Bootsy Collins Music To Smile By

The brewmasters at Fretboard wanted to create a recipe that captures the bright and colorful aspects of Bootsy's character. I played guitar when I first got started because of my brother, Catfish. So the opportunity came where he needed a bass player. It's like you don't even have a bass. I said well, if you give me four strings - if you can get me four strings, I will have a bass. And I made a bass out of that guitar and that same bass that I played with him that night was the same bass that I played the way up until we got with James Brown.

That's funk making something out of nothing. We too often forget that beneath all those crazy hats and glasses and silver skulls is one of the most revered, singular bass players in the history of rock music, the signature bounce you hear chugging along beneath James Brown, George Clinton, and so many of your favorite funk and soul hits. Collins is also one of our last remaining links to the heyday of Cincinnati's legendary King Records, a living, first-hand encyclopedia on the local studio that helped birth rock and roll. Both are legacies he's intent to keep grooving, in the city they both call home.

Finally a live album from Bootsy (a two-CD set, actually), but it doesn't do justice to his actual outer-space show. Too many classic tunes are reduced to brief summaries ("Bootzilla," "Pinocchio Theory"), while many of the longer grooves just get repetitive ("P-Funk "). Most of the highlights of his live show - the goofy poses, the costumes, the extended romp through the audience ("Touch Somebody") - don't come across on disc, though his bass playing does (the solo feature "I'd Rather Be With You"). Bernie also gets a chance in the spotlight ("Bernie Solo"); the rest of the backing band doesn't. The only recent tunes are the Hazel tribute "A Sacred Place" from Blasters, and the tossoff title track.

Fun while you're waiting for him to come to your town, but no replacement for the real thing. These days Collins has an ambassadorial air. He guests with big names, most recently Snoop Dogg and his live band, who are eager for a dash of his vintage, unquenchable sparkle. He has his online Funk University and campaigns to get musical instruments into the hands of disadvantaged kids. He clearly longs to see some musicianship, some bands, spring from young black America. "I came up playing with people," he says.

"We depended on each other and that encouraged unity, togetherness. We learned to play with what we had – that's what funk is." Before Bootsy Collins helped usher in the era of funk, he played bass for James Brown and George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic. Now he's back with a new album called "Tha Funk Capital of The World." Collins blends hip-hop, spoken word and Latin flavor with the classic soul and funk for which he is known. Bootsy Collins Brings Back The Funk Before Bootsy Collins helped usher in the era of funk, he played bass for James Brown and George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic. "I've never really been concerned about what others thought about me or my music, as long as it made you feel good & sexy, like them old house parties, sharing a coke and a smile while doing a bump and grind," Bootsy explains in a press release.

Bootsy's music and life are all about creating unity in the community, "but not necessarily the same old community." He has never stopped generating new energy among new musical associates, andWorld Wide Funkis the latest example of his Promethean powers. It blends classic Bootsy,Analog("aka the veteran artist"), andSlingshots("aka the youngins") into the silly serious world of Bootsy, with results that will extend far beyond the confines of our galaxy. Because we've been torn down so much, it's like we don't even believe in ourselves no more. Funk is that driving force that you know is there when ain't nobody else there, and you can create the things you need. Phelps Catfish Collins, who was eight years older than I and I looked up to him because I didn't have a father in the home, so my brother was very important to me.

And he played guitar, so that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a guitar player, so he was the first one to inspire me to do something with my life and I'm so glad that he was there. P-Funk defined the dance music of its time and influenced a range of styles from hard rock to house music. The P-Funk catalog is among the most sampled by rap music producers. Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2019. By the late 1970s, Collins was a huge star with his own side-project, Bootsy's Rubber Band.

