The Rick James

by Mark Cappelletty



“Ebony Eyes” by Rick James & Smokey Robinson

You’re Rick James. You’ve had a tough day— the tracks you’ve just laid down wouldn’t cause a freak (much less a superfreak), your record label is feuding with you over the cost of a chain-mail-encased panther for your album cover, your cornrows are tangled, the Mary Jane Girls are feuding over cocaine and the sex slave currently tied up and tortured in the basement is getting lippy. You need to relax.

What better way than the Rick James Cocktail? This gentleman’s libation, created by the author and Jared Butler in August 2004, is just the way to ease your tension and put the troubles of the day behind you.

The recipe is simple but packs a Rick James abusive-spouse-esque punch.



In a cocktail shaker full of cracked ice, pour

1 ½ ounces good cognac
½ ounce Grand Marnier

Shake well and pour into a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with powdered sugar.

Then put on today’s song for that special lady friend of yours (NOT the one in the basement).

But some days are worse than others. When you want to forget that you ended your career as a footnote to some wiseass comic who’s turned your entire history into a pun (note: revenge would be sweet with that joker’s meltdown if he’d only the decency to have it before you died), you need to step things up.

These are the days that call for the I’m Rick James, Bitch! cocktail.

Simply double the recipe above. But instead of a cocktail glass, procure a large shot glass and pour in as much of the liquor as will fit. Drop that into a two-liter bottle, neck removed, filled with your malt liquor of choice (Olde English, with that extra “e,” is a classy choice). And drink— deep. You’ll be doing 3 to 5 upstate for aggravated assault in no time


before the Rick James cocktail


after the Rick James cocktail

There Is No Beginning And There Is No End

The Lemonheads "Rick James Style" (Come On Feel The Lemonheads, 1993)


In 1993 Rick James resurfaced for a duet with Evan Dando for his band the Lemonheads follow up to their highly succesful record It's A Shame About Ray. "Rick James Style" from Come On Feel The Lemonheads is a slowed down and funkafied version of "Style", a punk tinged rocker found earlier on the record. James' duet with Dando is eerie at best, as it can assumed both men were in a rock bottom state of drug abuse. The chorus, "Don't wanna get stoned/But I don't wanna not get stoned" reflects the battle going on between the both of them.

New Hairstyle, Same Rick

Rick James "Rick's Raga" (The Flag, 1986)

Rick James "Funk In Amerika/Silly Little Man" (The Flag, 1986)

In Rick James' 2001 interview with the Onion's A.V. Club, I count four different occasions where he references his love for as well as ability to play Indian music:

"I have a very fine love for classical music, I have a love for Indian music, sitar. I went to India, lived, and studied. I studied sitar in the early '70s. I lived in Sweden and London. So I'm very familiar with Europe and its ways, very familiar with the European culture in Paris, and the French, and the English, and the Danes and whatnot, and Indian culture."

You would think then we would hear more of this influence that solely on a thirty second track from 1986's The Flag entitled "Rick's Raga" ("Om Raga" is listed on the record's label). By this time, Rick's career had really slowed to a halt. He wasn't getting the radio play he used to (at least his new material wasn't) and his music was suffering due to his increasing drug abuse problems. If Glow had been a step forward, The Flag was a huge step backwards commercially. But at the same time, his inability to rely on his usual punk-funk formulas had freed him up in a way. The Flag contains a "message song" of sorts, "Funk In Amerika", that showed that even Rick was feeling the effects of the Cold War. The track "Silly Little Man" was dedicated to Ronald Raygun and Makhail Gorbachev. Apparently it's easier to come up with a pun on Reagan's name than it is Gorbachev. But Gorbachev did have that birthmark on his head though, Man, did Cracked magazine get a lot of mileage out of that one!

Just Let Your Soul Glow!

Rick James "Glow" (Glow, 1985)

Rick James "Rock And Roll Control" (Glow, 1985)

By 1985 Rick James' act was seen as played out. His infamous decline into drug abuse was in full swing. But Glow was a comeback of sorts for him. After producing a hit single for his good friend Eddie Murphy ("Party All The Time"), Rick returned to the studio to make his first solo record since 1983's Cold Blooded. 1984 had seen a hits comp entitled Reflections (that featured one new single "17") and Tony Montana sized piles of blow. The album's title track was the first single and saw moderate success. "Glow"'s video saw Rick James honing his acting chops, and could be seen as an indirect commercial for the product Soul-Glo from Murphy's film Coming To America. In the video, James depicts a rock star falling apart at the seams (a stretch for him I'm sure) and actually contains the line "I'm Rick James!", which may or may not have been included to embellish Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories sketch on Chappelle's Show.

