okay.

00:33:33Guest:Say, for instance, we're on the way to the gig.

00:33:35Guest:We're driving.

00:33:36Guest:And Hank Ballas in the front seat.

00:33:40Guest:And you got about four of us in the back.

00:33:42Guest:And then you got one other car.

00:33:44Guest:Hank, on one hand, if he saw some girls in the car next to us, this actually happened.

00:33:51Guest:We were going through Lexington.

00:33:53Guest:Uh, and it was a car pulled up next to us full of girls.

00:33:57Guest:Yeah.

00:33:58Guest:Hank saw the girls.

00:34:00Guest:He jumped out of the car and he didn't even know these girls jumped in their car and we didn't see him that whole weekend.

00:34:09Guest:And it was his show.

00:34:11Guest:It was his show.

00:34:13Marc:So he didn't show up for the show.

00:34:15Guest:He didn't show up for the show.

00:34:19Guest:We did the show without Hank Ballard.

00:34:22Guest:That was my introduction to the first time on the road with Hank.

00:34:27Guest:The rest of them was all downhill from there.

00:34:31Marc:What were his big hits at that time?

00:34:33Marc:What were people coming to see?

00:34:35Guest:You know he did the twist.

00:34:37Marc:Right.

00:34:37Guest:You know, that was his really big thing then was the twist.

00:34:42Marc:But that's from the 50s.

00:34:44Marc:Well, I mean, that's... No, I get it, but you're going out with him in the 60s.

00:34:48Marc:He's got to be doing some other shit, right?

00:34:51Guest:Yeah.

00:34:51Guest:Oh, yeah, he was doing others.

00:34:52Guest:I just can't remember the songs.

00:34:55Marc:Right.

00:34:56Guest:It was the twist, huh?

00:34:58Guest:But the twist was, I think, his biggest hit.

00:35:01Guest:It was a whole different thing and something that was so much fun, man.

00:35:06Guest:I mean, you know, it was just fun.

00:35:07Guest:We weren't even looking, really, to get paid because we was doing this with James Brown.

00:35:13Marc:But where was James?

00:35:14Marc:I mean, James is not Hank, right?

00:35:17Yeah.

00:35:17Guest:Hank was under James Brown's production.

00:35:20Guest:Okay.

00:35:21Guest:And he was a James Brown artist.

00:35:23Marc:But James not on the road with you.

00:35:24Guest:No, no.

00:35:27Guest:This is a part of his A team.

00:35:29Guest:You know, he doesn't sit out there with us.

00:35:31Guest:I get it.

00:35:32Guest:To really spy on us, you know, unbeknownst to us because we didn't even know he was thinking of us as his band.

00:35:40Guest:Right.

00:35:41Guest:We never got any signals like that.

00:35:43Marc:So James, he's kind of spying on you.

00:35:46Marc:He's testing you guys.

00:35:47Marc:And what are you, like 18 or 19 now?

00:35:49Marc:What are you?

00:35:50Guest:I'm like 18.

00:35:51Guest:Yeah, I'm about 18 years old here.

00:35:53Guest:Yeah.

00:35:53Guest:And out with Marva and Hank.

00:35:57Guest:And then by that time, James had already figured out, okay, I think I can handle these boys.

00:36:03Guest:I can control them.

00:36:04Guest:Because he thought, you know, by me being so young, he wasn't going to be able to control me.

00:36:10Guest:Right.

00:36:11Guest:You know, the way he does his band.

00:36:13Guest:Right.

00:36:14Guest:I mean, he was right.

00:36:15Guest:He was right in the end.

00:36:17Guest:But, you know, this is some stuff that he always thinks.

00:36:21Guest:He always thinks ahead of the curve, you know, and he was way ahead of us before we even thought, you know, we was going to be a part of the band.

00:36:31Guest:He actually sent his plane to come and get us from Cincinnati, Ohio to the gig in Columbus, Georgia.

00:36:40Guest:He sent Bobby Bird on a plane to pick us up from a gig.

00:36:45Guest:We was doing a fundraiser, you know, and wasn't nobody in there but us and the bartender.

00:36:52Guest:So, you know, we're working off the door.

00:36:57Guest:And then Bobby Bird calls the club, you know, saying he's on the way to get us because we had we had befriended Bobby Bird.

00:37:06Guest:So he was our buddy, him.

00:37:08Guest:Maceo, Fred, you know, those were our boys, you know.

00:37:12Guest:We met them over King Records.

00:37:15Guest:Yeah.

00:37:15Guest:You know, and they were like our pals, you know.

00:37:18Marc:So Maceo, he was James' guy for a long time in the horn section.

00:37:24Marc:So these were old-time James Brown guys.

00:37:27Guest:Yeah.

00:37:28Marc:So you didn't know it was going to happen and he just summoned you.

00:37:31Guest:He summoned us as the band to come down and play on his show

00:37:37Guest:in Augusta, and he needs to come now.

00:37:40Guest:Not Augusta, Columbus, Georgia.

00:37:43Guest:He needs us to come right now.

00:37:45Guest:So once we get there, Bobby Bird takes us through the front door.

00:37:51Guest:And, you know, unbeknownst to us,

00:37:53Guest:People are on riot mode, you know, so they're like upset because James is late.

00:38:00Guest:You know, the band hasn't hit.

00:38:03Guest:And where is the band?

00:38:04Guest:So we walking into this, you know, so we walk in, you know, and, you know, we have no idea this is going on.

00:38:12Guest:We hear all this ruckus.

00:38:14Guest:We want James.

00:38:15Guest:We want, you know, and where is the band?

00:38:20Guest:And we're walking in, and somebody looks around and says, hey, there's the band.

00:38:29Guest:And we're looking around, too, like, who are they talking about?

00:38:32Guest:And so the security rushes us out because they look like they're going to mob us because they really think we're the band.

00:38:41Guest:So we go around to the back of the stage, and they open the door and let us in.

00:38:46Guest:And then Bobby said, well, I'm going to take you back.

00:38:48Guest:Y'all got to see James Brown.

00:38:50Guest:So he takes us back there, you know, and then we go in and he says, son, I'm glad y'all here.

00:38:59Guest:You know, but before I jumped ahead a little bit, before I got to that part, we walked in and at least we saw the faces of Maceo and Fred and Kush.

