Bootsy Collins defines the funk: 'Making something out of nothing'
It’d be audacious coming from just anybody else, but William “Bootsy” Collins named his new album “The Funk Capital of the World” (Mascot) knowing full well he could back up the claim. Everyone from Snoop Dogg and Chuck D to Bobby Womack and his old mentor George Clinton stop in for a cameo, and actor Samuel Jackson nearly steals the show with a terrific rap about his young life as one of the boys in the ‘hood. The foundation for it all is Bootsy’s rubbery, still-futuristic bass playing, and no matter what the style -- jazz, psychedelia, bedroom ballads – the groove is always there.
"It wasn’t about black, white, green grass, bluegrass, it was all just music to me,” says Collins, who will bring a 13-piece band including his fellow Parliament-Funkadelic accomplices Bernie Worrell and Blackbyrd McKnight to the Congress Theatre on Friday. “All music had a certain effect on me and I appreciated all of it. Funk is on the ‘one’ and music is all one, not to be separated. It doesn’t need a name. The key question is, ‘How does it make you feel?’ ”
Growing up in Cincinnati in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Collins learned to play guitar because that was the instrument of his older brother, Phelps “Catfish” Collins. Bootsy’s idol was Lonnie Mack, who specialized in blues-based instrumentals. Not exactly a funk progenitor, Mack was a hero to Collins because he was “a guy who played with his heart and soul. I finally got a chance to meet him 10 years ago and I just wanted him to know that I felt what he was doing. I didn’t need to label it.”
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