Rick James

Rick James

Rick James (born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr; February 1 1948 – August 6 2004) was an African American musician, who worked as a singer, keyboardist, bassist, record producer, arranger, and composer during his long career.

RICK JAMES IS A MOTHER FUCKIN PIMP YO!!!!!! One of the most popular artists on the Motown label during the late 1970s and early 1980s, James was famous for his wild brand of funk music and his trademark cornrow braids, sporting them well before the style was popularized. As time went on, James was given the unofficial title The King of Punk-Funk.

Biography

Early life

Born in Buffalo, New York, James was the fourth of eight children. His father was an autoworker who abandoned the family, and his mother was a former dancer. "She raised us strict Catholics", James recalled. His uncle was Melvin Franklin, bass vocalist of The Temptations. Two cousins were Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland, and Louis Stokes, a former Ohio congressman.

At age 16, James joined the U.S. Naval Reserve after dropping out of Bennett High School. He began missing weekend training because it interfered with his music career and was reported AWOL. Fleeing north to Toronto, Canada in the summer of 1964, James, now using the stage name Ricky Matthews, continued his musical career. His first band was called The Mynah Birds, which also featured Neil Young and future Steppenwolf member Nick St. Nicholas. In 1965, the group recorded a single for the Canadian arm of Columbia Records. In early 1965, St. Nicholas left the band and was replaced by Bruce Palmer.

Shortly afterwards, James and Palmer formed a new Mynah Birds lineup with guitarists Tom Morgan and John Taylor, and drummer Rickman Mason. In early 1966, the Mynah Birds auditioned for the Motown label in Detroit, Michigan. Morgan was unhappy with the label's attitude towards the musicians and left, with Neil Young taking his place. With Young on board, the Mynah Birds returned to Motown to record an album, but their manager pocketed the advance money the label had given the band. The band fired their manager, who in turn told the label that James was AWOL. Motown told him to give himself up to the FBI, and the Mynah Birds' album was shelved.

James' career continues

James spent a year in the Brooklyn Brig, after which he briefly returned to Toronto. During the summer of 1967, Rick James formed a new version of The Mynah Birds (sometimes spelled "Myna Byrds") with Neil Merryweather. The band returned to Motown and Detroit and recorded a new version of James and Neil Young's It's My Time, but the band broke up soon afterwards. During early 1968, James returned to Motown and became a songwriter and producer, writing under the name Terry Johnson and working with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers and The Spinners.

In the summer of 1969, he moved to Los Angeles, California and formed a band called Salt 'N' Pepper with Canadians Ed Roth (keyboards), Dave Burt (guitar), and Coffi Hall (drums). Former Buffalo Springfield roadie Chris Sarns played bass for a while, before Ron Johnson from Kaleidoscope stepped in the following year. The group recorded a demo for Atlantic Records, and played at the Fillmore West with Jethro Tull.

In 1971, James and Roth recorded two singles in Toronto for RCA Records' - Big Showdown and Don't You Worry with Heaven and Earth, a band that also featured guitarist Stan Endersby, bass player Denny Gerrard, and drummer Pat Little. James left Heaven and Earth later that year; he, Roth, and Gerrard formed a new group called Great White Cane with horn players Bob Doughty and Ian Kojima, drummer Norman Wellbanks, guitarist Nick Balkou, and keyboard player John Cleveland Hughes. The group recorded an album for Lion Records in Los Angeles in March 1972, but by that summer they had disbanded.

At the end of 1972, James and LeAnna formed the first version of the Stone City Band with Peter Hodgson (bass), Danny Marks (guitar) and Malcolm Tomlinson (drums/vocals). An album's worth of material was recorded in mid-1973 but was never released. James signed to A&M Records the following year and issued a single entitled My Mama. In 1976, James and South African guitarist Aidan Mason co-wrote, "Get Up and Dance", which was released as a single but failed to chart.

Return to Motown and stardom

In 1977, he returned to Motown as a songwriter/producer. He soon began recording for Motown's Gordy label, first with the Hot Lips and then with a new version of the Stone City Band. This version featured Tom McDermott on guitar, Oscar Alston on bass, Lanise Hughes on drums, Nate Hughes on percussion, Danny LeMelle on saxophone, and Levi Ruffin and Ramadon on synthesizer and keyboards. James' breakthrough single was You And I, an eight-minute magnum opus from his 1978 debut album Come Get It. The album also featured his ode to marijuana, "Mary Jane".

1979 saw the release of two albums: Bustin' Out of L Seven, in January, and Fire It Up that fall. The latter included hits such as the title track and Spacey Love, a ballad dedicated to R&B legend Patti LaBelle. After 1980's lackluster Garden of Love album, James was accused by many as having "sold out", and he returned to his old Buffalo stomping grounds. In 1981 he recorded a concept album entitled Street Songs, which included James' biggest hit "Super Freak". The song featured guest vocals by The Temptations, and was sampled for MC Hammer's 1990 Grammy award-winning song "U Can't Touch This". Other hits from Street Songs included "Give It to Me Baby", "Fire And Desire" with protege Teena Marie, and "Ghetto Life".

The stream of hits continued into the mid-1980s with "Teardrops", "Cold Blooded", "17", "You Turn Me On" and "Glow". His last R&B hit was "Loosey's Rap" in 1989, featuring a rap by Roxanne Shante. During this period, he also helped launch the careers of R&B singer Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls as well as producing Eddie Murphy's one-hit wonder, Party All The Time.

While he is best known for his up tempo songs in pop circles, the R&B world remembers him as one of the best R&B balladeers in the late seventies and early eighties. He recorded an early eighties hit with Motown legend Smokey Robinson entitled "Ebony Eyes" that captures his voice almost as well as "Fire And Desire".