00:39:12Guest:We saw their faces and they were not happy faces.

00:39:16Guest:So we were looking at each other like, what in?

00:39:19Guest:And by the time we got back to James, you know, it was like he was laughing and smiling and grooving like, you know, like, you know, glad to see y'all.

00:39:29Guest:And, you know, I want y'all to, you know, play with me tonight.

00:39:34Guest:And we kind of looked at each other and it was like, OK, we rehearsed.

00:39:39Guest:You know, what are you talking about?

00:39:41Guest:I mean, you know, it's like, yeah, well, I'm going to get on stage and I'm just going to call the songs out.

00:39:46Guest:And, you know, I already know y'all know the songs.

00:39:49Guest:And we was like, yeah, yeah, we know how to sell.

00:39:52Guest:Well, just hit me on the one.

00:39:55Guest:Hit me on the one.

00:39:56Guest:When I throw my hand down like this, yeah.

00:40:00Guest:You know, hit me.

00:40:02Guest:And we said, okay, all right, let's do it.

00:40:06Guest:So he called us out on stage, you know.

00:40:10Guest:He said, cold sweat.

00:40:11Guest:And we went through that whole show with him calling out songs, and we playing it the way we heard it on the record.

00:40:24Guest:And that's the way everything started out.

00:40:29Guest:But we were shocked because

00:40:32Guest:Our band, our heroes, were, like, getting fired, and we had no idea.

00:40:39Guest:We flying down there, like, kind of in a state of shock, like, what does James really want?

00:40:46Marc:Oh, so you didn't know that, like, what he was doing in front of the band he was about to cut loose was auditioning.

00:40:52Guest:He didn't want us to know.

00:40:53Guest:He didn't want us to know.

00:40:54Marc:Because he thought you guys would have been loyal to Maceo and those guys.

00:40:58Guest:We would have.

00:40:59Guest:You know, at the time, you know, it was like,

00:41:02Guest:They were considered friends, you know, because they were our heroes, first of all.

00:41:07Guest:And then we looked up to them.

00:41:09Guest:We wanted to be as tight as they were, you know.

00:41:12Guest:And so, you know, any chance we could get to get around them, when we went over to King's, we got around them.

00:41:18Guest:You know, they'd be in the studio doing that thing.

00:41:21Guest:And then when they come out, you know, we take them to the restaurant or take them up the street to the store, get some wine, you know, that kind of thing.

00:41:29Guest:Right.

00:41:29Guest:So when James did that, he knew what he was doing.

00:41:32Guest:We just didn't know.

00:41:33Marc:And then what happened?

00:41:35Marc:Those guys, they go home?

00:41:37Guest:Yeah, they finally went home, you know, or something.

00:41:40Guest:I never really knew what happened, you know, like after that, because once James got us back in the room and started convincing us that we was going to do the show, you know, it was like everything else.

00:41:52Guest:We kind of forgot about everything else.

00:41:54Guest:Yeah.

00:41:55Guest:And James knew he knew what he was doing, you know, and he said he was going to introduce us as the band, his new band.

00:42:02Guest:And I mean, you know, he said all the right thing.

00:42:05Guest:Yeah.

00:42:06Guest:Once we got out there and he started calling us out.

00:42:10Yeah.

00:42:10Marc:yeah yeah you know oh that's great those things like shit we forgot everything so when j when you're when you're sitting there talking to james i mean he's charismatic you know it's james brown and you're like we're and now and he's saying your name you're like holy shit now we're the guys right yeah yeah how long did you play with him uh i'd say about a year and a half uh about a year and a half because because uh

00:42:35Guest:That was about all we could take because, you know, he was so into controlling every factor of, you know, the shoe shines, you know, why come your afro ain't combed?

00:42:48Guest:Oh, really?

00:42:49Guest:Your teeth, your teeth.

00:42:50Guest:Yeah, that whole thing, you know, and.

00:42:53Guest:You know, the old band, you know, they went for all of that because, you know, I think they had responsibilities.

00:42:59Guest:We weren't responsible for nothing but the music.

00:43:02Guest:You know, we had no responsibilities other than the music to play good music.

00:43:07Guest:Right.

00:43:07Guest:And so all of that other stuff, you fine for this, you fine for that.

00:43:12Guest:And none of it worked.

00:43:13Marc:Because it's like you're a different generation.

00:43:15Marc:So those old guys were the original guys.

00:43:17Marc:So they were all like Stockholm.

00:43:19Marc:It was all they were all gas with Stockholm syndrome.

00:43:22Marc:They were afraid.

00:43:23Guest:Yeah.

00:43:24Guest:Right.

00:43:25Guest:Yes, man.

00:43:26Guest:Like, yes.

00:43:27Marc:Yeah.

00:43:28Marc:Yeah.

00:43:29Guest:Right.

00:43:29Guest:And so, you know, we were coming up and he pulled us right off the streets of the riots, you know, so, you know.

00:43:37Guest:Muhammad Ali was talking loud, you know, and talking back.

00:43:42Guest:And so that's the era that I grew up in, you know, and and, you know, James wasn't, you know, he wasn't budging.

00:43:50Guest:Right.

00:43:51Guest:And which was cool.

00:43:52Guest:And, you know, at a young age, I understood it.

00:43:55Guest:But at the same time, it was like, you know, bands were coming up front.

00:43:59Guest:Bands wanted to be, you know, like the singers and playing and all of that.

00:44:05Marc:Well, you know, the JB's record I have, the one, the Food for Thought, he's not on that record.

00:44:09Marc:It's just you guys.

00:44:10Guest:Yeah.

00:44:11Guest:Yeah.

00:44:11Guest:But it's, you know, that's true.

00:44:14Guest:You know, that's true.

00:44:15Guest:And that's what he called himself bending.

00:44:19Guest:He bent a little for that kind of, you know, he sacrificed.

00:44:22Marc:Oh, so he said, you guys can do your thing.

00:44:25Marc:But, you know, you're my guys.

00:44:27Guest:And if you notice, when did that come out?

00:44:29Guest:That didn't come out.

00:44:30Marc:68, maybe.

00:44:32Guest:Yeah.

00:44:32Marc:Yeah.

00:44:33Marc:Yeah.

00:44:33Guest:So it was like he was trying in his James Brown way.

