I did a post on James Jamerson earlier, the lost hero of Motown. While I was watching the vid again “Standing in the shadows of Motown” there was this musician who took my attention. He was singing the Motown evergreen “Do you love me” . The first thing I thought “Wow that guy looks weird” .. Dressed up all fancy with glitters and same-fitting sunglasses. But most of all, I liked his voice very much. Not knowing that there was a lot more to like about him. So I searched for him on the internet “Bootsy Collins” .
Bootsy was born in Ohio in 1951, so today he’s 67 years young. Bootsy started his career, although his ‘famous’ career, as the bassplayer for the band of James Brown. They were responsible for the music on James’s biggest hits.
Bootsy’s first steps with James Brown
After leaving James Brown’s band Bootsy moved to Detroit and joined “Funkadelic” from Parliament and George Clinton. The music of Funkadelic best describes as modern funk with influences of some other music styles. But… It funked like crazy. They made it a sport to dress quiet extravagant during gig’s. Something Bootsy stayed doing even after Funkadelic.
Bootsy one day visited a local music shop and asked the guitar-repair man to build him a guitar. Bootsy took a pen and drew a star-shaped guitar. Later named “Space bass” and it became a Bootsy trademark. Larry pless was the first builder of the bass and made a instrument which fitted the demands on visuals and playing. Later on Warwick made the original Bootsy Collins signature space bass. It turned out to be a great and good selling bass. Personally I am not really crazy about strange shapes, a Flying V is enough for me 😉.
Warwick custom basses
Demo of the Star bass on the Namm
My musical steemian friend @melbookermusic pointed me at this song “What’s a telephone bill”. A great song which has the funky bass with effects. An all sexy-ness song with the typical Bootsy sound and atmosphere. The bass sound reminds me of the bass of TM Stevens some years ago. He uses a bass with all sorts of effects already built in to the bass.
What’s a telephone bill
Listening to Bootsy gives that “happy” feeling, is it the bass? Is it the rhythm. No I think it’s the total picture here. Everything falls into the right plays. A kind of the earlier New power Generation of Prince. If you listen to the ‘Rave un2 the year 2000” it fits a bit in the whole Bootsy repertoire and shows. You can see and hear that Prince loved Bootsy a lot. He had listened very well to his music…..
Funkadelic gig
Thank you for reading. My passion is music, bassplayer in particular... So stay tuned for more to come...
Visit Bootsy’s official website at https://www.thebootcave.com/
