Rick James

Rick James
Rick James, 1982 Rick James, 1982
Background information
Birth name	James Ambrose Johnson, Jr.
Also known as	Big Jimmy; Ricky James Matthews (early career); Jimmy "The Whale"
Genres	R&B, soul, funk
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, dancer, bandleader, record producer
Instrument(s)	Vocal, bass, guitar, keyboards, drums and other percussion instruments
Years active	1964–2004
Labels	Gordy Records Motown Records Reprise Records Mercury Records
Website	www.rickjames.com

James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. (February 1, 1948–August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B. Among his well known songs are "Super Freak", "Mary Jane" and "You and I".

In addition to his music, James gained notoriety for his wild lifestyle, which led to widely publicized legal problems, and which was famously satirized by Chappelle's Show in 2004.

Early life

Rick James was born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. in Buffalo, New York. He attended Orchard Park High School and Bennett High School before dropping out at the age of 15. One of eight children, his father, an autoworker, abandoned him and his siblings when Rick was a child. His mother, a former vaudeville dancer, later reportedly ran errands for a Mafia family to make ends meet. James grew up singing on street corners with fellow neighborhood boys. James' early idols included Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Temptations, (particularly his uncle, Melvin Franklin). After briefly being involved in street crime, James dropped out of high school at 15 to avoid a possible draft and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. A year later, James left the Reserve after he began to miss weekend training, because it interfered with his music career.

Career

Early career

After failing to report for active duty on the USS Enterprise and amid fear of arrest, James fled north to Toronto in the summer of 1964. Now using the stage name Big Jimmy, he formed his first band with future Steppenwolf member Nick St. Nicholas, initially called the Sailor Boyz. The band soon changed their name to the Mynah Birds and bassist Bruce Palmer took over for St. Nicholas in early 1965, and the group soon released their first single, "Mynah Bird Hop"/"Mynah Bird Song" for Columbia Records of Canada.

James and Palmer soon formed a new Mynah Birds lineup with guitarists Tom Morgan and Xavier Taylor, and drummer Rick Mason. In early 1966, the Mynah Birds auditioned for the Motown label in Detroit. 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 actually a seaman who had gone AWOL. Motown told him to give himself up to the FBI, and the Mynah Birds' album was shelved.

James spent a year in a naval prison, 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 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 an assumed name and working with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Canadian band Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers and The Spinners.

In late 1968, James and Greg Reeves moved to Los Angeles, California and formed a rock band called Salt and Pepper (under the name Rick Matthews) with drummer Steve Rumph from T.I.M.E and Michael Rummans from the Yellow Payges. A later version consisted of Coffi Hall from Mama Lion and Merryweather and guitarist Dave Burt and Keyboardist Ed Roth from Merryweather.

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 both appeared on Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer's solo album, The Cycle is Complete. Then they returned to Toronto, where they recorded two singles - Big Showdown and Don't You Worry - as part of Heaven and Earth, a band that also featured guitarist Stan Endersby, bass player Denny Gerrard, and drummer Pat Little. Heaven and Earth, minus Little, then merged with another local group, Milestone, to form Great White Cane with horn players Bob Doughty and Ian Kojima, drummer Norman Wellbanks, guitarist Paul C Saenz, 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.

In 1973, A&M Records released the first Rick James single, "My Mama", which is likely to have been recorded in Los Angeles. 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. 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.

Solo career

In 1978, James released his debut solo album, Come Get It!, in which he played most of the instruments on the album (as he would for his next two albums afterwards before including members of his Stone City Band to back him in the studio). The album launched his solo career, thanks to the funky disco hit, "You and I", and the much smoother, soulful "Mary Jane". He followed this success with Fire It Up, and headlined his first tour in support of the album, which saw then rising funk-pop artist Prince opening for him. James' cordial relationship with Prince during the tour strained after Prince, according to James, stole all bits from his act to hype the audience. He got so fed up with this that he canceled the rest of the tour. In early 1979, he released his third album, Bustin' Out of L Seven, which like his previous two albums, focused on producing a concept project. "L Seven" was named after a street James grew up at in Buffalo.