00:44:40Marc:to appease the band right you know it just you know people were just growing out of that style right so what did you well that right and then it's sort of interesting because you know that's a you know he was a tight band leader style and you guys were going to play James Brown songs and there wasn't much room for for necessarily personal expression and then when you move into somebody like like George Clinton he's like go for it man yeah well even before we got there even before we got there

00:45:09Guest:It was like, here I am on the back of James Brown's bus playing Jimi Hendrix.

00:45:16Guest:And James ain't going for that.

00:45:18Guest:It's like, what are you doing on my bus playing?

00:45:25Guest:That ain't going to work.

00:45:27Guest:And so when the snitches start telling, James will pop on the bus.

00:45:34Guest:It's like, who do you think you are on the back of my bus?

00:45:38Guest:playing some Jimi Hendrix yeah you know I mean and he was furious I mean he was furious you know but none of that stuff really scared us you know it was just it was funny yeah like what's wrong with the old man look at him getting all worked up right yeah I mean and he was really worked up you know and and once he started seeing that none of that stuff really affected us because

00:46:01Guest:you know getting paid we never we never got paid for pretty much nothing really any of the gigs we were doing before james we never got paid so what he offered us was so great but at the same time you know it was like you didn't really even have to pay us we do this for nothing you know and what did you like in terms of like you know what you eventually were becoming as a player what did you learn from working with him musically

00:46:30Guest:The one.

00:46:32Guest:The one.

00:46:33Guest:Yeah, I learned the one.

00:46:36Guest:Because when I, well, you know, and I missed the main story that I wanted to tell you.

00:46:41Guest:Go ahead.

00:46:42Guest:About the bass, the silvertone guitar that I turned into a bass.

00:46:48Guest:So when I first, when I first get there, I played it that night.

00:46:52Guest:Yeah.

00:46:53Guest:Matter of fact, the first night that we.

00:46:55Marc:In Georgia.

00:46:56Guest:James said after the show, he called me, what's that?

00:46:59Guest:Now, let me tell you something.

00:47:02Guest:He said, I love everything, but that damn green bass got to go.

00:47:08Guest:He said, I hate that bass.

00:47:10Guest:He said, what kind of bass you want, son?

00:47:13Guest:I said, you know, and I always was in love with that Fender jazz bass.

00:47:19Guest:Yeah.

00:47:20Guest:And here's a man, you know, my superhero asked me, what kind of bass do I want?

00:47:27Guest:I'm like, oh, I got to go for it.

00:47:30Guest:I got to go for it.

00:47:31Guest:I asked him, I said, how about the Fender jazz bass?

00:47:35Guest:No problem.

00:47:36Guest:No problem.

00:47:36Guest:We'll have it for you tomorrow.

00:47:37Guest:What color you want?

00:47:39Guest:I said, sunburst.

00:47:41Guest:Oh, no problem.

00:47:42Guest:We'll have it tomorrow.

00:47:45Guest:Meanwhile, you send that thing back to the house or somewhere, get rid of it, bury it or something.

00:47:49Guest:I don't want to see that thing no more.

00:47:51Guest:I said, okay, Mr. Brown, all right.

00:47:57Guest:So I got rid of that bass and started playing.

00:48:02Guest:If you see any footage from back in that day, you'll see me playing.

00:48:06Guest:He got it for you.

00:48:08Guest:James got that for you, yeah.

00:48:10Guest:But James is deep, though.

00:48:12Guest:Let me just get ahead of you a little bit.

00:48:16Guest:When we got canned, his whole thing was

00:48:21Guest:I don't care where you're going.

00:48:23Guest:Just make sure you leave the base behind.

00:48:26Guest:I was like, oh, it's like that.

00:48:31Guest:It's like that.

00:48:32Guest:So he was a ruthless cat, man.

00:48:35Guest:He was ruthless.

00:48:37Guest:And I was a youngster.

00:48:39Guest:I'm a youngster trying to understand

00:48:42Guest:why this mug is treating us like this?

00:48:44Guest:You know, it's like, man, I thought you got me the bass, you know?

00:48:48Guest:Yeah, I did while you was here.

00:48:51Guest:I was like, oh, okay, okay.

00:48:57Marc:Now go back and find your silver tone, little man.

00:49:01Guest:No, your silver tone is waiting on you at home.

00:49:04Marc:Go get it.

00:49:07Marc:So what is the one?

00:49:11Guest:Oh, man, the one, as James explained it, is the first count of every measure.

00:49:17Guest:One.

00:49:18Guest:Let me count it off for your son.

00:49:22Guest:Two.

00:49:23Yeah.

00:49:24Guest:One.

00:49:26Guest:That's the one.

00:49:27Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:28Guest:And he wants me to give him the one.

00:49:32Guest:And then play any and everything you want to play because I like what you're doing, son.

00:49:37Guest:I love how you're playing it.

00:49:38Guest:But you ain't giving me the one.

00:49:41Guest:Give me that one and you can play any of that stuff because he knew that he didn't know what to tell me to play.

00:49:47Guest:Because I was playing a whole lot for a bass player.

00:49:51Guest:And he couldn't wrap his head around what I was doing.

00:49:55Guest:So his whole thing was, as long as you give me the one, you can play any of that stuff you play.

00:50:01Marc:So he can go like, yeah, gotcha.

00:50:05Guest:And I'm glad I thought of it.

00:50:07Guest:I'm glad I thought of it.

00:50:09Guest:It's like, OK, all right, cool.

00:50:13Guest:And he actually did that in the studio quite a few times.

00:50:16Guest:And we all cracked up.

00:50:19Guest:I'm glad I thought of it.

00:50:21Guest:And he was serious.

00:50:22Guest:That was the comical thing.

00:50:25Guest:Anything that we would think was funny

00:50:30Guest:He thought he was serious.

00:50:31Guest:I mean, he was serious.

00:50:33Guest:He was serious about it.

00:50:34Marc:Big ego, narcissistic guy.

00:50:36Guest:Oh, oh, man.

00:50:39Guest:Come on.

00:50:40Guest:I mean, the biggest.

00:50:41Marc:He invented everything.

00:50:43Marc:Everything you guys did, he invented.

00:50:44Guest:He invented it.

00:50:46Guest:And who name on the record?

00:50:49Guest:Who that on the record?

00:50:51Guest:You ain't on that.

00:50:53Guest:So, you know, it was all like that.

