James' quiet stormery has also stood the test of time: Inspired by the starlight twinkle of doo wop and the surging elegance of Smokey-era Motown, the archballadry of "Fire and Desire" - his classic duet with protégée Teena Marie - is R&B sexual melodrama at its most passionate and intense. Still, analog funk anthems like galvanic "Give It To Me" and carnal "Super Freak" remain irrefutable dance-floor jams they're the universal ignition key to any party. Rick James spent a good deal of his post-'80s career incapacitated by drugs and sketchy health, and his incarceration record reminds us that there's no reason to sweep his attitude of disposability toward women or his deplorable behavior under the rug. And though Rick James' full-bodied baritone was rarely subtle, he remains an underappreciated singer with range: He could be nasally like Larry Blackmon or velvety like Larry Graham. With real musical chops, James was one of R&B's most crafty producers and arrangers: He didn't just find clever ways to land on "the one," he blitzed it. Rick James first came to mainstream success in 1978, but he never really went through a disco phase: He had funk in his marrow, and, like peers ranging from The Gap Band to Shalamar to Sylvester, James helped fertilize the still-under-examined post-disco/boogie landscape of the early '80s. If James' lifetime of outré antics helped turn him into something of a buffoon, it might be because it's easier for us to laugh alongside his excess rather than empathize with the seething darkness that underwrote it. Like Chuck Berry, or even Gary Busey today, Rick James' celebrity always pivoted on a zany notoriety - it was even at the root of the off-the-cuff, catchphrase that turned him into 21st century hipster T-shirt fodder. In retrospect, it's also now much easier to see the humor that rode shotgun with some of Rick James' sex 'n drugs 'n rock 'n roll extremism.
#Images album covers rick james greatest hits professional
I think it's a good idea to also revisit James as an ultra-savvy professional on the defensive, constantly struggling for industry and personal recognition in the midst of embattled circumstance: As the '70s morphed into the '80s Motown was running out of gas, black music was under attack from reactionary rock fans and ignored (pre- Thriller) by MTV, the Purple-clothed upstart from Minneapolis was being hailed as the next post-Stevie genius and, by the end of the '80s, baggy-panted hip-hoppers started sampling his copyrights but not paying up.
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In the aftermath of Dave Chappelle, it's easy to misremember Rick James' lusty, libidinal image as quaint or campy, but in the late '70s and early '80s, Motown's most successful post-Detroit star was an authentic livewire, simmering over with throbbing testosterone. Perhaps the fact that he clearly was the Super Freak he was singing about no one, for one minute, believed it was an act. Perhaps those glitterific braids (and by the mid-'80s, the soaking jheri-curls) or the leather 'n fringe costumes that were simultaneously a fashion statement and a fashion emergency.
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What, exactly, were they so taken aback by? Perhaps the sheer power of James' Funkadelic-inspired, macho grooves (he liked to brand himself as the king of "punk funk").
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The 33-year-old clip now lives on YouTube: How surreal it is, in hindsight, to witness the perplexed faces of celebrity attendees like Chubby Checker.
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The film is executive produced by Peter Bittenbender and Jenkins for Mass Appeal, and Douglas Banker and Ty James.One of my first memories of funk supernova Rick James is grooving to his lip-synched rendition of "Super Freak" on the 1982 American Music Awards. “Bitchin’: the Sound and Fury of Rick James,” is a Mass Appeal production for SHOWTIME, directed by Jenkins, produced by Steve Rivo, and written by Jenkins, Rivo and Jason Pollard. In the trailer, Ice Cube, Bootsy Collins and many others give testimonials about James’ influence and importance, but the man and his actions - good and bad - speak for themselves. In the 1970s, he utilized many of the sexually upfront aspects of a stage show that Prince later coopted - and Prince even opened a tour for him in 1980.Īs a songwriter, performer and producer, he also collaborated with Joni Mitchell, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Nile Rodgers, Eddie Murphy, Teena Marie, The Mary Jane Girls and M.C. ET/PT.ĭuring the 1960s, he was in a band with Neil Young called the Mynah Birds that recorded and album for Motown. The film, which screened at the Tribeca Festival in June, will premiere on Friday, September 3 at 9 p.m.