The "Glow" video has a happy ending, though. As soon as Rick takes the stage and falls flat on his face, he remembers why he's up there: to rock the house. Clad in leopard skin, he shimmies and rocks his s-curls to the delight of the crowd, all while jamming on his bass, and in the end he gets his girl back. "Rock And Roll Control" from side two of Glow backs up his comeback kid concept, admitting his flaws as well as his battles with cocaine:

I was so shy
All I did was just get high
And live my life in a dream
I was snowblind
That my two eyes couldn't see
A true reality
But now I'm back y'all
Did you think
That I would fall
And not get up in style?

"Glow" would be the last true hit for James until 1990, when the spandex bicycle shorts/big puffy pants sporting MC Hammer would sample "Super Freak" for his universe smashing single "U Can't Touch This". At first James was angry that someone had sampled his song. That is until he saw how much royalty money he was going to make from the smash hit, upon which he embraced the former Oakland Athletics batboy with open arms. If "Glow" was a redemption story, remember it's just a story. Dark clouds were forming around Rick James impeccable mane, and they were about to rain shit upon his flowing locks.

That Shit Was Cold Blooded

Rick James "Tell Me (What You Want)" feat. Billy Dee Williams (Cold Blooded, 1983)

If you were looking forward to hearing Lando Calrsian croon alongside Rick James, sorry old fellow, but it appears you may have been misled. All Billy Dee Williams really adds to this standard Rick James sex jam is his bedroom voice. But what a bedroom voice it is! I can understand why Williams was soon tapped to be the pitch man for Colt 45 malt liquor. He could make the polar ice caps melt with that voice. Hey come to think of it, Billy Dee Williams may just be the culprit for global warming. Congress needs to pass a law banning Billy Dee's vocal chords from future use. It may damage his acting career, but- ah, who am I kidding.

As Billy woos his lady friend by talking about the "stars being out" and "watching the galaxy together", I can't help but think that what's really eating away at his soul is that he's longing to be back in his home on Bespin, aka Cloud City. After all, Lobot can't hold down the fort without him forever, and he had to leave just as he was just starting to consider himself a legitimate business man. Plus he probably had a sweet fucking pad up there in the clouds. Much better than hanging around a studio doing blow with Rick James and banging groupies- Well, okay, I guess it could go both ways. Either or, this man's voice is SILK.

About To Throw Down

Rick James "Standing On The Top" (Throwin' Down, 1982)

Rick James "69 Times" (Throwin' Down, 1982)

1982's Throwin' Down found Rick sporting a loin cloth on it's cover, an axe shaped bass guitar at his side. The baclk cover depicted James as a sort of Conan the Barbarian of funk, complete with a damsel in distress he can be seen pulling to safety atop his pedestal. Rick was at the top of his game. The problem was that he was now just repeating the same formula that made Street Songs such a success. "Standing At The Top" is essentially a Temptations track that merely features Rick James. But James' formula for success was hard to deny. "69 Times" was a "Super Freak" retread, but who really cared when you were dancing at New York's infamous Studio 54 with Bianca Jagger and a young Leslie Ann Warren. The world was now Rick James' oyster, and he was doing gargantuan amounts of blow off that oyster every day.

Throwin' Down reflected Rick's new outlook on success. That is, he got there by becoming a sort of "warrior of funk" (not to be confused with the "Renegades Of Funk"). A rhyme by Rick in the sleeve of the record backs up this idea:

Follow the path I have laid on this ground
And all battles you'll win, by just throwin' down
HARD..........

footnote: Rick thanks the Buffalo Bills in the liner notes.

