BEFORE: I've got to shift over into a different mode now - it's one where I keep meticulous track of who gets interviewed in these documentaries, and also who appears in the archive footage used, because I'm keeping totals for the year, and things can change very quickly once I get deep into the docs. Dave Chappelle, and several others, carry over from "The One and Only Dick Gregory", and if a fair number of documentaries license footage of, say, Michael Jackson, he could easily rocket to the top of the list - remember that Nicolas Cage is in the lead for 2022, with 10 appearances, but anybody from Paul McCartney to Charles Manson could challenge that score, if news footage of them appears over and over. Talk-show hosts and news anchors also tend to pop up a lot, so keep an eye on Merv Griffin, Oprah Winfrey, even Dick Cavett - and footage of U.S. Presidents is often used to set the scene, so JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, they're all potential contenders.
I'm notorious for submitting more IMDB credits after watching a documentary, trying to list all the appearances of famous people, and noticing that not everyone who appeared in the film got proper credit on that web-site. Sometimes a documentary will forget an interview subject or two, and I try to correct that whenever I can. It's an uphill battle because the IMDB review process sometimes doesn't believe me, but I take this sort of thing seriously, I wouldn't submit the missing credits if I wasn't SURE about them! But what can I do, I'm just one man.
There were thousands of ways to organize all of these documentaries, and still maintain the chain - but I chose this one, because it connected the maximum number of films (I think), and did so in the most logical way (umm, mostly...). There were many ways to connect to this Rick James documentary, but I chose Dave Chappelle as the intro connection, because that's funny. Yeah, I might have run through the doc a few months back with the sound turned off, just to confirm that Dave's in this film - he IS, even though the IMDB doesn't reflect his appearance, for some reason. God knows, I tried.
THE PLOT: A profile of legendary funk/R&B icon Rick James capturing the peaks and valleys of his storied career to reveal a complicated and rebellious soul, driven to share his talent with the world.
AFTER: Full disclosure, I once "met" Rick James - way back in 1988. I was an intern at a very small production company, a "mom & pop" shop sort of, one that was known for making music videos, which were very in fashion at the time. The company had made a couple videos for the soundtrack of "Dirty Dancing" just before I signed on - and the very first shoot I ever worked on as a paid Production Assistant was a music video for Rick James, called "Wonderful". You can see it on the YouTube, it was almost a carbon copy of the much more famous "Super Freak" video - get four hot girls, put them in short skirts and low-cut tops, and have them dance around and interact with Rick James. I mostly just followed the director as he moved with the camera and I kept him from tripping on the cord, if I remember correctly - and then, as now, I was instructed to not engage with the famous person. I sort of barely knew who Rick James was, or what he was about - I mean, I knew "Super Freak", everybody in the world knew that song.
It's not that surprising to learn about the "other side" of Rick James - the drugs, the sex, the orgies - I think we all pretty much knew that was something of a way of life for him, even calling that the "other side" feels wrong, that WAS the main side. But also, that was the 1980's and 1990's in a nutshell, there was so much of that going around back then. The business was full of rumors about music videos or even features that had budgets where cocaine was a line item, in more ways than one...
Diving into the back-story of Rick James, it's not even surprising to find out that's not his real name - he was born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. And WHY did he have to change his name? Sure, Rick James just SOUNDS better, but the real reason is that he moved to Canada to avoid being drafted for Vietnam, and he lived there under several false names. (He'd joined the reserves, which many young men did to avoid the draft, but then he failed to realize he still had to, you know, show up for duty, and when he didn't, the MPs came looking for him.). Eventually they caught up with him and he served a year in "the brig".
It's not even surprising to learn that Rick James spent the next twenty years trying to become an "overnight success" - sometimes, that's just how long it takes. He honed his songwriting craft at Motown, as part of a "wrecking crew" type on ensemble, writing songs or parts of songs for others, working out bass riffs as a studio musician, that's all great experience that got him ready for his own songs and albums when it was finally his turn for the spotlight.
No, what's surprising is learning that during that time in Canada, he was part of the budding FOLK music scene, one that was similar to the ones taking place in New York City and San Francisco, the development of hippie music, folk slowly turning into folk-based rock. He hung out with members of The Band, who stood up for him in a fight or two. He was in a group called the Mynah Birds, with Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, who were later part of Buffalo Springfield. He caught up with Neil Young and the other members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young later on in San Francisco, where he took another stab at stardom - Rick's friend and traveling companion became the bassist for CSN&Y, but there was apparently no place for Rick there. We associate Rick James so closely with funk, or "funk rock", it's so easy to overlook the years he spent working in folk music, then of course Motown R&B. (There were so many line-up changes, people in and out of that band, I think the Mynah Birds band was really just the Canadian version of The Byrds...)