After a relative flop with his fourth album, Garden of Love, in 1980, in which he traded most of his disco/funk origins for a more pop-R&B flavored project, he returned to the top with the grittier Street Songs, which was also the first to include rock and new wave elements, particularly in the album's leading single, "Super Freak", which became James' biggest pop hit reaching number-sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100 and later winning him a Grammy Award nomination. Due to this single, the follow-up top 40 smash, "Give It to Me Baby", the Teena Marie duet "Fire and Desire", and "Ghetto Life", Street Songs peaked at number-one on the R&B album chart and number-three on the pop chart, going on to sell more than three million copies becoming James' biggest-selling album and making James famous. In 1982, just as the hype from Street Songs dropped, he released the gold-selling Throwin' Down album, and followed that up with another hit album, Cold Blooded (1983), which included the hit title track. James continued to score hits with Motown into 1985 but by the end of that year he had begun to have struggles with the label.

Following the release of The Flag in 1986, James left Motown and signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros, releasing the album, Wonderful, in 1988, which yielded the R&B hit, "Loosey's Rap". The video for the song was banned on MTV and BET for sexual content, which James labeled hypocritical. After the release of the UK-only 1989 album, Kickin', James' recording career slowed as he struggled with personal and legal problems. In 1997, a year following his release from prison for assault charges, James released his first new album in eight years, Urban Rapsody. Though James returned to live performances to promote the album, he stopped performing for a while after suffering a stroke following a show in Denver in 1998. Prior to the concert, James was interviewed on VH-1's Behind the Music, where he openly talked about his life and career and also mentioned his drug use, which he said was behind him.

During James' Motown heyday in the late seventies and early eighties, James found himself in demand and was asked to produce Teena Marie's long-awaited debut album. James originally had planned to produce a full album for Diana Ross but when Motown told him they only wanted four songs from James, he gave the songs up to Marie, including the duet, "I'm a Sucker for Your Love", for her debut album, Wild and Peaceful. The album launched not only Marie's career but a personal and professional relationship between James and Marie, continuing until James' death. In 1982, he was asked to produce a song for The Temptations' upcoming album, Reunion, after former members Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin returned to the group for their ill-fated reunion. The song, "Standing on the Top", became a top ten R&B hit and James was credited in the song not only as a writer but as a duet singer.

In 1983, he collaborated with longtime idol Smokey Robinson on their hit song, "Ebony Eyes", which became a top 30 hit on the R&B charts. That same year, he produced his longtime background vocal group The Mary Jane Girls, with their self-titled debut album, featuring the hits "All Night Long" and "Candy Man." The "Mary Jane Girls" were actually Joanne "JoJo" McDuffie and longtime session singers Julia Waters and Maxine Waters this practice continued on all the Mary Jane Girl projects. The trio had long sung with James. James then included Kimberly "Maxi" Wuletich, Candice "Candi" Ghant and Cheri Wells to join the group though they didn't sing on the original records. After Wells left, she was replaced by Yvette "Corvette" Marine. In 1985, the group's second album, Only Four You included their biggest hit, "In My House."JoJo" continued to sing lead and contributed to the backgrounds with the Water Sisters as the other group members could not sing at all or were extremely limited vocally.Rick's band sang for the group with JoJo for concert tours. James also produced a couple albums for his Stone City Band, releasing material by the group in 1980 and 1982 respectively. Also in 1985, James produced and wrote the Eddie Murphy hit, "Party All the Time" and also sang on the track. Following James' descent into drug abuse and his exit from Motown, the Stone City Band and the Mary Jane Girls both dissolved in 1987. Both groups reunited following James' release from prison in 1996.

Personal life

James was a father of three children, sons Rick Jr. and Tazman, and daughter Ty. At the time of his death, he was survived by them and two grandchildren. James was extremely close with Teena Marie, with whom he met in 1979 and began working that same year. While James had denied that the two were romantically involved, Marie would say not only were they romantically involved but they were engaged "for two weeks". Their professional partnership lasted into 2004 when Marie released her comeback album, La Dona, which included the James duet, "I Got You". When James died, Marie said she struggled to come to terms with the loss. James' longtime girlfriend, Alfie Davidson, was said to have been a hidden fixture in James' life and was dating him for nearly a decade, even as James carried on relationships with other women, including Marie.

James began a close friendship with Eddie Murphy after the two met in 1981. Following his exit from the United States Navy in 1984, Murphy's older brother Charlie Murphy, whose first post-Navy job was working as security for his famous brother, began hanging out with James, bonding with the singer. Murphy would later recall the two's sometimes-strained relationship on Chappelle's Show, which helped to revive James' name in the public eye after years of seclusion following his mild-stroke in 1998. James also appeared in the episode recounting his memory of the experiences shared by Charlie.