Do Ya Do Ya Do Ya Do Ya Do Ya

Rick James "Below The Funk (Pass The J)" (Street Songs, 1981)

Rick James' best selling record is 1981's Street Songs, a concept album about city life where most of the songs deal with prostitution. Thanks to hits like "Super Freak" (featuring his uncle Melvin Franklin's band The Temptations on backing vocals), "Give It To Me Baby" and "Ghetto Life" the album achieved double-platinum status, stayed in the Top 100 Album chart for 54 weeks and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Even though "Super Freak" and "Give It To Me Baby" are classics that are impossible for anyone to deny (I once saw my mom dancing to "Super Freak" at a wedding), it's the non-single tracks that really demand attention. "Below The Funk (Pass The J)" finds Rick smoking dope (a common thread throughout his songs) and reminiscing about his days growing up in Buffalo, NY. The flamboyant singer mentions the ridicule he was burdened with for being so different; in retrospect James finds it laughable:

But it's strange the gossip is so tragic They called me a faggot Me and all my women laugh at it

Rick James can certainly be called a lot of things, but a homosexual is not something that immediately springs to mind. "Below The Funk" tells James' story with surprising clarity, all the while being carried along by the shit hot funk rock of the Stone City Band, the backing band for his entire career. It's funny to think of Rick James (real name James Ambrose Johnson Jr.) coming from a place so bland as Buffalo, but life was not easy for the Johnson. The third oldest in a family of eight, James was raised solely by his mother, whose main source of income was running numbers for the Italian mob.

Mama raised me on the numbers racket With eight kids and no father Said she couldn't hack it

"Below The Funk" fails to mention James' first prison stint after going AWOL from the US Navy as a young man. He had fled to Canada where he hooked up with Neil Young and formed a band called the Mynah Birds (the band also featured future Steppenwolf member Goldie McJohn). The band signed to the Motown label but their career was cut short because of Rick's military trouble. After his jail time James went to Europe where he would hone his musical craft for the next seven years. James remembers the time with fondness in an Onion AV Club interview: "It gave me a sense of independence, a sense of the whole traveling minstrel thing. I was just over there singing and playing for a living".

James would return to the States a new man. He formed the Stone City Band, signed to Motown's Gordy label and became the now legendary superstar Rick James. But songs like "Below The Funk" prove that he never forgot where he came from: "It's like going to see a psychiatrist. It's no different than that. If you're telling it the way it is, and you're being really honest, you're going to get help. If you bullshit and lie, then you're not going to get any help. I'm trying to get my mind and my soul together. The only way I can do that is to be as honest as I can be."

Rick James Week: Mach One

It's sort of a shame that the resurgence Rick James experienced in the years leading up to his death celebrated the darker, more comical moments of his career (a la Chappelle's Show's "I'm Rick James, bitch!" sketches) because the man's musical cannon (I say cannon instead of canon because I believe James probably would have appreciated it) is as solid as any other artist considered to be a "musical genius". I've recently delved into Rick James back catalogue (unfortunately only available on its original vinyl format, save for 1981's Street Songs and a number of "Greatest Hits" comps) and found him to be a versatile and witty, but above all else funky. So many non-single tracks have commanded my attention that I've decided to christen this week the first ever "Rick James Week" on POP ZEUS! A first for the blogosphere I'm sure, but definitely not the last.



Rick James "Hollywood" (Come Get It!, 1978)

Come Get It!, Rick James & the Stone City Band's 1978 debut, featured James on its cover looking like Stevie Wonder had he joined KISS, casting a sort of "funk spell" over a scantily clad model. This Smell The Glove-esque cover is not a true represenation of the music inside however. Yes, it's a party album, just like all of Rick Jame's musical output. But underneath there is a true sensibility for emotional range, much like Nigel Tufnel's "Lick My Love Pump". "Hollywood", the second to last track on the record is the voice of a young man yearning for fame and fortune. With due respect to his parents, Rick James is on his way to Hollywood where "the singers and the movie stars and the people live in mountains and the sun shines all the time".

Alright, the lyrics don't sound like they were written by Dylan or Lennon, but the message is a bittersweet one. Rick James longed for the fame and fortune that would ultimately do him in. "Hollywood" is a somewhat naive ballad about longing to be famous and getting out of the ghetto. Ltille did Rick know that once he conquered Hollywood, Hollywood would in turn kick his fucking ass. Or maybe he did know that. Rick seems like the type who planned his excesses in advance. I don't know if he planned on kidnapping, raping and torturing a girl with his lady friend twenty something years down the line, but you never know.