00:50:57Guest:And, you know, we had to learn what that was all about because that was something we hadn't been, you know, introduced to.

00:51:07Guest:It was a whole new thing.

00:51:09Guest:way of doing things you know you're talking about the boss yeah i mean that was a real boss but you only stayed with him for for a year and a half but and you did you played a lot of dates though right so you got some you got some road mileage it was seven days a week well there you go four three or four shows on sunday so you went to school

00:51:31Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:51:33Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:51:35Guest:I mean, the James Brown School of Hard Knocks.

00:51:39Guest:And it was hard knocking for real.

00:51:42Guest:But it was good.

00:51:43Guest:It was good.

00:51:44Guest:It was fun.

00:51:46Guest:It was good.

00:51:47Guest:We got to see the world.

00:51:48Guest:We went all over Europe, Africa.

00:51:51Guest:I mean, we went to all these places that we would never have went to.

00:51:55Guest:Did I read it right?

00:51:57Marc:Weren't you afraid of flying at one point?

00:52:00Guest:Well, that happened after that happened, like after I went solo, you know, after with George now, you know, and I had this experience on a on a flight actually going over to Europe.

00:52:15Guest:This was the first time Bootsy rubber band.

00:52:18Guest:Yeah, we went to Europe and headline, you know, we're the headliners.

00:52:21Guest:So we had outgrew the part of Parliament Funkadelic.

00:52:25Guest:We were actually headlining shows at this point in 1978.

00:52:32Guest:And so by that time, you know, Boosy's Rubber Band had started doing, they were the headliners of the show.

00:52:40Guest:So we got to tour England, you know, Australia.

00:52:43Guest:France, all those places over there.

00:52:46Guest:So, you know, we were flying over there and that was a whole expedition in itself.

00:52:51Guest:You know, the SST.

00:52:53Guest:You remember that that the Concorde?

00:52:56Guest:Yeah.

00:52:56Guest:When it first came out.

00:52:57Guest:Right.

00:52:58Guest:Well, that was my dream flight.

00:53:00Guest:You know, it was like

00:53:02Guest:whenever we go over there, that's what I want to fly on.

00:53:05Guest:Yeah.

00:53:06Guest:And sure enough, you know, manager hooked it up for me and me and the manager.

00:53:12Guest:And I think it was one other base tech or somebody.

00:53:15Guest:We all got on that flight to go to Europe.

00:53:18Guest:And, um,

00:53:20Guest:You know, I'm on the SST.

00:53:21Guest:And when I got on it, you know, it was like, man, this thing is awfully small.

00:53:26Guest:You know, I had no idea it was that small inside.

00:53:29Guest:You know, actually, it reminded me of Jane's jet.

00:53:33Guest:You know, when I got in and it's like, you know, and so we got about 45 minutes into the flight.

00:53:42Guest:And all of a sudden, you know, I'm sitting by the window, you know, and I like to look out.

00:53:48Guest:I like to see the ocean.

00:53:50Guest:You know, I like to see the clouds.

00:53:53Guest:Next thing I know, man, first of all, the boom hit where, you know, you're going to supersonic speed.

00:53:59Guest:The sonic boom, yeah.

00:54:00Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:54:01Guest:So that was cool.

00:54:03Guest:The captain came on.

00:54:05Guest:No problem.

00:54:06Guest:We just hit the sonic boom.

00:54:07Guest:I think it was M3 or M4 or something.

00:54:11Guest:you know, uh, Mark three, Mark four.

00:54:14Guest:Yeah.

00:54:15Guest:Yeah.

00:54:16Guest:So we hit that.

00:54:17Guest:Everything was cool flight, you know?

00:54:19Guest:Yeah.

00:54:20Guest:And, and soon as we crossed the line, it's about 45 minutes into the flight.

00:54:26Guest:Yeah.

00:54:26Guest:Uh, as soon as we crossed the line,

00:54:28Guest:I saw fire jumping out from the engine on the, you know, and I'm like, no, this can't be happening.

00:54:36Guest:You know, I'm at the peak of my career.

00:54:38Guest:You know, I'm getting ready to headline over in Europe.

00:54:42Guest:This cannot be happening.

00:54:44Guest:And the pilot comes on, you know, the captain, he comes on and said,

00:54:49Guest:all right, we have a problem.

00:54:51Guest:He was trying to be cool, but you can hear in his voice that he was unsure.

00:54:56Guest:And it's like, you don't want nobody funking with your funk who's unsure.

00:55:01Guest:And so this bug is so unsure.

00:55:03Guest:It's like, oh, man.

00:55:04Guest:And then I'm figuring like, okay, I'm trying to figure out, okay, if we hit the water,

00:55:12Guest:And we just had been seeing Jaws was out.

00:55:16Guest:That was like a big hit back in the day.

00:55:19Guest:And I'm like, okay, we're going to pull through the crash.

00:55:23Guest:The crash landing, we're going to make that.

00:55:25Guest:But Jaws, I don't know how we're going to get away from that moment.

00:55:31Guest:So I was messed up, man.

00:55:33Guest:I was messed up.

00:55:34Guest:And the pilot turned back around and

00:55:38Guest:We actually started flying at an angle, like kind of sideways.

00:55:42Guest:Oh, my God.

00:55:43Guest:Yeah, because the engine was out on this.

00:55:46Guest:Actually, three of the engines went out.

00:55:48Guest:You got four engines.

00:55:50Guest:You got four engines.

00:55:52Guest:Three of them went out.

00:55:52Guest:So we flying, you know, sideways like this all the way back to New York.

00:55:58Guest:Like I said, we was about 45 minutes out.

00:56:00Guest:So we turn around, flying back.

00:56:04Guest:And once I got off of that plane, I said, I will never.

00:56:08Guest:F, get back on a plane.

00:56:12Guest:It scared the daylights out of me, man.

00:56:14Guest:No more Europe.

00:56:16Guest:But you know what?

00:56:17Guest:I lied because, you know, I told them to hit me up with some loose, you know, some quail loose, you know.

00:56:25Guest:It hit me up, you know, because we had to do the tour.

00:56:29Guest:We had to do the tour.

00:56:30Guest:We had like a three-week tour over there.

00:56:33Marc:And, you know, you got to figure it's not going to happen twice.

00:56:35Marc:If it happens twice, you know, you had it coming.