Funkadelic were creating hit records, and everyone was making serious money. "He started getting pussy and having a good time, and that killed the magic. He was the bad guy and I was the good guy – that was our power, but it became showbiz. Then that powder came into play. If LSD brought us together, cocaine surely split us up." While still in his early teens, Collins joined his brother's band, the Pacemakers. They would hang out and play at Cincinnati's King Records, which began as a specialist country label in the early 1940s and, thanks to James Brown was, by the mid-60s, the sixth biggest label in America.

Brown had a seriously fractious relationship with his band, the Famous Flames and one night they upped and left him en masse. The next day the Pacemakers – who'd recently cut a demo called, rather wonderfully, More Mess on My Thing – were put on a private plane to Columbus, Georgia, and told they were Brown's new band. Collins was just 17 and would spend most of the next year touring as part of what was then, arguably, the greatest band in the world, while making records such as Get Up Sex Machine and Soul Power that, 40 years later, have lost not one drop of their of their kinetic energy. Collins's ranch, Bootzilla, is large enough (it's set in 22 acres of Ohio woodland, half an hour outside Cincinnati) to warrant its own Google Maps tag – there's another house beyond the lake where his mother used to live.

It's a fantastically peaceful place, not far from the feet of the Appalachians. There is an abundance of wood panelling and leopard skin, very softly lit. Every inch of wall space is covered with gold and platinum discs, framed photos and more. In the basement there's a studio, with vocal booths, drum corner, the lot. Old stage costumes, antediluvian synthesisers, ancient drum machines, a neon "Bates Motel" sign, a framed Funkadelic flag, a Ray Charles figurine, a Black History Month boardgame, faux road signs ("Danger! Mothership Parking Only") and a purple velvet bag inscribed with the words "I Believe".

You have no concept of what "stuff" can encompass until you've seen Bootsy Collins's. Most strikingly, everywhere you look, there is Jimi Hendrix memorabilia – rugs, posters, photographs, and a picture disc of Jimi posing between two topless young women. My brother was number one Phelps "Catfish" Collins, who was eight years older than I. And I looked up to him because there was - I didn't have a father in the home. So my brother was very important to me.

So he was the first one to inspire me to do something with my life. Musically, Collins is still uncovering the many ways King Records imprinted itself on his sonic DNA, regardless of what he was wearing or who he was playing with. That same force was still grooving on last year's World Wide Funk, with touches of funk, rock, R&B, soul, bluesy country, and hip-hop. After cozying up to Ballard and his band, the Midnighters, the Collins brothers also befriended King producer Charles Spurling, who helped them gain regular entree to the studio. They started hanging with members of James Brown's band during extended smoke breaks.

"To us it was like Disney World," says Collins. Looking around his own home studio, dubbed "The Ark"—with paintings of Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Prince, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and many more of Bootsy's music heroes adorning the walls—Collins figures the King studio was roughly the same size, maybe even a bit smaller. Though the racial integration of staff and artists was a rarity at the time, Collins says he never thought about it that way back then, only realizing how golden his opportunity was once he left town and saw the world. I always got off with making people feel good, playing this music so you can groove, make you feel good. I think it had something to do with the time we came up and the hippie days. We're not really used to this lockdown thing — and separation.

Everybody got their own room, everybody got their own phone. I mean we were blessed to have a phone in the house! And everybody's got their own everything now and you can carry it in your hand! So, it's a different day, and you have to either grow with it and learn how to accept it, embrace it, or else you become a dinosaur. And I refuse to be a dinosaur, because I'm here to grow, to keep learning.

Funk legendBootsy Collinsrecently announced a new albumWorld Wide Funk, due out Oct 27th. Marking the bassist's first album since 2011'sTha Funk Capital of the World, the upcomingWorld Wide Funkis populated with musical friends old and new, and recorded in his Cincinnati home's Bootzilla Re-hab studio. Today, he shares the third ad final single from the record "Hot Saucer," featuring Musiq Soulchild & Big Daddy Kane. In true collaboration fashion, Bootsy was given the naming rights. With such a recognizable moniker, we stuck to our guns on the name – but the fun curve ball came with the beer style.

