20/12/2023
James Brown sacked his backing band in March 1970 after they complained about his system of fining anyone who played a bum note. In their place he pulled in a young Cincinnati act named The Pacesetters, led by brothers Phelps "Catfish" Collins and Bootsy Collins, aged 27 and 19 respectively, and renamed them The JB's. Their first recording was "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) S*x Machine." Their first LP, S*x Machine, is cited as one of the greatest and most important soul records of all time.
The original J.B.'s played on some of Brown's most intense funk recordings, including "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) S*x Machine", "Bewildered (1970)", "Super Bad", "Soul Power", "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing", and two instrumental singles, the much-sampled "The Grunt" and "These Are the J.B.'s". In regards to his tenure working for James Brown, Bootsy Collins stated:
"He treated me like a son. And being out of a fatherless home, I needed that father figure and he really played up to it. I mean, Good Lord. Every night after we played a show, he called us back to give us a lecture about how horrible we sounded. [Affects James Brown voice] "Nah, not on it, son. I didn't hear the one. You didn't give me the one." He would tell me this at every show. One night, we knew we wasn't sounding really good – we were off – and he calls us back there and said, "Uh huh, now that's what I'm talkin' about. Y'all was on it tonight. Y'all hit the one." My brother and I looked at each other like, "This mother has got to be crazy." We knew in our heart and soul that we wasn't all that on that show. So then I started figuring out his game, man. By telling me that I wasn't on it, he made me practice harder. So I just absorbed what he said and used it in a positive way."
After parting ways with James Brown, Collins moved to Detroit, Michigan, after Philippé Wynne suggested joining The Spinners, for whom Wynne had been singing. However, following the advice of singer and future Parliament member Mallia Franklin, Collins made another choice. Franklin introduced both Collins brothers to George Clinton, and in 1972, both of the Collins brothers, along with Waddy, joined Funkadelic. Collins played bass on most of Funkadelic and Parliament albums through the early 1980s, garnering several songwriting credits as well.
In 1976 Collins, Catfish, Waddy, Joel Johnson (1953–2018), Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, Robert Johnson and The H***y Horns formed Bootsy's Rubber Band, a separate touring unit of Clinton's P-Funk collective.
The group recorded five albums together, the first three of which are often considered to be among the quintessential P-Funk recordings. The group's 1978 album Bootsy? Player of the Year reached the top of the R&B album chart and spawned the #1 R&B single "Bootzilla". Like Clinton, Collins took on several alter egos, from Casper the Funky Ghost to Bootzilla, "the world's only rhinestone rockstar monster of a doll".
AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS
▪ Collins is an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.
▪ Collins appeared with T***s & the Maytals on the album True Love that won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 2005.
▪ In October 2010, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Bass Player magazine at the Key Club in Los Angeles.
▪ Collins was inducted in 2016 into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
▪ On July 22, 2023, Bootsy Collins was inducted into the Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame.
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