00:56:37Guest:I wasn't going to know about it.

00:56:39Guest:I wasn't going to know about it.

00:56:40Guest:No way.

00:56:41Guest:I made sure of that.

00:56:42Guest:I made sure of that.

00:56:43Marc:All right.

00:56:44Marc:Well, you got over that then, huh?

00:56:46Guest:But once I got back,

00:56:48Guest:I actually kicked into No More Flying for me.

00:56:51Guest:And I started doing the bus everywhere, the bus and the boats.

00:56:57Marc:So after you get out from James's band, how do you hook up with George?

00:57:04Guest:Well, first of all, we got to figure out, you know, like, okay,

00:57:10Guest:Are we really fired?

00:57:12Guest:You know, that's the first thing.

00:57:13Guest:OK, we going home.

00:57:15Guest:We leaving from James Brown.

00:57:16Guest:Right.

00:57:17Guest:You got no base.

00:57:19Guest:We got no base, you know, and we had we had started to get kind of used to getting paid.

00:57:25Guest:Yeah.

00:57:25Guest:You know, it's like, OK, what do we do?

00:57:27Guest:Because me and my brother, we was good at saving money because we was used to not having none.

00:57:32Guest:Yeah.

00:57:33Guest:So, you know, we saved a little money.

00:57:35Guest:And once we got home, you know, it's like, OK, we got to start practicing because we formerly the JB's.

00:57:42Guest:So we got to come up with a new name.

00:57:45Guest:Yeah.

00:57:45Guest:House, you know, house, guess what's going to be our name?

00:57:48Guest:Formerly the JB's.

00:57:50Guest:So, you know, we had to put a little not only a band, you know, we had to band.

00:57:54Guest:We had to put our act together.

00:57:56Marc:So you still at King Records?

00:57:57Yeah.

00:57:57Guest:uh actually no not not um after we left james brown james brown actually took us from king records oh okay you know once we got with james brown it was no more we was doing no more sessions for king records and and that was his plan all along he was way ahead of us and so um well in terms of oh in terms of like if you left him you got nowhere to go

00:58:22Guest:Yeah, we got nowhere to go.

00:58:24Guest:You ain't going to be nothing.

00:58:26Guest:You can't do nothing without James Brown.

00:58:28Guest:What you going to do?

00:58:30Guest:So with everybody else, he was pretty much right.

00:58:36Guest:But with us, we felt like we was just getting started.

00:58:40Guest:They ain't even seen us yet.

00:58:42Guest:That's the way we was feeling.

00:58:44Guest:And so we got home.

00:58:48Guest:We started practicing.

00:58:49Guest:then we started to have to get a plan, you know, to get out of Cincinnati, you know, because we had started playing gigs and stuff around, you know, and building up a following.

00:58:59Guest:So we started feeling like, yeah, you know, we bad, we bad, you know, started feeling like Richard Pryor.

00:59:05Guest:We bad, we bad, you know?

00:59:08Guest:And so we decided, man, we should, you know, we should maybe go to Detroit, you know?

00:59:14Guest:And somebody mentioned the spinners.

00:59:18Guest:And sure enough,

00:59:19Guest:They needed a band.

00:59:22Guest:You know, so we talked to Billy, who was the leader of the spinners at that time.

00:59:27Guest:And he said, yeah, man, I'll bring y'all up.

00:59:30Guest:And I, you know, I need a band, you know, I need y'all to be the band.

00:59:33Guest:And we said, well, we got Felipe, uh, feel so welcome with us too.

00:59:38Guest:And he was a singer, you know, who, who eventually wound up being their lead singer.

00:59:44Guest:Uh, most people don't know the spinner.

00:59:46Marc:So they, would they do rubber band, man?

00:59:48Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:49Guest:So that's, uh, that's feel.

00:59:51Guest:So Walker who came to Detroit with us, you know, who, who, um, we went with,

00:59:59Guest:Uh, once I met with George Clinton and George didn't need feel, you know, it was like, no, we got enough singers, man.

01:00:07Guest:You know, it's like, okay.

01:00:08Guest:So, uh, and we were trying to get away from playing behind singers anyway.

01:00:13Guest:We didn't really want to go up to, to Detroit to play behind the spinners.

01:00:17Guest:We were just trying to get in Detroit.

01:00:19Guest:Right.

01:00:19Guest:So we can show what we can do.

01:00:21Guest:And, um, once we got there, you know, met George, it was like, oh man, you know, talk to him.

01:00:27Guest:That was like a perfect, uh,

01:00:28Guest:you know, fit.

01:00:29Guest:I felt like, you know, he was going to be honest with his word.

01:00:34Guest:You know, he said if I helped him with the songs and get on the road with him and be funkadelic, you know, you know, he'll allow me to get a record deal and help me, you know, get my own thing together.

01:00:50Marc:So but his but he that was great.

01:00:52Marc:But he but his his concept was almost a communal concept.

01:00:56Marc:Right.

01:00:57Marc:I mean, he had it was like an orchestra concept.

01:00:59Marc:It wasn't like I'm the I'm the front man.

01:01:02Marc:It's like everybody's going to play their part.

01:01:04Marc:Right.

01:01:05Guest:Yeah.

01:01:06Guest:Yeah.

01:01:06Guest:Well, that's that's the way it starts.

01:01:08Guest:It starts.

01:01:09Guest:See, what you're doing is mixing up the start with the end.

01:01:12Guest:But, you know, it's how you got to that end, you know, which is the deep part.

01:01:18Guest:I don't even think George knew that he wanted to be a front front man.

01:01:22Guest:Right.

01:01:22Guest:He knew he knew that he wanted me to be one because I guess he felt like every time we did a show.

01:01:31Guest:even if the spotlight george will tell you this even if the spotlight wasn't on me the people were looking at me and you know and it wasn't just because of what i had on this is george's words you know it was the vibe or whatever that vibe was and uh george told me that you can't just be a part of the band you know you gotta front your own band yeah and i'm like no i you know

01:01:56Guest:I'm like, no, man, I do not want to front the band.

01:02:01Guest:I just want to be in the band.

01:02:03Guest:And he's like, man, we got to get you a deal.

01:02:05Guest:Because George knew, like you were just saying, it was a whole universal conglomerate of people.

01:02:13Guest:It wasn't just George.

