WEBVTT - Rick James: Superfreak Is an Understatement 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:06.960 Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. A quick head's 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:08.880 up for those who may be triggered by tales of 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.880 sexual abuse and violence. This episode of Disgraceland depicts both 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.880 the stories about funk superstar Rick James are insane. He 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.320 was heavily addicted to crack cocaine. He ran drugs for 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.959 the Colombian cartel. He escaped from prison and was then 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.720 released early for fear he would get away with it again. 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.080 He was in a band with Neil Young Neil Young. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.400 Rick James may have been born into a life of crime, 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.520 but he was determined to make his way in life 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.720 through music. He intimidated George Clinton, inspired Prince and more 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.600 than likely saved Jim Morrison's life. Rick James was rock 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:01.520 and roll zelig. He was also sex crazed ands but 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.520 Rick James put a hurt on the funk. He made 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.319 great music. That music you heard at the top of 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.600 the show that wasn't great music. That was a preset 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.720 loop for my melotron called slow Waltz Guitar Low MK two. 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.280 I played you that loop because I can't afford the 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:21.720 rights to End of the Road by Boys to Men, 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.840 And why would I play you that specific slice of 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.760 Motown Philly Cheese, could I afford it? Because that was 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.080 the number one song in America on November fifth, nineteen 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.960 ninety two, and that was the day that Rick James 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.360 turned himself in for the kidnapping and torture of not one, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:44.160 but two different women. On this episode, heavy Funk, Crack, Cocaine, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:49.000 Motown Philly Cheese, and Rick James, I'm Jake Brennan. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:02:03.760 In this this Disgraceland. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:09.200 Professional recording studios are hive like workspaces where serious minded 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.680 crafts men and women turn the sounds and emotions soiling 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.320 around in their heads into stone cold hits. But the 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:21.040 best studios are also clubhouses, helmed by talented producers with 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.000 expansive rolodexes who surround themselves with established and up and 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.800 coming rock stars. A session players, groupies, and hangers on, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.760 not to mention drug dealers, to make sure there is 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.360 an ample supply of weed, coke, uppers, downers, booze, and 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.959 anything else needed to fuel a recording session. Historically, from 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.640 the seventies to the present, most recording studios have operated 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.799 under an unspoken anything goes so long as the work 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.240 gets done and the cops don't show up mandate. This is, 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.960 after all, the music business, not IBM, and definitely not 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.880 fucking we work. Even the most serious sessions operate under 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.760 a cloud of smoke, despite being intense affairs with taskmaster 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:05.840 producers obsessing over take after take. Most sessions, though, are 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.799 the opposite, loose affairs where music is made when the 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.200 muse appears. But of course some are flat out parties 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.040 where a producer sits at the console amidst the rager, 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.320 yet somehow manages to concentrate on the musician tracking in 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.480 the booth. There's a lot of socializing and a lot 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.880 of hanging around waiting to record, and because of the 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.760 well connected studio owners and rockstar clientele, you never know 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.320 who you're going to run into in a studio. I, 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.320 for one, was once kicked out of a studio by 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.880 James Taylor for simply sitting next to him while he 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.920 ate his burrito in the studio lounge. My friend Bill 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.880 Janovitz from the indie band Buffalo Tom, has a great 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.120 picture of his bandmate Chris Colburn sitting in the lounge 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.800 at LA's Cherokee Studios watching the finale to the television 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.600 show cheers with none other than Rick James himself, and 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.000 in his autobiography, Rick James tells the story of Stephen 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.440 Tyler of Arrowsmith poking his head into an early session 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.560 of Rick's, sharing a coup lines of coke and telling 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.440 Rick he could hear his star in the making. There 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.600 are a million stories like these, but no doubt the 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.880 most insane one also involves Rick James, a motherfucker of 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.040 a musician for sure, But this story doesn't illustrate Rick 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.080 stone cold musicianship. It illustrates that Rick James was a 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.880 stone cold criminal. Rick James, like a lot of musicians, 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.679 was a bit of a studio rat. He liked the action. 