The Mynah Birds got SIGNED to Motown - yes, that's right, at one point a band with Neil Young in it was recording for Motown. That's weird, too, but for the opposite reason. (I'm going to get to Neil Young a little later in this year's documentary line-up, I know logically this would seem to be a great time to cut to Neil, but I've got an alternative plan. Don't worry, we're going to get there...). The Mynahs had a SEVEN-YEAR contract with Motown - the recordings they made got shelved and not released, but this documentary does play several of their songs from the Motown archives - and there's no denying it, that's Rick James on vocals, but without the signature musical sound he later became famous for. If you can't watch the film - this is another great time to jump on YouTube and look up "It's My Time" by the Mynah Birds, and try not to think about how ironic the title of that song turned out to be.
Eventually, Rick James went back to Buffalo and put the Stone City Band together, and then we get to 1981 and the "Street Songs" album, which included "Give It To Me Baby", and of course, "Super Freak". That song is rock, funk, new wave and a bit of disco, and nobody, NOBODY was putting out raunchy lyrics like that - or maybe "suggestive" is a better word, because there's really nothing dirty about saying "she's a very kinky girl, the kind you don't bring home to mother..." It's genius, because then everybody's brain is going to automatically jump to the dirtiest thing they can think of, and it's all just reading between the lines, really. And then a decade later that song got sampled for M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", and history was made yet again.
Then, the film has to cover James' legal troubles - there used to be a show on VH-1 called "Behind the Music", and I think every episode was required to feature the line, "Then, it all came crashing down..." Drug addiction, and two separate charges of kidnapping and assault of women added up to three years in jail for Rick James, and then his health problems included a mid-concert stroke, and damages to his body from years of doing drugs. He was essentially a walking PSA, a warning sign for what addiction can do to a human.
There are many more random encounters, like a close call with Charles Manson's victims, touring (and competing) with upcoming artist Prince, and producing Eddie Murphy's hit "Party All the Time". (Yes, Eddie Murphy had an album and a #2 song on the charts, that happened.). But mostly Rick James will be remembered for his larger-than-life lifestyle, the drugs and the sex, and that infamous sketch on Dave Chappelle's show.
Also starring Randall Bostick, Todd Boyd, Bootsy Collins (last seen in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"), Kerry Gordy, Tanya Hijazi, Ice Cube (last seen in "The High Note"), Steven Ivory, Taz James, Ty James, Big Daddy Kane, Jason King, Rickman Mason, Tom McDermott, JoJo McDuffie, Syville Morgan, Donnell Rawlings, David Ritz, Nile Rodgers (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Levi Ruffin Jr., Lisa Sarna, Roxanne Shanté, Carmen Sims, Charisma Stansell, Stan Weisman,
with archive footage of Rick James, David Bowie (last seen in "Tina"), Grace Jones (ditto), Cyndi Lauper (ditto), Diana Ross (ditto), Stevie Wonder (ditto), George Clinton (last heard in "Trolls World Tour"), Stewart Copeland (last seen in "The Go-Go's"), Sting (ditto), Andy Summers (ditto), Don Cornelius (also carrying over from "The One and Only Dick Gregory"), Merv Griffin (ditto), Michael Jackson (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), David Crosby (also last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), John Denver (ditto), Graham Nash (ditto), Stephen Stills (ditto), Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Lionel Richie (ditto), Berry Gordy (last seen in "Hitsville: The Making of Motown"), M.C. Hammer, Levon Helm (last seen in "The Last Waltz"), Robbie Robertson (ditto), Jimi Hendrix (last seen in "Zappa"), Mick Jagger (last seen in "Freejack"), Ron Jeremy (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), Lyndon Johnson (last seen in "Irresistible"), Quincy Jones, Louis Jordan (also last seen in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"), Don Kirshner, Charles Manson (last seen in "Manson Family Vacation"), Teena Marie, The Mary Jane Girls, Joni Mitchell (last seen in "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice"), Neil Young (ditto), Thelonious Monk, Charlie Murphy, Bill O'Reilly (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Bruce Palmer, Bob Pittman, Prince, Lou Rawls (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"), Smokey Robinson (last seen in "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"), Michael Score, Gene Simmons (last seen in "The New Guy"), Sly Stone (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation"), The Temptations,
RATING: 6 out of 10 substances on the toxicology report
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