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Friday Funk #45 – ‘Super Bad’ by James Brown
Friday Funk #45 – ‘Super Bad’ by James Brown
Friday Funk #45 – ‘Super Bad’ by James Brown
October was Bassist Month, paying tribute to Flea and Bootsy Collins. Two more funk legends were born in October. John “Jabo” Starks would have turned 87 this year, and Phelps “Catfish” Collins 81. Today we look back on a James Brown classic that features some all-time grooving from Jabo and Catfish.
Back in 1970, it was common to release a single on two sides of a 7-inch vinyl. James Brown's ‘Super Bad’ had Part 1 and Part 2 on the a-side and Part 3 on the b-side. Like he did with ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine’, Brown released a faux-live version of the song as the lead track of an album a little while later (1971 in the case of ‘Super Bad’). The original song hit #1 on the R&B chart.
It’s funny to think Catfish and Bootsy Collins might never have had the chance to make such impact on funk if not for a pay dispute in Brown’s previous band. In 1970, before a gig in Columbus, Georgia, the band threatened not to go on. “They wanted more money,” James wrote in his autobiography. “I wouldn’t give in to a threat like that—never. You cannot lose control of your group. Once you give in to that kind of thing, there’s no stopping it.”
The Pacesetters, a group from Cincinnati, had already played on “several things” for Brown at the King studio. Phelps “Catfish” Collins played guitar, his younger brother William “Bootsy” Collins bass, Frank “Kash” Waddy drums, Clayton “Chicken” Gunnells trumpet, and Robert McCullough sax. They replaced the outgoing musicians, including Melvin and Maceo Parker and Jimmy Nolen. Some musicians soon returned: Fred Wesley, Hearlon “Sharp Cheese” Martin, and drummers Clyde Stubblefield and John “Jabo” Starks (which meant Brown had three drummers on the road). James also “added a couple of trumpet players called Hasaan and Jasaan.”
On ‘Super Bad’, Darren “Hasaan” Jamison plays trumpet, McCullough plays sax solos, and Johnny Griggs adds congas to Jabo’s drums. As Brown’s right hand man, Bobby Byrd stuck around this time (though repeatedly quit and returned) and played Hammond organ.
Catfish would later make his name with Jimmy Nolen-esque scratchy strumming, but plays a picked guitar part during the main groove on ‘Super Bad’. There's no guitar until after 15 seconds: it’s just Jabo Starks’s drums, Bootsy Collins’s bass, and a few stabs of trumpet. Bootsy’s bassline hints at the restlessness he played with when Brown first met him (in Brown’s words, Bootsy was playing “a lot of bass--the ifs, the ands, and the buts”). But by now, Bootsy had absorbed the lesson of the One, making sure to emphasise that crucial beat. The line is still pretty relentless, constantly pitch-hopping and covering all four strings.
Catfish does switch to strumming in the bridge sections (as at 0:53). You could call them choruses, and they do include the titular lyric (“I got soul / And I’m super bad”), but there’s no chord change, Bootsy sticks with the same bassline, and the section only lasts four bars. Then the next bridge lasts just two bars (1:27) before a kind of middle eight section (that lasts far more than eight bars). There’s little point in using conventional song structure terms with James Brown’s music – he did what he pleased, and what pleased him was funky.
The song features an absolutely classic Brown lyric: “Sometimes I feel so nice / Good God / I jump back / I wanna kiss myself”. It also features some of his best screeches. One of them comes at 2:21 in that middle eight-ish section, just before the first of very strange, tormented-sounding sax solos from McCullough.
In the next verse, after a typically seamless transition (how can James come in that smoothly after the wailing sax?), there’s another great line: “Got the move that tells me what to do.” Brown leads to the next “I got soul” with surely the coolest sounding repetitions of “I” ever recorded.
The end of Part 2 and Part 3 sound way more improvised, and the band seemed to wind down a couple of times before Brown ramps things up again. There are some classic shoutouts to the band. “Blow me some ’Trane, brother!’, Brown instructs McCullough, referencing John Coltrane. “Do your thing, Robert! ’Trane!” he says later. Brown also shouts out Bootsy, Hasaan, and Johnny, whose percussion makes the first of McCullough’s solos seem particularly frenzied.
Jabo’s drums aren’t quite as fidgety as the bass but add plenty of syncopation. Like many classic Brown grooves, the drums’ syncopation comes mainly in the second half of each bar. Jabo plays the kick on the One, then not again until the ‘and’ of “three and four”, and then again on the last ‘and’ (the last eighth note) of the bar. This sets up the return of the One, which the rest of the band hit.
And like many Brown grooves, not too much of the drum kit was used – only the kick, snare, and hi-hat. (This was something Stubblefield joked about: “[Starks and I] didn’t use the toms much. We just used the snare and the bass drum and the cymbals. (...) But we never used the toms, never, for nothing, and it’s amazing. I was wondering why we have these drums up here.”)