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.800 Even when he wasn't recording, He'd hang out at Cherokee 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.520 Studios in Hollywood to kill time. His buddy Rod Stewart 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.240 had practically made Cherokee a second home. Bowie recorded there 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.280 Petty Steely Dan. In the early nineties, while Rick's career 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.440 was at an all time low, and while in the 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.680 throes of a heavy addiction to crack, Cherokee was also 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.599 hosting Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, who at the time 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.120 was breaking hearts all over Alternative Nation with his arresting 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.640 good looks and chesty, emotional raw vocals, Dando and Rick 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:02.240 made for an odd couple, Rick with his highly stylized, 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.159 over sexed punk funk and Dando with his ditsy, pretty 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.080 boy vibe and indifferent alt rock. Despite the different music 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.640 they played in different images they portrayed they shared one 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:18.600 strong bond, a love of hard drugs. So in the 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.520 spring of nineteen ninety two, while Rick hung out in 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.520 the lounge and watched TV and while Dando worked on 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.560 single Edits for is about to be released breakthrough album, 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.799 It's a Shame About Ray, and started setting up shop 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.840 for his follow up smash Come On Field the Lemonheads. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.000 When not recording, the two got down to the business 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.240 of getting high Rick James style. And it was all 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:48.920 good until it wasn't. The news came fast, first over 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.040 the television, then by word of mouth from studio visitors. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.120 Los Angeles was on fire. It started in south central 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.440 Normandy and seventy first, just east of Englewood. Kid threw 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.680 a rock at a cruiser. Then they pulled a long 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.560 hair from his truck and bashed him in the head 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.239 with a brick, and then the looting began. South Central 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.880 LA was pissed Rodney King's assailants the LAPD had gotten 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.240 off without so much as a blemish on any of 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.600 the officer's records. The anger had been building for years, 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.159 and on April twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two, the pressure 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.280 blew the motherfucking roof off. The Sucker riots unlike anything 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.640 America had seen since Watts back in sixty five. But 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.599 this was different. La in ninety two had a lawlessness 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.200 to it, a violence that was hyper real. Maybe it 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.080 was that now the anger ran that much deeper. Maybe 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.120 it was that now it was all televised twenty four 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.440 to seven on cable news. Whatever the reason, the La 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.520 riots were very real, and very scary, and spreading with 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.480 no end in sight. Day one turned to day two, 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.000 and the looting, beatings, and fires spread from South Central 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.920 north to downtown and then back west the Hollywood Boulevard, 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.760 and by now Rick James, Evan Dando, and the rest 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.599 of the crew at Cherokee were in full lockdown. They 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.520 could see the violins spreading straight to their Hollywood location 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.440 on the television, and luckily they were armed. For whatever reason, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.200 most likely cocaine fuel paranoia, The studio housed the small 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:24.920 arsenal of weapons, fully automatic AK forty seven's, semi automatic blocks, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.840 and of course a police caliber thirty two with a 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.120 double action revolver as old school as the custom tried 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:36.360 in a range mixing console in Cherokee's control room. Rick 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.680 grabbed an AK and headed to the roof. The rest 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.200 of the studio regulars mounted up and followed the super 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.120 freak up the stairs. Dando grabbed a glock and brought 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.080 up the rear. When they get to the roof and 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.000 looked east, they could see the smoke stretching out over 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.600 the low slung storefronts and spreading into the Fairfax neighborhood. 