Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame funk master William “Bootsy” Collins, “space bass” guitar legend from James Brown’s original JBs Band and George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic crew will be funking up Tipitina’s Wednesday night with his 13-member funk band, Funk Unity.

Comprising the backing band will be P-Funk artists Blackbyrd McKnight on guitar, Bernie Worrell and Razor Sharp Johnson on keys, and Frankie Kash on drums, joined by Public Enemy’s Colonel Hardgroove, the Pretenders’ TM Stevens, and the Nasty Natty Horns for what should prove to be memorable night of funk. Collins is on his first solo tour since 1998, so he had plenty to talk about.

 

Bootsy, how the funk are you?

Oh, I’m doin’ funky and good.

Tell me about the Funk Unity group you pulled together for this tour.

Well, I figured, how can I put this together and do a tour that would feature some of the music [Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band] were known for, and do some music from the albums. So I went back to some of the core members of P-Funk, like Bernie Worrell, Frankie Kash, who actually started with me back in the Bootsy Rubber Band days, Blackbyrd McKnight, from Parliament Funkadelic, Joel “Razor Sharp” Johnson from Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

So, my core group, my core rhythm is pretty much what I’ve been used to and what I grew up with, back in the day. Then, we just kind of splashed it with other newness to bring the element of the new album [Tha Funk Capital of the World] to the tour and to the stage, with three new singers. Then we got three horn players, we call them the Nasty Natty Horns. Actually, I’ve got my son out on tour with me as well.

It’s a whole new thing for us because I haven’t toured since 1998, you know.  So we’re getting back out there. We’re getting funked up. The people are getting funked up. Everybody’s having a great, groovy time. George [Clinton] has allowed me to take the funk ship. You know, the little baby of the mothership. It just opens the door for the mothership to come. So I’m out here, spreading that funk again. And it feels great. We just did the Bonnaroo Festival.

How was that?

Oh man, it was awesome. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came on stage. He got funky. He put his star shades on. I mean, it was just so much fun. People were having such a blast.

It was very encouraging for me, these last six or seven shows, because it really showed me that I do need to be back out here and doin’ what I love doin’.  It’s just a pleasure for me to get back with the people and have a great funkin’ time!

Will you be playing more festivals on the Funk Unity tour?

We’ve got some more shows to do in the states, but then we go to Europe, and those shows are pretty much all festivals. But here in the states, we’re doin’ some up-close-and-personal things as well.

Like at Tipitina’s?

Yeah, which I personally like the best because you get a chance to really connect with people. They’re not so far away. I never really liked those big festival shows because I never felt like I was with the people.  And I’m a person that loves to be close with the people.

That’s how you get the funk.

Yeah, yeah! And the funk just likes to drip all over you, you know.

Now you have a new CD out titled Tha Funk Capital of the World.

Yeah!

And you say that the funk capital of the world is inside of you.

Yeah, it goes wherever I go. The funk capital is there! So it will be at Tipitina’s baby!

Tell us about your message in this new CD.

What it’s all about really is pretty much my musical biography. Like, where did I get my funk from? The people I grew up on, the people that excited me, that encouraged me: James Brown, my brother Catfish, who was eight years older than me, who I looked up to. I didn’t have a father in the home, so he was the one I looked up to, who I wanted to be like, who I wanted to emulate. He played guitar. I wanted to play guitar too.

So him, Ronnie Mack, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone, the Beatles—these people, all these jazz greats—Miles Davis—I was exposed to all of this stuff before I really took off with James Brown. People really didn’t know that, so I wanted to make sure that I put this in the record when I had the opportunity to do it. The record company really let me do this record the way I wanted to do it, so I got to do a record the way I wanted to do it!

The CD includes a host of guest artists. How did you go about choosing the artists to collaborate with?

I think we kind of chose each other. I’ve been working on that album for the last couple of years. So a lot of people that showed up, like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Chuck D., Samuel L. Jackson, I had been working with anyway.

Newer people like Bela Fleck, Buckethead, and Steve Jordan—these are people I pretty much had worked with before. But getting the opportunity to really do a record with them the way I wanted to do it was a whole special case. So, you know, things just lined up! Things were just perfect. And the people that were on the album wanted to be on it just as badly as I wanted them on it. They poured their hearts out. Leonard Chambers, one of the baddest drummers on the planet, just poured his heart out. It was amazing to see these people open up in the studio. They acted like they’d never played before. They just got down…you know, just for the funk of it, because God knows I couldn’t pay all those people. C’mon!

And Reverend Al Sharpton’s tribute to James Brown?

Who could do it better?  I asked him to do it because we were both at the funeral and he did such an excellent job. Nobody else could talk about the Godfather better than the Reverend Al Sharpton. So I had to ask him to do it. Me doing it, I couldn’t talk about the Godfather, because I played with him, and that wouldn’t sit right. It had to be somebody outside of that. So the Reverend Al Sharpton really fit the bill and he just came in and just did it so perfectly, right off the top of his head. He didn’t even write anything down. It’s just in his heart like that.  And the people feel it from him like that, so why not? We got the original JBs on the track. So why not? It’s the next best thing to having the Godfather himself!

Among all of these incredible guest artists on your CD, can we expect any surprise appearances at the Tipitina’s show Wednesday night?

Well you know what? You just never know who is going to show up. Seriously, because when I did the record, we had the opportunity to pre-program things like dates because people have a lot of different stuff to do. It’s harder to do with a tour because everybody is touring, everybody’s doing different things, working on movies.

I actually had talked to Samuel L. Jackson. He was in New Orleans at a certain time, doing a movie. That was a couple of months ago. And now he’s in Canada and I’m like, aw man!  So, the timing was a little off there, but you just never know who is going to show up. We just did L.A. and Flavor Flav, Snoop Dogg, Brian Culbertson, they just showed up! Kareem Abdul-Jabbar just showed up at Bonnaroo. He wasn’t on the album, but he showed up! He came up and got funky with us and it was just a blast, man. The people just get off on it.

Your good friend George Clinton was recently hospitalized.  How is he doing?

He’s doing better. I had advised him to kind of take it a little easier right now ’til he gets his full strength back. But you know George, he just loves the funk. He loves being out there with the people. And I’m just asking people to hold him up, just hold him up in prayer and send up the vibes, you know, the love vibes, to keep him strong. Because he loves it, that’s what he’s here for. He’s here for the people and he brings it! So, he can’t just stay in a hospital or laid up in a bed. That’s just not George!

Bootsy, you started an online bass guitar school called Funk University a year ago.

Yeah, Funk University!

How is that going?

That was such a great opportunity. I had been wanting to open a school for young musicians for a long time, but I think I was going about it the wrong way. I actually wanted to open up a physical school where people would actually come to. But then I ran into this guy out in L.A., Cory Danziger, who informed me that the best way to do it would be to do it online to reach more people. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I just wanted to do this, you know. I got with him, and we talked about it, and the next thing you know, we got it up and running and we are now in our second semester. We just signed on Larry Graham, Stanley Clarke, Verdine White, Jack Bruce, and Ron Carter [as professors]. So the second semester promises to be even bigger and better than the first semester. And the students are just having a blast. They’re getting so much information from so many different professors, it’s not just me. It’s like the album, you get a whole bungalow of stuff. It’s a beautiful thing.

Well that’s terrific. We will see you tomorrow night at Tipitina’s with DJ Soul Sister opening.

Yeah baby!  Bring your party hats, your bell bottoms, your platforms, and come to get funked up mama! New Orleans has always been the funk capital of the world, so let’s keep it funky baby!