01:02:16Guest:And he wanted it like that.

01:02:18Guest:He didn't want people to know who George Clinton was.

01:02:21Guest:You had to come in there and figure out because all these mugs looking crazy.

01:02:27Guest:And he loved that.

01:02:30Guest:That's what I loved about it.

01:02:32Marc:Is that where you just got the star guitar?

01:02:35Guest:That's the time I got the opportunity to get

01:02:41Guest:the star guitar and the star glasses because I had to come up with my own identity.

01:02:49Guest:That's what I felt I had.

01:02:51Marc:In the Parliament Funkadelic universe, you had to become your own god.

01:02:57Guest:Yeah.

01:03:00Guest:I felt great.

01:03:02Guest:It felt good to be able to do that because as we started out with James, it was like

01:03:09Guest:Bands were, you know, bands were just bands, you know.

01:03:13Guest:And, you know, you wasn't like first class citizens.

01:03:18Guest:You was like, you know, the bottom of the totem pole, especially bass players.

01:03:22Guest:you know so you know it was time it came where things were changing bands were changing basses were being noticed and coming up to the front I mean I didn't notice at the time you know I didn't know that

01:03:40Guest:during my time was when bassist was going to start coming to the front.

01:03:44Guest:And I didn't know I was going to be a big part of that.

01:03:47Marc:Well, I mean, your sound was changing.

01:03:49Marc:I mean, when did you evolve into that space-based business?

01:03:54Guest:When I got a chance to start recording with Parliament Funkadelic.

01:03:59Guest:That's when I got it.

01:04:00Guest:George allowed me the chance to experiment.

01:04:03Guest:And, you know, I was free.

01:04:05Guest:I was free to do whatever I was hearing.

01:04:07Guest:You know, um, and that's what sound and playing with James.

01:04:12Guest:I just got a chance to play what I felt, but with George, I got a chance to play what I felt and play the sounds that I was hearing, you know, and experiment with things, you know, and, um, George allowed me to get on the drums.

01:04:28Guest:I mean, James would never allow me to do that, you know?

01:04:31Guest:So, you know, and then I play guitar, um,

01:04:34Guest:uh with my brother catfish we would put tracks together me and my brother you know on guitar you know and george you know he was loving i mean you know he was so behind all of that it also speaks to the time you know james was never going to make that jump but george was a psychedelic dude yeah yeah and um

01:04:55Guest:He wanted whatever you had to bring to the party.

01:04:59Guest:George wanted some of it.

01:05:02Guest:Give it here.

01:05:04Guest:Give it here.

01:05:04Guest:I'll take it.

01:05:09Guest:And that was very encouraging at the time because

01:05:12Guest:People were so, you know, like locked in on themselves, you know, and coming into your own, getting your own identity, you know, and which was a good thing, because George even did the song.

01:05:26Guest:I got a thing.

01:05:28Guest:You got a thing.

01:05:29Guest:Everybody got a thing.

01:05:31Guest:Yeah.

01:05:32Guest:You know, so it was like it was like we were making that true.

01:05:35Guest:It was a true thing.

01:05:36Guest:You know, it was like.

01:05:38Guest:And it was beautiful.

01:05:40Guest:Free your mind and your ass will follow.

01:05:42Guest:All of this stuff was like, we live in it.

01:05:46Guest:We live in it.

01:05:49Guest:So it was so beautiful to be able to make your own world within the world.

01:05:54Guest:And I got a chance to go back and do my star glasses, draw my star glasses, and not only draw them, not only draw my star base,

01:06:06Guest:but actually find somebody to make them.

01:06:09Guest:So it was all a process.

01:06:11Guest:It wasn't like, bam, here it is.

01:06:14Marc:It's an evolution.

01:06:15Guest:Yeah.

01:06:16Guest:And it was like when I was doing the record, Stretching Out, I didn't even have the bass ready yet.

01:06:24Guest:And so I had found the guy to make it.

01:06:30Guest:And if you notice on that record, if you look hard on that record stretching out, you look at the bass and you can see that it ain't finished.

01:06:39Guest:You know, it has, you know, we put some fake knobs on it.

01:06:44Guest:Yeah.

01:06:45Guest:Fake pick guard, because all we had was the star shaped out.

01:06:49Guest:Yeah.

01:06:50Guest:The bass was all shaped out and everything, but it wasn't playable.

01:06:55Guest:But it looks like, you know, it looks like, oh, yeah.

01:06:58Guest:And then I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to pay for it because I'm working with George Clinton, you know, and it's like a whole empire of mugs that, you know, we work for drugs.

01:07:10Guest:Yeah.

01:07:10Guest:You know, you don't have to you know, we don't need to be paid.

01:07:13Guest:Just just, you know, whatever you got this hit us, you know, what was your drug?

01:07:19Guest:Would you like?

01:07:21Guest:Oh, well, at the time it was LSD.

01:07:23Guest:Yeah.

01:07:24Guest:So that's where you come up with the bass.

01:07:26Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:29Guest:That was the king's dream right there, the LSD.

01:07:33Marc:That's interesting.

01:07:35Marc:So you think that the way you were hearing what you wanted your bass to sound like was probably influenced by that, huh?

01:07:41Yeah.

01:07:42Guest:Yeah.

01:07:44Guest:Yeah.

01:07:45Guest:It was influenced by that and everything else we was taking.

01:07:54Marc:Because it sounds like that, man.

01:07:57Marc:Some of that bass sounds like LSD.

01:07:59Guest:Underwater boogie, baby.

01:08:01Marc:Underwater boogie.

01:08:04Marc:Yeah.

01:08:06Guest:Man, I mean, you know, we had so much fun.

01:08:09Guest:It was so much fun.

01:08:10Guest:at that particular time when, you know, we got the chance to go in the studio and record whatever we felt, you know, and whatever, whatever it was and didn't have somebody cool like George loving every minute of it.

01:08:27Marc:So he was totally supportive, pushing you.

01:08:31Guest:George was good at, well, he was very creative with, with the lyrics and,

01:08:38Guest:and all of that.

01:08:39Guest:And he was very good with

01:08:41Guest:knowing where people was at and knowing how to push certain buttons.

01:08:45Guest:Yeah.

01:08:46Guest:And all of that, you know, which James was good at it, too.

01:08:50Guest:He was great at it, but he would never let you know that, you know, he's digging anything.