During this time, he guest-starred on an episode of The A-Team where he played himself and performed at a prison concert singing "Super Freak"; Isaac Hayes also guest starred in this episode.

In October 2002, his song Ghetto Life appears in popular video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the in-game radio station Fever 105, October 2004 Cold Blooded appeared in popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, playing on Funk radio station Bounce FM and October 2006 in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories his song Mary Jane appeared on the radio station VCFL. Also in 2006 Super Freak appears in newly popular videogame Scarface: The World Is Yours.

Personal problems and decline

As the 1980s segued into the 1990s, the dark side of James' life began to overpower his music. He left Motown in 1986 after creative differences, and signed with Warner Brothers, releasing an album in 1988 and contributing a song which combined The Drifters' "This Magic Moment" with "Dance With Me" for the cover/compilation album Rock, Rhythm and Blues the following year; a video was also filmed before leaving the label.

He was a known drug user, mainly addicted to cocaine, which he often smoked; he later admitted to spending about $7,000 a week on drugs for 5 years straight, and to putting aluminum foil on the windows of his home. In 1993, James was convicted of assaulting two women, with the first assault during one of his cocaine binges. In 1991, he, along with future wife, Tanya Hijazi, were accused of holding 24-year old Frances Alley hostage for up to six days (accounts vary on how long she was actually held), tying her up, forcing her to perform sexual acts, and burning her legs and abdomen with a hot crack pipe during a week long cocaine binge.

In 1993, while out on bail for that earlier incident, a coked-up James assaulted another woman, music executive Mary Sauger, at the St. James Club & Hotel in West Hollywood. Sauger claims she met James and Hijazi for a business meeting, but claims the two kidnapped and beat her over a 20-hour period. He was found guilty of both offenses, but was cleared of a torture charge in the crack-pipe incident that could have put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Serving two years in Folsom Prison, along with losing $2 million in a civil suit to one of the women, did not stop him from writing new songs, even if he did it behind bars. He was released in 1995, and during interviews for a segment of the VH1 series Behind The Music, he spoke openly about his life and his battle with drugs for the first time.

James attempted a comeback with a new album and tour in 1997, but suffered a mild stroke during a concert in Denver, Colorado, effectively ending his musical career.

James' voice was sampled by DJ Green Lantern and used in Busta Rhymes' newest album The Big Bang. The track was titled "In The Ghetto" and sampled James' "Ghetto Life". At the end of the song Green Lantern threw in a sample of James at the 2004 BET Awards in which he exclaims, "Never mind who you thought I was... I'm Rick James, bitch!", and was immediately followed by "Cocaine is a hell of a drug!"

"Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories"

On February 11 2004, Dave Chappelle aired a sketch called Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories: Rick James on his sketch comedy television program, Chappelle's Show. The three-part, episode long skit was an E! True Hollywood Story-style retrospective of the alleged love-and-hate friendship between James and Charlie Murphy during James' early-1980s peak. The young James, played by Chappelle, was depicted as an egotistical, misogynistic and violent cocaine addict who picked on Murphy and constantly reminded people "I'm Rick James, bitch!" (a quote that James himself confirmed he had in fact used during that period) and "Cocaine is a hell of a drug". Charlie Murphy played himself in both the flashback scenes and the interviews. James also appeared in the skit in an interview in which he reacted to Murphy's assertions. The acted scenes were written by Murphy himself, and the skit was mostly ad-libbed. It is also the longest skit on Chappelle's Show.

James told Chappelle that he (James) used the I'm Rick James, Bitch catchphrase constantly while intoxicated. In one skit, apparently based on true events, Rick shows up at Eddie Murphy's house and proceeds to stretch out on his couch. As he blatantly grinds dirt into the couch, he yells an expletive that went on to become an infamous Rick James phrase. James' last public performance was at the 2004 BET Music Awards on June 29 2004. Part of the on-stage routine involved a crowd-pleasing recital of the Chappelle's Show catch phrase by Rick James himself.

Death

On August 6 2004, Rick James was found dead in his Los Angeles home by his caretaker. James had died from pulmonary and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, and a pacemaker being listed as contributing factors.

A coroner's report released September 16, 2004 officially ruled his death as accidental, reporting nine drugs found in James' bloodstream:

"Toxicology revealed the presence of the following drugs,

• Alprazolam (Xanax),
• Diazepam (Valium),
• Bupropion (Wellbutrin),
• Citalopram (Celexa),
• Hydrocodone (Vicodin),
• Digoxin,
• Chlorpheniramine,
• methamphetamine, and
• cocaine"

The report went on to state that "[n]one of the drugs or drug combinations were found to be at levels that were life threatening in and of themselves."

At the time of his death, he was working on an autobiography, Confessions Of A Superfreak, as well as a new album. He was married (and later divorced). He left behind three children, Tazman, Ty, and Rick James, Jr.; and granddaughters Jasmine and Charisma.

The Buffalo News reported on August 6 2006, two years to the date of his death, the placement of a gravestone at Forest Lawn. The two ton headstone is four feet nine inches high by four feet wide. Inscribed on it is an image from his 1981 hit album Street Songs, which included "Give It to Me Baby" and "Super Freak".

External links

• Rick James official site
• Rick James' early years
• Rick James, The Mynah Birds and Neil Young
• Rick James at IMDb
• Rick James on Find-A-Grave
• "Thousands say goodbye to 'Super Freak' singer Rick James" article from the August 14, 2004 San Diego North County Times
• Rick James Tribute on Points in Case
• Rick James Interview about Religion and Politics
• Rick James' last lyrics Buffalo News Aug. 6, 2006