Rather than calling this beer a Brut IPA, we are marketing it as a 'Brewski' IPA, named for the mispronunciation of 'Bootsy' by one of his fans while on a trip in Germany years ago. The nickname has stuck with him and always brings a smile to a face that is all smiles. While experimenting with this recipe, Fretboard submitted it in the U.S. Open Beer Championship in which it took home Gold in the Brut IPA category! This news only made both sides of the collaboration even more excited to release a beer that everyone will love.

As with our 100 Greatest Drummers list, this rundown of the 50 greatest bassists of all time celebrates that entire spectrum. It's emphatically not intended as a ranking of objective skill; nor does it assign any one set of criteria as a measure of greatness. Instead it's an inventory of the bassists who have had the most direct and visible impact on creating, to borrow Kaye's term, the very foundation of popular music — from rock to funk to country to R&B to disco to hip-hop, and beyond — during the past half-century or so.

You'll find obvious virtuosos here, but also musicians whose more minimal concept of their instrument's role elevated everything that was going on around them. The alternative era brought new heroes on the instrument, from Sonic Youth's intuitive Kim Gordon to Primus' outlandish Les Claypool, and more recently, a fresh crop of bass icons — including Esperanza Spalding and the ubiquitous Thundercat — have placed the low end at the center of their musical universes. The brewing company named the beer a "Brewski" IPA because one of Bootsy's fans in Germany accidentally called him "brewski" instead of "Bootsy." The nickname has stuck with Bootsy and always brings a smile to his face, the company said. "I feel like this is my time to do something good," he says, his heavy jewellery clattering on the table. He reaches me on a metaphysical level," says Elliott Ruther, president of the nonprofit Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation, which he cofounded with Collins and the bassist's wife/manager Patti Collins in 2007 in an effort to prevent the studio from being torn down.

The three have worked alongside former King artists Otis Williams and Philip Paul, as well as a number of prominent Cincinnatians, to push for preservation of the original studio building. Ruther, who considers Bootsy the foundation's "spiritual godfather," still remembers the first time he met Bootsy at City Hall in September 2002 when he was working for then-councilman John Cranley. " my whole outlook on everything I knew about rock and roll," Ruther says. In fact, Collins even has a theme song he wrote for his hometown called "Cincinnati USA," something he remembers just now as it pops into his head after eight years in cold storage. " he belts joyfully, refreshing his memory on his 20-plus-acre rural compound less than an hour outside of downtown.

Sitting on an animal print chair inside the memorabilia-filled home studio where he laid down basic tracks for his most recent solo album, 2017's World Wide Funk, is a man who has forgotten more about our music history than most will ever know—theme song included. The good part about it is, I'm so used to the bad times, I guess you would say. I've experienced that kind of stuff coming up, in my life. It ain't really new, you just have to figure out new ways of dealing with stuff.

But I take the same attitude I've got about everything, and that's go at it with a smile and you can make it through. She was so powerful with her every day dealings. I only wish I had a quarter of the strength that she had. We've been passing, doing so many different gigs together, festivals and all these years. We always talked about getting a chance to hook up some day but we never did.

For me, it was just so exciting because, you know, because he was playing before I was, so he was a hero of mine. I always looked up to him, but never got a chance to really play with him. This was really a privilege for me to get the opportunity to play with the great George Benson who has played with all of the jazz greats. And I thought by doing that it would show people as well that everything can kind of work together if you let it work. However, there are enough beautiful love songs ("Pearl Drops"), danceable grooves ("Shiggy Wiggy"), and whomping bass lines ("Ever Lost Your Lover") to keep you from getting too disappointed. Predictably, the funkiest tracks are the reunions with Bernie Worrell ("Penetration ," "Fresh Outta P ").