01:08:57Marc:You know, because it was all about it was all about James and what he had.

01:09:03Marc:Yeah.

01:09:03Marc:And he wanted to control the sound, whereas it seems like George was sort of like, let's get weirder.

01:09:09Marc:Yeah.

01:09:10Marc:You know, let's push the envelope.

01:09:11Marc:Right.

01:09:12Guest:Let's see.

01:09:12Guest:What else can you come up with?

01:09:14Marc:It's more of a jazz thinker.

01:09:16Guest:Yeah.

01:09:16Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:09:18Guest:The Sun Ra.

01:09:19Guest:Yeah.

01:09:19Guest:Right.

01:09:21Guest:Sun Ra.

01:09:22Guest:Right.

01:09:22Marc:So, but did you know, like, you know, ultimately now you have this amazing control over the instrument and you actually invented, you know, certain sounds.

01:09:31Marc:that the base can make that were never made before.

01:09:35Marc:And then that stuff gets carried on.

01:09:36Marc:You know, it gets carried on through Flea and through Thunder.

01:09:41Marc:What's his name?

01:09:42Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:44Marc:I mean, like you are the portal through which those guys were able to create themselves, you know?

01:09:52Guest:Yeah.

01:09:53Guest:Well, you know, it was like somebody got to be first.

01:09:55Guest:You know, it's like it's like I mean, take take for instance, take for instance, the Larry Graham, you know, he he to me actually started the thumping the pluck.

01:10:09Guest:And a few other people would say, no, he wasn't the first one.

01:10:14Guest:But I would have to say, you know, because I was kind of firsthand right there.

01:10:21Guest:You know, I would have to say he was the first one, you know.

01:10:25Guest:And so, yeah, yeah.

01:10:27Guest:And so now, you know, bass players have taken that, you know, they've taken the sound, you know, the sounds that I kind of come up with.

01:10:36Guest:They've taken the thump and pluck thing.

01:10:39Marc:and they're making it their own you know which which i think is is is cool because they're taking it to other levels you know uh we just introduced it yeah well i love that like you know i remember that like i like that i love that keith richard solo album and when you come in on that like like it's like it's like keith was like i want bootsy and then it's like that's all bootsy

01:11:05Guest:Yeah.

01:11:06Guest:You did not disappoint.

01:11:08Guest:Yeah.

01:11:08Guest:Well, I mean, when you get the green light to go ahead and do your thing, that's like the same thing I got with George.

01:11:18Guest:It's like the green light and go ahead and do whatever you think and whatever you feel.

01:11:23Guest:That's what I try to give to all musicians.

01:11:27Guest:You know, or creative people, you know, don't let don't don't let me influence how you are feeling.

01:11:34Guest:Do what you are feeling.

01:11:36Guest:You know, I even had to tell Bobby Womack that, you know, because once you get caught into errors, you know, of OK, well, they do it like this now.

01:11:48Guest:You know, once you get into caught into that, sometimes you forget who you are.

01:11:53Guest:You know, and what what you're good at and what people like you for.

01:11:58Guest:So, you know, we were doing a song together and Bobby was trying to be new.

01:12:03Guest:Right.

01:12:04Guest:You know, and I was like, no, Bobby, you know, give me give me give me Bobby Walmack, man.

01:12:11Guest:Yeah.

01:12:12Marc:Yeah.

01:12:12Guest:That one that people love.

01:12:14Marc:Well, that's like, you know, no.

01:12:15Marc:Yeah.

01:12:15Marc:I think that's what working with someone like George for so long gives you is a certain confidence.

01:12:20Marc:Whereas a lot of guys, they get to a certain age or a certain place, they get insecure and they don't think they can cut it anymore.

01:12:26Yeah.

01:12:26Guest:Yeah, well, you know, it's like I run into that a lot working with a lot of different people.

01:12:33Guest:And, you know, it's like it's my it's my duty to make sure that a musician knows it's cool.

01:12:41Guest:Go ahead and try it.

01:12:42Guest:You know, give it a give it a shot, you know.

01:12:44Marc:go for it well that's what's great about the new record and like all the records that you've made you know just the Bootsy records they're all a little different and some of them are more of you some of them are a little less of you but it's so clear that on this one the power of the one is that all the dudes you got on this record even the people that you know we all know from other things like Snoop or George Benson they know you from you so you guys are meeting in the middle of what you both do

01:13:12Marc:Like, you know, like that first tune with Benson, it's like it's all Benson and it's all you at the same time.

01:13:18Guest:Yeah.

01:13:19Guest:Yeah.

01:13:19Guest:Well, that was that was the idea, you know, you know, because we always would bump into each other on festivals, on these tour gigs.

01:13:28Guest:We would always talk about doing something together.

01:13:30Guest:We never did.

01:13:31Guest:You know, we never did.

01:13:33Guest:I was always stuck in my thing, what I was doing.

01:13:36Guest:He was always stuck in his thing, what he was doing.

01:13:39Guest:And, you know, the same thing with the other musicians.

01:13:43Marc:Well, that dude, Kingfish Ingram, man, that guy's like, oh, man, he's a monster on that guitar.

01:13:49Guest:He's ripping it.

01:13:50Guest:Yes, he is.

01:13:51Guest:And, you know, we met a couple of years ago.

01:13:55Guest:Same thing with Taz.

01:13:56Guest:We met probably about four years ago because he was like maybe 14, 15.

01:14:01Guest:He's like 17 now.

01:14:04Marc:Yeah.

01:14:05Guest:And, you know, it was like last year I went to one of his gigs.

01:14:09Guest:And that cemented it for me is like, yeah, he got to be on the new record.

01:14:14Marc:Yeah.

01:14:14Marc:And you got Brantford Marsalis.

01:14:16Marc:I mean, you got, you know, you can, you can move through all forms, man.

01:14:20Guest:Yeah.

01:14:22Guest:Yeah.

01:14:22Guest:Well, that's, that to me is the beauty of music.

01:14:25Guest:Music does that to be able to, to, to,

01:14:30Guest:fuse different genres of music together was like a whole big deal for me because I look at it like, I look at this music like wearing clothes.

01:14:44Guest:It's like, I can pretty much do it and they gonna call me crazy and you know, or whatever they wanna call me, it don't matter.

01:14:53Guest:And I can get away with it.

