The Transference of Funk: Bootsy Collins

Bootsy Collins played a pivotal role in  the evolution of Soul music. He helped define Funk music as a genre.  Blues, Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, and Soul music all played a major role in the development of a completely new sound: P-Funk.  Bootsy Collins is a very humble individual, so he won’t voluntarily mention how he firmly planted his feet in the Funk and smeared the smell everywhere he played. 

 The Guardian  published an article on April 14, 2011, which was written by Rob Fitzpatrick, titled, Bootsy Collins: ‘The freak show never ended’, chronicling his contribution to music. Fitzpatrick, discussed how Bootsy and his band,  The Pacemakers got into the music industry. He explained that, “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.”  As time went on, Bootsy’s story, and life,  became  a key component in the new era of what would be called “P-Funk.”

Joel McIver wrote an article  titled, Bootsy Collins: “All this happened for real. You couldn’t make nothing like that up…,” published at MusicRadar on January 15, 2018. When asked about James Brown, Bootsy spoke about how James Brown taught him a valuable life lesson, explaining it this way: “But I gotta say, him telling us that we weren’t on the one and we weren’t happening, it made me want to practice more. He knew what he was doing. You know how sensitive musicians are. That was the biggest letdown, because I was a kid wanting to please Mr. Brown and do the best job – and then he called me in the room and told me that. I’m like, ‘Man, what can I do?’ ” Make no mistake about it; a Bootsy Collins interview or quote will always be entertaining, yet he never had the need to be the center of attention like many musical superstars require. Bootsy was quietly “the one” responsible for bringing “the one” to George Clinton and solidifying the P-Funk sound.

Bootsy has many fascinating stories that he  can share about his musical career. That is why his experiences while playing with James Brown never had to be the main  stories  told.  Parliament Funkadelic are two words synonymous with Bootsy Collins, yet as Rob Fitzpatrick reiterated, “It was Brown who taught Bootsy the concept of “the One”: the technique where a song’s rhythm is anchored around the crucial first beat in the bar. The One is what funk – and through that, of course, hip-hop – was built on.”  Bootsy is an archive of musical knowledge and can academically chronicle the countless experiences that placed him ‘feet first’ at the locations that were, flush in the center of the Funk. (Rumor has it that Bootsy  wore his space boots 24/ 7 because he was always knee deep in Funk.)

James Brown knew that Bootsy Collins had the qualities necessary to transition music into the  future realm of pure Funk. P-Funk.