October was Bassist Month, paying tribute to Flea and Bootsy Collins. Two more funk legends were born in October. John “Jabo” Starks would have turned 87 this year, and Phelps “Catfish” Collins 81. Today we look back on a James Brown classic that features some all-time grooving from Jabo and Catfish.
Back in 1970, it was common to release a single on two sides of a 7-inch vinyl. James Brown's ‘Super Bad’ had Part 1 and Part 2 on the a-side and Part 3 on the b-side. Like he did with ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine’, Brown released a faux-live version of the song as the lead track of an album a little while later (1971 in the case of ‘Super Bad’). The original song hit #1 on the R&B chart.
It’s funny to think Catfish and Bootsy Collins might never have had the chance to make such impact on funk if not for a pay dispute in Brown’s previous band. In 1970, before a gig in Columbus, Georgia, the band threatened not to go on. “They wanted more money,” James wrote in his autobiography. “I wouldn’t give in to a threat like that—never. You cannot lose control of your group. Once you give in to that kind of thing, there’s no stopping it.”
The Pacesetters, a group from Cincinnati, had already played on “several things” for Brown at the King studio. Phelps “Catfish” Collins played guitar, his younger brother William “Bootsy” Collins bass, Frank “Kash” Waddy drums, Clayton “Chicken” Gunnells trumpet, and Robert McCullough sax. They replaced the outgoing musicians, including Melvin and Maceo Parker and Jimmy Nolen. Some musicians soon returned: Fred Wesley, Hearlon “Sharp Cheese” Martin, and drummers Clyde Stubblefield and John “Jabo” Starks (which meant Brown had three drummers on the road). James also “added a couple of trumpet players called Hasaan and Jasaan.”
On ‘Super Bad’, Darren “Hasaan” Jamison plays trumpet, McCullough plays sax solos, and Johnny Griggs adds congas to Jabo’s drums. As Brown’s right hand man, Bobby Byrd stuck around this time (though repeatedly quit and returned) and played Hammond organ.
Catfish would later make his name with Jimmy Nolen-esque scratchy strumming, but plays a picked guitar part during the main groove on ‘Super Bad’. There's no guitar until after 15 seconds: it’s just Jabo Starks’s drums, Bootsy Collins’s bass, and a few stabs of trumpet. Bootsy’s bassline hints at the restlessness he played with when Brown first met him (in Brown’s words, Bootsy was playing “a lot of bass--the ifs, the ands, and the buts”). But by now, Bootsy had absorbed the lesson of the One, making sure to emphasise that crucial beat. The line is still pretty relentless, constantly pitch-hopping and covering all four strings.
Catfish does switch to strumming in the bridge sections (as at 0:53). You could call them choruses, and they do include the titular lyric (“I got soul / And I’m super bad”), but there’s no chord change, Bootsy sticks with the same bassline, and the section only lasts four bars. Then the next bridge lasts just two bars (1:27) before a kind of middle eight section (that lasts far more than eight bars). There’s little point in using conventional song structure terms with James Brown’s music – he did what he pleased, and what pleased him was funky.
The song features an absolutely classic Brown lyric: “Sometimes I feel so nice / Good God / I jump back / I wanna kiss myself”. It also features some of his best screeches. One of them comes at 2:21 in that middle eight-ish section, just before the first of very strange, tormented-sounding sax solos from McCullough.
In the next verse, after a typically seamless transition (how can James come in that smoothly after the wailing sax?), there’s another great line: “Got the move that tells me what to do.” Brown leads to the next “I got soul” with surely the coolest sounding repetitions of “I” ever recorded.
The end of Part 2 and Part 3 sound way more improvised, and the band seemed to wind down a couple of times before Brown ramps things up again. There are some classic shoutouts to the band. “Blow me some ’Trane, brother!’, Brown instructs McCullough, referencing John Coltrane. “Do your thing, Robert! ’Trane!” he says later. Brown also shouts out Bootsy, Hasaan, and Johnny, whose percussion makes the first of McCullough’s solos seem particularly frenzied.
Jabo’s drums aren’t quite as fidgety as the bass but add plenty of syncopation. Like many classic Brown grooves, the drums’ syncopation comes mainly in the second half of each bar. Jabo plays the kick on the One, then not again until the ‘and’ of “three and four”, and then again on the last ‘and’ (the last eighth note) of the bar. This sets up the return of the One, which the rest of the band hit.
And like many Brown grooves, not too much of the drum kit was used – only the kick, snare, and hi-hat. (This was something Stubblefield joked about: “[Starks and I] didn’t use the toms much. We just used the snare and the bass drum and the cymbals. (...) But we never used the toms, never, for nothing, and it’s amazing. I was wondering why we have these drums up here.”)
