(September 23, 2020) Few people know more about funk music than Bootsy Collins. He got an early education by being a bass player in James Brown’s band. He then became a key part of the free-wheeling P-Funk family as the leader of Bootsy’s Rubber Band, where his funky dance anthems, romantic ballads kept dance floors crowded. Bootsy was among the funk pioneers who seeded the ground for hip-hop.
Never content to be relegated to the legacy circuit though rightfully proud of his contributions to music, Bootsy continues to make new music while also collaborating with a new generation of artists. Bootsy endures because he always comes back to the first principles of funk music – mainly that it always comes back to “the one,” or the first beat in a measure.
(September 23, 2020) Few people know more about funk music than Bootsy Collins. He got an early education by being a bass player in James Brown’s band. He then became a key part of the free-wheeling P-Funk family as the leader of Bootsy’s Rubber Band, where his funky dance anthems, romantic ballads kept dance floors crowded. Bootsy was among the funk pioneers who seeded the ground for hip-hop.
Never content to be relegated to the legacy circuit though rightfully proud of his contributions to music, Bootsy continues to make new music while also collaborating with a new generation of artists. Bootsy endures because he always comes back to the first principles of funk music – mainly that it always comes back to “the one,” or the first beat in a measure.
Hitting that first beat hard is what made funk music so infectious and freeing. Musicians can create as long as they were back on the one. If you missed it, James Brown, the funkiest of them all, let you know. James Brown, George Clinton, Bootsy and a host of others have had the world dancing on the one for more than six decades, and Bootsy pays tribute to funk with his latest all-star collaboration called “The Power Of The One.”
This track includes guitarist George Benson, Brian Culbertson on keyboards, and backing vocals by The Williams Brothers, just to name a few. It contains the elements that make funk music so identifiable – that first beat works like a starters gun that frees Benson to create with his six string, the horns of Brennan Johns to announce to the world that this is a party and the Williams Brothers to engage with Bootsy in call and response. Check out “The Power Of The One” here.
By Howard Dukes
Bootsy Collins - "The Power of The One"