In Set List, we talk to veteran musicians about some of their most famous songs, learning about their lives and careers in the process, and maybe hearing a good backstage anecdote or two.
The musician: William “Bootsy” Collins, a funk-rock all-star who rose to prominence as a member of James Brown’s backing band in the early ’70s, when Brown was stretching his sound to encompass Afro-beat and his own spare version of rock-soul frenzy. Collins became an integral part of George Clinton’s P-Funk network of bands and side projects, and had a career revival in the ’90s as a sideman/personality-for-hire after appearing on Deee-Lite’s international hit single “Groove Is In The Heart.” Collins’ latest project is the solo album Tha Funk Capital Of The World, a throwback ’70s-style party record featuring guest vocals and performances from an eclectic cast of players that includes Ice Cube, Al Sharpton, Buckethead, Béla Fleck, and Cornel West.
“Freedumb” (from 2011’s Tha Funk Capital Of The World, by Bootsy Collins)
Bootsy Collins: Recording that track was pretty straightforward. I actually started with the rhythm section. Myself and my brother Catfish [Collins] just kinda laid the basic rhythms down. Then I wanted to do something different, so instead of having horns, I wanted to have a string arrangement. So I called in my boy Paul Patterson from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to arrange some strings for us. And once it started developing, I was like, “Man, I need to really say something on this track, so it ain’t just a funky brew, y’know?” It is a funky brew, but at the same time, I wanted to say something. I didn’t want this just to be a party album. I wanted to have a party feel, but to really say something encouraging.
So I thought, “Now who can I get who has that encouraging voice, and what he says is all in love?” Y’know, who can I get? And I had been running back and forth with Dr. [Cornel] West, running into him every now and then. We’d always talked about doing something together and never did. I thought this track would be perfect with him. I called him up, and he immediately said, “Where do you want me to come? Let’s do it.” I told him we were doing it in Cincinnati, and he came on his own. He didn’t even give me a chance to set nothing up. We went out to a restaurant here, and then I had to go do a speech at a Macy’s, and he went onstage with me. Then we came to the studio, and he said, “What do you want this track to be about?” And I said, “The name of the track is ‘Freedumb.’” And he started laughing and said, “Well, what do you mean by that?” I said, “Well it’s basically that we’re making smart phones, but we’re still making dumb decisions.” And he looked at me there for a minute, then said, “Okay, turn the tape on.” The next thing you know, he just started rattling off the top of his head, and what you hear on the album is what he came up with.
The A.V. Club: Did all the guests on the record come to Cincinnati? Samuel L. Jackson? Snoop Dogg?
BC: About 70 percent. We did Snoop here. We actually did Samuel Jackson in L.A. when I was out there. I did Sheila E. out there, too. About 70 percent of the album was done here in Cincinnati, though, which for me was a real blessing. That way, I didn’t have to go nowhere, because we pretty much already had stuff set up. And I got a chance to watch these people really pour their hearts into what they do, y’know? Dennis Chambers, Béla Fleck… I mean, these cats just came in, and they’re great musicians anyway, but to actually see them perform is just a whole other step. To see them perform with joy, really having fun with it… it’s not work no more. It’s like, “Wow, this is really cool.” ’Cause there comes a time when it becomes a job, and people just come to work. You see that so much. But when they’re coming in doing something like this, I saw a whole other side. That’s the side I used to experience when we’d just started. And that’s the way this record felt to me.
“Super Bad” (from 1971’s Super Bad, by James Brown with The J.B.’s)
BC: I had done a few records before we got to “Super Bad,” but I was still young, so whenever we would be doing a gig somewhere, James didn’t never want to let me go wild after the show, or get wild with the girls. He always pretty much tried to keep us busy. He would take us to the studio, or we’d be rehearsing, after the gig. So one night we go to the studio and we set up, and the whole time he’s saying something like, “With my bad self, I’m super bad!” Y’know, he’s doing it like Muhammad Ali. “I’m the greatest!” He’s telling himself that the whole time we’re on the way, and when he gets us there, it’s all about how he’s super bad! We start this groove up. He counts it off, gives us the tempo, and we know what key he likes, so me and Catfish go straight to the key, and it’s just magic.
That magic just starts happening anytime he comes in the room and counts it off. I don’t know where it all comes from, but it automatically starts happening. He pumps everybody up so much that you just feel like you don’t wanna let him down, y’know? You wanna make him groove. You wanna see him sweat. And when you see him sweat, then you know that what you’re doing is helping him sweat. So you start feeling good about it. When he ain’t sweating, or when he ain’t moving, then we ain’t groovin’ it. But this day, doing “Super Bad,” we was groovin’. ’Cause first of all, we had killed him at the show before that. We had laid him in the aisle. His knees were bleedin’. He was sweating profusely. So the body language told us, “Yeah, we did it tonight.” Then we took that from the stage right to the studio. We did it over there, too, and it was a great thing to see him happy. Even though he wouldn’t ever admit he was happy, it was just great to see those moments.