01:14:56Guest:So I figured,

01:14:57Guest:If I can do that with clothes, I should be able to do it with me.

01:15:06Guest:And so, you know, call me whatever, you know, crazy, whatever, you know, but I know that music, you know, can be put together.

01:15:19Guest:I mean, you know, it's not something that's

01:15:22Guest:you know, so traditional that it can't be traditional, you know, unconditional.

01:15:27Guest:You know, so it's like, you know, it's like

01:15:30Guest:you know, this is what I want to do.

01:15:32Guest:I want to experiment.

01:15:34Guest:I want to mix stuff up.

01:15:35Guest:I want to mess with things.

01:15:37Guest:I don't want to do what's been done so much.

01:15:40Guest:You know, I want to do some, some crazy stuff.

01:15:43Guest:Yeah.

01:15:44Guest:Keep it exciting.

01:15:46Guest:Yeah.

01:15:46Guest:I always wanted to challenge myself.

01:15:49Guest:If I, you know, if I wanted to do a Bootsy rubber band record, I could do that.

01:15:54Guest:If I wanted to do a P funk record, a Funkadelic, I could do that.

01:15:58Guest:But I want to do something that's new to me.

01:16:03Marc:So you're working with all these different people.

01:16:06Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:16:07Guest:And it gives you another kind of inspiration.

01:16:10Guest:I think when Jimmy said something about...

01:16:15Guest:playing those same songs and not being able to do new stuff because the fans are not going to like it or they're not going to accept it.

01:16:27Guest:I remember him saying that and then I found myself in that situation where

01:16:32Guest:you had to keep playing the same old songs.

01:16:37Guest:It's like, I don't care about that stuff now.

01:16:40Guest:It's more about the music to me.

01:16:44Guest:It's more about expressing, people expressing and releasing themselves creatively in any form or fashion they want.

01:16:55Guest:I want to make sure that that door

01:16:57Guest:is wide open so people can see that I'm not, you know, I'm not the only one that can do this.

01:17:03Guest:I mean, anybody could do this.

01:17:05Guest:You know, we just have to, somebody just got to get up on the floor and dance first.

01:17:10Marc:Yeah.

01:17:10Marc:You just got to make the space, make the space.

01:17:13Marc:But I think it's a great record and, you know, you seem great.

01:17:17Marc:It was great talking to you.

01:17:18Marc:Great seeing you.

01:17:20Guest:Oh man, man.

01:17:20Guest:This is, this, this is, you asked some deep questions too, man.

01:17:24Marc:Well, thank you.

01:17:27Yeah.

01:17:27Marc:And is the power of the one, is that a tip to the one and God or what?

01:17:34Guest:Yeah.

01:17:35Guest:It's both.

01:17:35Guest:It's like, and we got all of it in us, you know, the power of the one is in all of us.

01:17:42Guest:The whole thing is,

01:17:43Guest:We just ain't here.

01:17:45Guest:Nobody told us.

01:17:46Guest:And when they told us, they were preaching at us.

01:17:49Guest:Right.

01:17:49Guest:They were talking at us.

01:17:51Guest:Right.

01:17:51Marc:You know, they want a little something, something, too.

01:17:54Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:17:55Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:17:55Guest:Pass the plate.

01:17:56Guest:You know, yeah.

01:17:58Guest:You know, for me, it's just, you know, I want you to know everybody is a piece of this one.

01:18:04Guest:You know, we all we own this one planet.

01:18:07Guest:You know, we're all on this mothership spinning.

01:18:10Guest:through space, you know?

01:18:12Guest:And, you know, it's ridiculous to think that I'm better than you or you better than me because when this world goes, you know, we all going, you know, because we all on this one, it's the one ship, you know, we all go together.

01:18:28Guest:So, you know, anything else is stupid.

01:18:32Guest:I mean, really stupid, you know?

01:18:34Guest:So that's what this power of the one is trying to show us.

01:18:40Guest:It's like, you know, just respect your father, you know, respect my father.

01:18:45Guest:I respect yours, you know.

01:18:47Guest:And that's really, you know, I mean, they're talking about religious size, the black side, the white side, the green.

01:18:55Guest:You know, it really it really ain't about all of that.

01:19:00Guest:It's just us realizing and respecting each other what we all think and feel.

01:19:06Guest:It's cool.

01:19:06Guest:Right.

01:19:06Guest:You know, I came I came from that.

01:19:09Guest:from that hippie era and I got a chance to taste a lot of different cultures and vibes and, you know, and that's what I have to bring to the table.

01:19:21Guest:And I'm going to continue to bring that to the table because

01:19:25Guest:That's what the one has given me.

01:19:29Guest:And I want to give it back.

01:19:30Marc:Yeah, it's the universal frequency, the deep groove.

01:19:34Guest:That's what... Now you're talking.

01:19:40Guest:Zapper will tell you about that.

01:19:42Marc:Yeah, man.

01:19:45Guest:Thanks so much.

01:19:46Marc:Great seeing you, man.

01:19:47Marc:Take care of yourself, buddy.

01:19:48Guest:Hey, you too, man.

01:19:49Guest:Appreciate you.

01:19:55Marc:How do you like that?

01:19:56Marc:Fucking Bootsy.

01:19:57Marc:How about that James Brown impression, right?

01:20:00Marc:The album is called The Power of the One.

01:20:03Marc:You can get it where you get albums.

01:20:04Marc:Get all the fucking Delic, get all the Bootsy shit.

01:20:08Marc:He's the fucking guy.

01:20:09Marc:He's the real deal.

01:20:10Marc:He's the one of a kind.

01:20:11Marc:He's one of a kind, man.

01:20:13Marc:Okay, so now I guess I will attempt to play some funk.

01:20:19Okay.

01:20:19Marc:I think I have to, right?

01:20:21Marc:I think I gotta do some blues funk thing with the three chords that I play on a Stratocaster with a phase pedal.

01:20:33Marc:Let's give it a try.

01:20:34Marc:Don't judge me on my rhythm.

01:20:38Marc:You can judge me on my groove, but not on my rhythm.

01:20:43Guest:Here we go.

01:21:02Thank you.

01:21:26Guest:Thank you.

01:21:53Guest:Boomer lives.

01:21:54Guest:And Monkey and LaFonda.

01:21:57Guest:Cat angels everywhere.

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