Still Black, Still Proud

Fred Wesley (right) circa 1970. Photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Fred Wesley is in a playful mood when I meet him in the lobby of London’s Regents Park Marriott Hotel. Wesley arrived yesterday to play two concerts at the Jazz Cafe in the London borough of Camden, just one day after an enormous fire swept through the area causing $60 million worth of damage. The blaze has not affected the venue, says Wesley, but it has scuppered his plans to visit Camden Market while he’s in town.

Fred’s new album, Funk for Your Ass, a collaboration with fellow James Brown alumni Clyde Stubblefield and Jab’O Starks, is his first in six years. “It was time for a new album,” he says. “I made Wuda Cuda Shuda and I didn’t do an album since, so I thought it was time to put something fresh on the market.

“It’s strictly funk,” enthuses Fred. “People always say to me, ‘Why you trying to do that jazz? You should just make a funky album.’ So I have.”

Original tunes on the album will include an upbeat number called “Crazy” and the title track, which Wesley describes as “extremely funky.” “It’s just funk for funk’s sake—just for no other reason than to funk you to death. That’s what it is.”

The album will also contain several James Brown covers, says Fred. “It’s not something I would look forward to doing but the record company wanted me to. I just don’t like to cover records, but we did it and I think it came out great.”

Although initially unexcited by the idea of rerecording songs like “Sex Machine” and “the Big Payback,” Fred eventually embraced the idea of revamping the songs for his own album. “It’s all new arrangements,” he says, scatting and humming the various components of the 1968 hit “I Got the Feeling,” another one of the tracks set to appear on Fred’s new CD. “There are no vocals, of course, but we just tried to create the same excitement with the horn as [James Brown] did with his vocals. We probably didn’t do it, though, because there’s only one James Brown.”

Between 1968 and 1975 Fred served as music director, arranger, and chief composer for Brown, producing countless hits including “Super Bad,” “Hot Pants,” “Soul Power,” and “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” before leaving to join George Clinton’s funk troupe Parliament/Funkadelic.

April 2006 saw their first creative reunion in over thirty years when Fred joined Brown in the studio to work on material for the Godfather’s as of yet unreleased final album, World Funk Against The Grain, adding solos to two tracks and submitting completed compositions for Brown’s consideration. However, the collaboration did not prove as fruitful as Wesley had hoped and he says a lot of the material they produced was “just not up to par.”

“It was like he’d forgotten how to record,” Wesley says with a grimace. “He didn’t have the same enthusiasm. He used to go into the studio and be on fire about getting something done.

“But you have to remember that we were going back into the studio after thirty years apart and trying to recapture the old magic—it wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t there.”

Wesley shrugs: “It just wasn’t the old James Brown, and consequently, I wasn’t the old Fred Wesley. So the way we used to work together—it didn’t quite click solid like it used to. I don’t know if it was my problem or his—or maybe both of ours—but I’m glad some of the stuff we did didn’t get out. I might try to rework some of it for another album though.”

The pair’s meeting would be their last as on Christmas Day 2006, Brown died of congestive heart failure. Following their reunion, says Wesley, the two did not remain in contact in the months leading up to the Godfather’s death.

“I knew it was the end of an era; that James Brown was gone and there would be no more funky music like we’d been used to. But I didn’t crack up or cry. I just took it like a famous person had died.”

Despite Wesley’s prolific and well-documented relationship with Brown he says he still had trouble getting into the Godfather’s funeral. “I had been away so long they wouldn’t let me in!” he laughs. “The security guard was like, ‘Sorry, sir, you’ve got to park over there,’ you know, in the mud! Jesse Jackson’s daughter spotted me and said, ‘That’s Fred Wesley! Let him in!’ So I said, ‘Thank you darling…who are you?’”

During the funeral, held at Augusta’s James Brown Arena, Fred joined Bootsy Collins and Bobby Byrd onstage to perform a solo over Byrd’s 1971 hit “I Know You Got Soul.” Wesley says he found Byrd’s death in September 2007 far more traumatic than James Brown’s. “Me and Bobby Byrd were real close,” he says with a sigh. “He was a good friend. A really, really good friend. I used to go visit him in Atlanta all the time. I really miss him.”

As well as paying homage to Brown on his latest album, Wesley will this year partake in two international concert tours to honour the late, great Godfather. The first, entitled Still Black, Still Proud has been organized by Brown’s former saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis. The tour will see Ellis and Wesley tour Europe with a fleet of acclaimed African musicians.

The second, arranged by Brown’s superstar bassist Bootsy Collins, will visit more than forty cities across Europe and America. “Bootsy took it really bad when James passed,” says Wesley. “He wants to do something to enhance the legacy of James Brown.” The tour will see former James Brown musicians such as Collins, Wesley, and the Godfather’s drummers Clyde Stubblefield and Jab’O Starks unite with modern-day proteges, including Chuck D and Afrika Bambaataa.

In between these tribute shows, Wesley will promote his new album, first in Japan (“the Japanese just wanna hear funk all the time,” comments Wesley) and then in Europe and America. A former music professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wesley is also scheduled to teach several clinics across the United States.

Later this year, Wesley will begin work on a new album for release next year. “There’s always stuff to achieve,” he says. “As long as you can record, you should record—keep putting stuff out there for the public. I want to record my new album, which is a big album, like Full Circle but more focused.

“I’m going to keep playing for as long as I can—until I have to stop. I don’t see that happening any time soon.”