James was friends with fellow Motown acts Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, though his friendship with the latter artist was tested after James began dating Gaye's former wife, Janis Gaye. James became godfather of Gaye's daughter Nona. In his biography, James called Gaye "a crazy motherfucker" but said he loved him to death. Gaye was one of the singers James idolized as a teenager. James' relationship with Robinson began shortly after James signed with Motown and in 1983, the duo recorded the hit "Ebony Eyes". James also idolized former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin and his uncle, bass vocalist Melvin Franklin and grabbed at the chance to produce the hit "Standing on the Top" for them in 1982. Prior to that, the then-current lineup of the group recorded background vocals on two James-associated projects - James' Street Songs and Teena Marie's It Must Be Magic, singing on "Ghetto Life" and "Super Freak" on the former, and the title track on the latter. In "Super Freak", "It Must Be Magic" and "Standing on the Top", James famously shouted out Temptations sing!

In 1989, James met 17-year-old party goer Tanya Hijazi. The two began a romance in 1990. In 1993, the couple welcomed the arrival of their only child and James' youngest, Tazman. Following their releases from prison for their involvement in assaulting Mary Sauger and Frances Alley, the couple married in 1997. The couple's marriage dissolved in 2002.

James' longtime association with drugs began in his teens. A longtime marijuana user, he began using cocaine in the late 1960s. Cocaine use became an addiction for James by the late 1980s and he began freebasing by the end of the decade. James recalled smoking crack cocaine in his Beverly Hills mansion and often had aluminium foil on the windows to escape onlookers. James claimed he quit cocaine when he entered prison. Though cocaine would later be found in James' bloodstream following his autopsy, it was reported that the drug wasn't at a life-threatening level at the time of his death. After his 1998 stroke, James needed a pacemaker to help him breathe and by his death was dealing with overweight problems, which also affected his health.

Legal problems

The start of the 1990s brought with it a string of bizarre and sometimes horrific incidents for Rick James. He was a known drug user, mainly addicted to cocaine; he later admitted to spending about US $7,000 a week on drugs for five years straight. In 1991, he and 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 the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe during a week long cocaine binge. In 1993, while out on bail for that earlier incident, Rick James, under the influence of cocaine, assaulted music executive Mary Sauger, at the St. James Club and 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 in prison for the rest of his life. He served two years in Folsom Prison, and lost US $2 million in a civil suit to one of the women. He was released in 1996.

Final years

In 2003, James was a part of a skit on Chappelle's Show called "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories". He, along with Charlie Murphy (brother of Eddie Murphy) recounted humorous stories of their experiences together during the early 1980s. During the skit, Rick James' character, played by Dave Chappelle, utters the now famous catchphrase, "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" The skits were punctuated by James, as himself, explaining his past behavior with the phrase, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug!"

At the time of his death, he was working on an autobiography, The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super freak, as well as a new album. The book was finally published toward the end of 2007 by Colossus Books. It features a picture of his tombstone. He was also supporting Teena Marie's tour of her album La Doña, and toured with her in May 2004, playing with her at the KBLX Stone Soul Picnic, Pioneer Amphitheatre, Hayward, California.

Death

The grave site of Rick James

On the morning of August 6, 2004, Rick James was found dead in his Los Angeles, California, home at the Oakwood apartment complex on Barham Boulevard by his caretaker. James had died from pulmonary failure and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, a pacemaker, and a heart attack. Through his autopsy, alprazolam, diazepam, bupropion, citalopram, hydrocodone, digoxin, chlorpheniramine, methamphetamine and cocaine were found in his blood. However the coroner also stated, "None of the drugs or drug combinations were found to be at levels that were life-threatening in and of themselves." He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.

Discography

Main article: Rick James discography

Studio albums

• Come Get It!
• Bustin' Out of L Seven
• Fire It Up
• Garden of Love
• Street Songs
• Throwin' Down
• Cold Blooded
• Glow
• The Flag
• Wonderful
• Kickin'
• Urban Rapsody
• Deeper Still

External links

• Rick James official site
• Rick James, The Mynah Birds and Neil Young
• Rick James at IMDb
• Rick James at Find a Grave