Mostly produced by Bootsy, though Mousse T., Boogieman, Tabularasa and Norman Cook all participated. The musicians are mostly Bootsy regulars, though Salsoul veteran Vincent Montanaguests on vibes. For once Bootsy seems unsure of himself, and the album doesn't work up steam, although some songs (the frantic "It's A Musical," the hilarious love song "Sacred Flower") are gems.

The title track, social comment "Fat Cat" and "Mug Push" are silly, all right, but not in a good way. Another excellent effort, with perhaps his most compelling dance number "Bootzilla," an irresistable love song ("Very Yes") and the clever "Hollywood Squares." Plus "Roto-Rooter," which simply defies description. But usually he's just covering territory he'd mapped out on his first two records ("What's The Name Of This Town?"), so you might as well start with them.

The idea of working with a musical icon was the idea of owner, Joe Sierra. It was only right that a music-centric brewery attempt to partner with the biggest name in music that our proud city has ever known. Fretboard will donate a portion of all Bootsy beer sales to the Bootsy Collins Foundation. I said, well, if you give me four strings, if you can get four strings, I will have a bass. And I made a bass out of that guitar. But at the same time, it was like I knew that that wasn't really me.

On this album I got a chance to be me. I got a chance to bring who I wanted, who I felt that people needed to have hope in. We last talked with Bootsy about his latest album, "Tha Funk Capital of the World." On it, he blends what's hot now - hip-hop beats, spoken word, even a little Latin flavor - with the classic soul and funk for which he is known around the world. And Bootsy began our conversation by telling us about the funk-inspired outfit he decided to wear for the interview. They also wanted the beer to hit "hard like a mean Bootsy bass line," which is why they decided to make the alcohol percentage 7 percent. Collins was with Brown's band for only 11 months.

Famously, he left soon after running off stage, hallucinating wildly. It was a state he would grow used to when, after a stint with the Brit-rock- and Sun Ra-influenced House Guests, he joined George Clinton's Funkadelic outfit for their fourth album, America Eats Its Young. Clinton – inspired by the theatrics of Alice Cooper, the power of the MC5 and the apocalyptic religious cult of the Process Church of the Final Judgment – was the flipside to Brown, someone intent on discovering whether great art could be made from chaos, whatever the psychic cost.

In Funkadelic there were no rules, only a desire to experiment more, thrill more, terrify more. Collins's face actually lights up when he talks about the band. I'm just glad to have come up in a time where I know I needed somebody else and I had to talk to somebody else and, you know, it was like the real deal and not the dough, you know. Meaning, I could get in the car and rap to a chick, you know, and, you know, the next thing I know I don't know what's going to be happening but I'm going to give it my, you know, my full funk, funkability, you know, and whatever happens happens. "Bootsy has the DNA of being the peacemaker, of being the true light to our land, to our society," Patti says.

She points out how her husband would leave to work for months at a time over the years but always come back, come home. Still bringing the funk, even tapping fresh local talent like spoken word/activist troop BlvckSeeds to appear on his new record. Still shining a light on his music heritage and his city's history. Still strutting the Grand Marshal strut through OTR, mere steps away from where he grew up, those stars yet twinkling in—and on—his eyes. Right on time, Patti, soft-spoken but intensely focused, silently walks into the studio to check in on her No. 1 client.

Collins instantly gives up his seat for her so she can bring it all back home. Wearing a black sweatshirt with her husband's face emblazoned on the back (so Bootsy!), her mixed look of love and resolve makes it clear she's considered this idea often. It was a fast apprenticeship with Brown, but one that left a lasting impression on Collins. When he and Catfish cycled out of Brown's band after 18 months or so, they had more than enough cachet to hook up with Detroit funk originator George Clinton, whose loose attitude was the polar opposite of Brown's tight precision. Their new gig in Parliament-Funkadelic, Clinton's superband, was all about the vibe and allowing everyone on stage—which could swell to a dozen or more—do their own thang. The brothers played on such lasting funk classics as "Flash Light," "Give Up the Funk " and "P.