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.520 They dug in. The sun started to fall, the smoke 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.440 continued to rise. Cops nowhere in sight, turns in the 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.600 distance helicopters a mile or so north, hovering above Hollywood Boulevard, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:09.960 and then the voices, the screams, yells, banjees in the street, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.760 broken glass, more smoke and flames rising up in the 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.440 near distance. Fuck this makes some noise, shoot the moon 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.280 let the whoode looters know that Cherokee was armed, not 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:21.960 to be fucked with from if they made it down 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.880 to seven fifty one Fairfax. They'd best move on down 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.000 the line to seven fifty three lest they want to 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.600 catch some lead. The regulars fired to the sky were 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.520 abandon letting out drunken war cries. Evan Dando by now 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.080 had his hands on an AK, making for quite the 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.920 sight the stone nouveaux hippie dippy alternative firing an automatic 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.880 weapon with reckless abandon into the sky only in Hollywood. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.760 The sound of helicopters in the distance, the sound of sirens, 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.480 the yelling from the roof, from the street, it was 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.680 pure fucking chaos. Dando could feel his heart racing. He 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.559 lowered his weapon, took a second. Where was Rick? 0:08:59.640 --> 0:08:59.920 He thought? 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.840 He turned around and looked to the northeast side of 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.840 the roof, and there alone, crouched military style on one knee, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.120 with his eye fixed down the scope of his AK 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.960 forty seven, Rick James could be seen not firing warning 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.200 shots off into the air like everyone else, but instead 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.000 firing shots off into the streets with the precision of 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:41.560 a dispassionate assassin. Rick James led a life of crime. Literally. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.439 It's hard to imagine now given his status as an entertainer, 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.119 but there is no doubt Rick James, from his childhood 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.560 to his grave, led a criminal life. Rick James also, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.400 of course, led a musical life. His story is peppered 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.359 by encounters with some of rock and roll's biggest personalities. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.600 Miles Davis and Eda James, along with a slew of 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.480 other great entertainers from back in the day, were seen 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.760 up close and personal while little Ricky James ran hipside 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.120 his mom, who ran numbers for the mob back in 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.360 Buffalo nightclubs where she collected bets and debts. And this 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.280 upbringing also afforded Rick a view into how to make 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.040 it out in the margin society, just like his mom, 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.439 by any means necessary. As a fifteen year old, Rick 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.040 got hooked on heroin and started pulling small time robberies 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.760 to finance his habit. At sixteen, he went a wall 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.439 from the Navy. How does a sixteen year old even 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.439 end up in the Navy? Rick lied about his age 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.880 and joined the Navy Reserve as a means to avoid 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.840 being drafted into the Vietnam War. It was a serious mistake. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.240 Military life didn't take, and so Rick took off away 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.880 without leave and over the border to Toronto to skip 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.560 out on the navy and out on the war completely. 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.680 Upon entering Toronto, three Canadian meats, big squares with crew 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.160 cuts and shitty tattoos, barreled toward him from around a corner, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.120 and they were drunk but still able to identify Rick 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.439 for what he was, an American draft dodger, there to 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.080 drink their beer and screw their women. And they were 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.439 ontumn fast raining down punches. Rick was used to holding 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.880 his own with his fist, but three on one it 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:25.240 was too much. Then suddenly the punches stopped, but there 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.080 was still more commotion. Others had joined in the melee 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.320 and were fighting off the meatheads. Rick was quick to 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.480 his feet and they soon had the drunken squares in 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.400 the run. And Rick James dusted himself off and looked 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.520 up to the two dudes who had just saved his ass. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.080 Weird looking, skinny dudes. It kind of looked like the 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.240 greasers who'd beat on Rick back in Buffalo, except these 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.080 guys had some weirdo hippie farmer vibe going on too. 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.520 Didn't matter, they were all right with Rick. The two 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.600 introduced themselves as Levonne and Garth told Rick they were musicians. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.760 They hated the squares and knew the beating was unjust, 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.280 and they informed Rick they played in a rock billy 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.720 band called the Hawks, and asked him if he'd heard 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.040 of their band leader, Ronnie Hawkins. He hadn't, but Rick 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.440 told them he too was a musician and was there 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.199 in Toronto to get his music going, so they set 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:17.600 him off to a coffee shop to get stoned. Toronto 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.520 in the mid sixties was a wild place to a 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.720 young black man who loved R and B and rock 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.560 and roll, Toronto was a dream. The culture was permissive. 