October was Bassist Month, paying tribute to Flea and Bootsy Collins. Two more funk legends were born in October. John “Jabo” Starks would have turned 87 this year, and Phelps “Catfish” Collins 81. Today we look back on a James Brown classic that features some all-time grooving from Jabo and Catfish.
Back in 1970, it was common to release a single on two sides of a 7-inch vinyl. James Brown's ‘Super Bad’ had Part 1 and Part 2 on the a-side and Part 3 on the b-side. Like he did with ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine’, Brown released a faux-live version of the song as the lead track of an album a little while later (1971 in the case of ‘Super Bad’). The original song hit #1 on the R&B chart.
It’s funny to think Catfish and Bootsy Collins might never have had the chance to make such impact on funk if not for a pay dispute in Brown’s previous band. In 1970, before a gig in Columbus, Georgia, the band threatened not to go on. “They wanted more money,” James wrote in his autobiography. “I wouldn’t give in to a threat like that—never. You cannot lose control of your group. Once you give in to that kind of thing, there’s no stopping it.”
The Pacesetters, a group from Cincinnati, had already played on “several things” for Brown at the King studio. Phelps “Catfish” Collins played guitar, his younger brother William “Bootsy” Collins bass, Frank “Kash” Waddy drums, Clayton “Chicken” Gunnells trumpet, and Robert McCullough sax. They replaced the outgoing musicians, including Melvin and Maceo Parker and Jimmy Nolen. Some musicians soon returned: Fred Wesley, Hearlon “Sharp Cheese” Martin, and drummers Clyde Stubblefield and John “Jabo” Starks (which meant Brown had three drummers on the road). James also “added a couple of trumpet players called Hasaan and Jasaan.”
On ‘Super Bad’, Darren “Hasaan” Jamison plays trumpet, McCullough plays sax solos, and Johnny Griggs adds congas to Jabo’s drums. As Brown’s right hand man, Bobby Byrd stuck around this time (though repeatedly quit and returned) and played Hammond organ.
Catfish would later make his name with Jimmy Nolen-esque scratchy strumming, but plays a picked guitar part during the main groove on ‘Super Bad’. There's no guitar until after 15 seconds: it’s just Jabo Starks’s drums, Bootsy Collins’s bass, and a few stabs of trumpet. Bootsy’s bassline hints at the restlessness he played with when Brown first met him (in Brown’s words, Bootsy was playing “a lot of bass--the ifs, the ands, and the buts”). But by now, Bootsy had absorbed the lesson of the One, making sure to emphasise that crucial beat. The line is still pretty relentless, constantly pitch-hopping and covering all four strings.
Catfish does switch to strumming in the bridge sections (as at 0:53). You could call them choruses, and they do include the titular lyric (“I got soul / And I’m super bad”), but there’s no chord change, Bootsy sticks with the same bassline, and the section only lasts four bars. Then the next bridge lasts just two bars (1:27) before a kind of middle eight section (that lasts far more than eight bars). There’s little point in using conventional song structure terms with James Brown’s music – he did what he pleased, and what pleased him was funky.
The song features an absolutely classic Brown lyric: “Sometimes I feel so nice / Good God / I jump back / I wanna kiss myself”. It also features some of his best screeches. One of them comes at 2:21 in that middle eight-ish section, just before the first of very strange, tormented-sounding sax solos from McCullough.
In the next verse, after a typically seamless transition (how can James come in that smoothly after the wailing sax?), there’s another great line: “Got the move that tells me what to do.” Brown leads to the next “I got soul” with surely the coolest sounding repetitions of “I” ever recorded.
The end of Part 2 and Part 3 sound way more improvised, and the band seemed to wind down a couple of times before Brown ramps things up again. There are some classic shoutouts to the band. “Blow me some ’Trane, brother!’, Brown instructs McCullough, referencing John Coltrane. “Do your thing, Robert! ’Trane!” he says later. Brown also shouts out Bootsy, Hasaan, and Johnny, whose percussion makes the first of McCullough’s solos seem particularly frenzied.
Jabo’s drums aren’t quite as fidgety as the bass but add plenty of syncopation. Like many classic Brown grooves, the drums’ syncopation comes mainly in the second half of each bar. Jabo plays the kick on the One, then not again until the ‘and’ of “three and four”, and then again on the last ‘and’ (the last eighth note) of the bar. This sets up the return of the One, which the rest of the band hit.
And like many Brown grooves, not too much of the drum kit was used – only the kick, snare, and hi-hat. (This was something Stubblefield joked about: “[Starks and I] didn’t use the toms much. We just used the snare and the bass drum and the cymbals. (...) But we never used the toms, never, for nothing, and it’s amazing. I was wondering why we have these drums up here.”)