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.480 Drugs were everywhere, hot coke, acid, and so were the hippies. 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.439 And these weren't bandwagon esqu hippies. These were the real deal, 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.160 tune in, drop out, dress however you want, sleep with 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.560 whoever you want, and listen to whatever you want type 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.920 of hippies at a time when squares still ruled the roost. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.960 It was a time when it was legitimately subversive and 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.960 not yet trendy to be hicky, and this felt right 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.080 to Rick, especially coming out of the lips of Joni Mitchell, 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.640 a young Canadian songstress who Rick met through a friend. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.480 Joni was the shit. She'd got music she dug on 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.200 rock and roll, jazz, folk, and like everyone else in 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.679 Toronto at the time, R and B. She turned Rick 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.200 on to Mose Allison and they both sat up together 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.280 night after night dissecting Miles Davis's sketches of Spain. So 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.840 when Rick needed a guitar player for his new band, 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.600 The Minor Birds, and Jony recommended her friend Neil. Rick 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.320 didn't that we think about it twice. If this Neil 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.880 cat was all right with Joni, then Rick was in. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.560 But first Rick needed some new duds, so he pulled 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.640 a job with a guy he'd met in the nightclubs. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.079 It was a little boutique that featured all the high 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.760 end hippie fashion items of the time, Denham fringes, beads 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.559 and bengals, that sort of thing. And Rick's guy had 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.280 a guy, so fencing the goods wouldn't be a problem. 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.319 And it wasn't, and they were in and out in 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.840 no time, and Rick was flush again and able to 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.160 focus on putting his band together and of course looking 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.720 good in the process. Neil Young could give a shit 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.000 about looking good. Neil Young was too concerned with tearing 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.480 the paper off of the horsehair walls inside of Toronto's nightclubs. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.800 With his gut wrenching, emotionally chaotic guitar playing, Jony was right. 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.040 The dude knew his shit, and Jony Mitchell never lies. 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.319 Neil dug on Black R and B in Motown more 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.440 than most of the black kids Rick tried playing with 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.320 back in Buffalo. Neil was a student, a fucking assassin 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.080 with that guitar. So in nineteen sixty six, with Neil 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.240 Young now in Rick James's band, the Minor Birds headed 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.880 to Detroit to score a deal with the most happening 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.080 record label in the world at the time, Motown Records, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.160 and label president Barry Gordy didn't get to be Barry 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.800 Gordy by not being able to identify immense talent, so 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.680 of course the Minor Birds were signed to Motown. They 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.560 quickly recorded a single called It's My Time and endeavored 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.000 to become the next big thing. But next big things 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.160 need more than talent to become next big things. They 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.160 need all the little things to fall into place. And 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.280 when your singer is a criminal and a wall from 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.560 the Navy and the middle of a war, it's hard 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.280 to conquer the charts. Once the Motown advance came through. 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.520 Rick's manager ratted him out to keep the bread to himself, 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.880 and when Motown got winned, they dropped the minor birds. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.000 And worse than that, the FBI turned up the heat 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.600 on Rick. They heard about the Motown deal and put 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.040 the word out to every record label that Rick James 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.840 was a fugitive and he was not to be signed. 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.600 Rick was sunk. He did the only thing he could do. 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.400 Put Ray Charles on the turntable, rolled the joint, took 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.360 a big hit and turned it up. Then he turned 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:35.040 himself in. 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.200 We'll be right back after this word word word. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.400 Rick was dreaming. The past few years had been intense. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.520 He'd gone from hanging with his Motown heroes Marvin Gay 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.520 and Stevie Wonder to being locked up in the brig 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.400 for desertion, and then he broke out a prison, a 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.680 legit jail break. The excitement of that moment never left 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.000 him when her dream came. It was the prison break 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.040 that jazzed him the most. He could still taste the 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.400 adrenaline even now a year later, in his sleep. It 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.680 got his dick hard, and it was so powerful. Not 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.960 that Rick James needed help getting his dick hard before 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.320 and after prison. He'd been on a tear through the 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.520 new era of free love, and free love was one thing, 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.080 freedom was another. Rick may have escaped the brig, but 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.480 he wasn't free. His boys back in Toronto got their 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.960 shit together without Rick. Neil was in a band with 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.680 that Stephen Stills cat Buffalo Springfield and they were legit 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.200 rock stars. And Joni had her thing Garth and Levon 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.560 backed Bob fucking Dylan and started the band. And here 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.600 was Rick James, dodging g men and dealing coke to 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.560 get by in his dream though he was free, free 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.520 on stage anyway, whipping through Stevie's fingertips, with Hendrix next 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.600 to him on stage and Miles looking on approvingly from 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.760 the audience. It made no sense. But then again it 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.000 made total sense. Rick was a fucking star and he 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.640 knew it. He knew he had the same talent running 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.439 through him that Jimmy, Stevie and Miles had. But the 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.280 truth ratchet it up the anxiety. The truth was that 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.280 he wasn't a musician like Jimmy, Stevie or Miles. He 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.439 was a fucking criminal, common ordinary and definitely not free. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.120 The g men were on his tail, hell hounds, white devils. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.600 The heat got to be too hot, and this is 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.520 where the dream usually went from fever pitch to hyper real. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.960 Rick's heart raced as his brain called back to when 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.120 he turned himself in that second time, not for going 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.800 a wall, but for breaking out of the brig and 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.600 he was received by the other prisoners as a conquering hero. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.920 But the guards had a different opinion. Fuck this guy. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.880 The beatings were merciless, and the brass must have known 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.200 Rick was going to bounce a third time and embarrass 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.680 them further, so they ended up settling with his attorney 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.640 and processing him out of his court martial on a technicality, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.680 something about enlisting as a minor. And this is usually 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.320 when Rick would awake, buoyed by freedom, his dick rock hard, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.800 his eyes winting through the late morning California sunshine, and 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.720 his head weighed down in the morass of last night's party, 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.760 Rick got up off the couch, careful not to step 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.840 on the half naked bodies sleeping on the floor. Empty 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.640 wine bottles and overflowing ashtrays were everywhere, and the air 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.399 stank of grass, and Rick had to piss bad. He 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.439 couldn't remember where the nearest bathroom was. This place was huge. 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.760 Stephen Stills had too much house whatever. Stills was a 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.760 rock star. He could afford it. Plus Stills through gray 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.000 parties and was cool enough to let Rick crash while 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.439 getting his shit together, Rick Duck walked through the kitchen, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.000 careful not to wake anyone there the first floor bathroom. 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.320 Thank god. Rick came to a passway between the kitchen 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.159 and the bathroom and stopped dead in his tracks. The 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.760 blood was everywhere and flowing fast. The hippie was still 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.959 conscious despite the blood torrenting from his forearms, and he 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.240 was mumbling. Wait was he mumbling or doing something else? 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.320 The motherfucker was chanting and bleeding profusely from his self 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.520 inflicted wounds. Rick freaked out, started screaming and ran straight 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.719 for Stills's bedroom. Stills was already on his feet, fastening 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.480 the belt of his robe and shaking his head. Shit, 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.400 he's done it again, hasn't he. He's cutting himself right, 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.760 Still's some stone. Dude is bleeding out in your hallway. 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.439 Still's hurried toward his kitchen. Rick followed. The blood had 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.399 now formed a sizeable puddle on the floor around the hippie. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.920 Stills pulled the belt of his robe, grabbed a dish 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.720 rag hanging from the oven, and quickly fashioned two makeshift 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.359 tourniquets around the cross legged hippie's arms to stop the 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.879 deluge's blood. And through it all, the hippie kept slowly 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.760 rocking his shoulders and chanting. The Stills gave him a 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.879 couple of hard slaps on the cheek to snap him 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.800 out of it. Jim, Jim, Wake up, Jim. The bleeding stopped, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.280 and the hippies slowly opened his eyes and they were beautiful, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.879 if not distant. They found their way to Rick, who 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.119 was looking on in shock, and the hippie opened his mouth. 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.640 Hey brother, it's a beautiful morning, isn't it. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.320 I had no idea what the fuck was going on. 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.680 Stephen Stills took a step back, let out a sigh 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:13.000 of relief, and said, Rick James, meet Jim Morrison. Fucking Hollywood. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.040 You couldn't take a piss without running into somebody. So 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.800 Rick James used his Hollywood connections to get his music 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.439 career off of the ground, but it was slow going, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.480 one false start after another, and Rick, frustrated with the momentum, 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:27.840 his friends had found in the music business and the 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.040 had eluded him. Said fuck it, a man's going to eat, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.199 and if the music business wasn't going to provide, then 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.919 Rick was going to make it happen by any means necessary, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.200 just like his mama had done with the mob back 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:42.080 in Buffalo. Cocaine was fast becoming the drug of choice 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.040 as the sixties turned into the seventies, and of course 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.320 Rick knew a guy, and that guy knew a guy, 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.560 and before Rick knew it, he was in Columbia, squirreling 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.679 away fifteen grams of cartel cocaine into his luggage. The 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.920 flight to Canada, where Rick had planned on unloading the coke, 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.480 was first class, but upon landing things went south. Who 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.080 was a sharp dressed black American with a stickpin and 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:10.080 expensive luggage. Rick was braced by airport security and thoroughly searched, 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:12.679 but not thoroughly enough. He made it through with the 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.560 blow undetected, but was rattled enough to give up drug 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.920 dealing and give the music business one more shot. And finally, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.639 his timing was right on. Rick's vision of creating an aggressive, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.159 sexy new form of music that combined the best of 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.600 R and B and rock and roll suddenly had a 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.000 chance in a decade where disco, punk, rock, and theatrical 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.719 funk and heavy metal were all in vogue. Rick, for 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.879 the first time in his life, disciplined himself. He pulled 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.280 together some serious musicians from back home in Buffalo, away 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.040 from the party scene in Hollywood, dubbed them the Stone 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.520 City Band, and set about to make his mark on 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.600 music history, just like Jimmy Miles. 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:51.480 And Stevie before him. 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.640 And that's exactly what he did. Rick james first few 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.720 seventies records, Come and Get It, Bustin out of l 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.200 seven in nineteen eighty one, Streets Off are in a word, 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.200 unfucking believably good is not a word. It doesn't matter. 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.520 Rick James put a new kind of herd on the phone. 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.520 It was George Clinton without the bad acid trip. It 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.719 was Sly Stone without the mannek insanity. It was Kisses 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.320 heavy metal but with musicians who could play. It was 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:18.720 Marvin Gaye but with a sense of humor. It was 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.720 James Brown without the preachy's social consciousness. It was disco 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.840 without the cheese. It was disco rock dudes could get into. 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.439 It was a party. It was all of these things. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.919 It was huge. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.040 You and I Mary Jane, come and get it. Give 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.160 it to me, baby, super freak. Put those songs on now, 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.720 even now, and try not to move, Try not to 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:43.360 crack that second bottle of wine, try not to get lead. 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.359 Those songs are infectious, undeniable hits, and when Rick James 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.960 unleashed them on the world, the world loved them. And 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.160 Rick loved the world right back. It was his time, 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:55.800 and he'd be damned if he weren't going to enjoy himself. 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.080 Rick was suddenly involved in high demand, suddenly brought his heroes, 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.920 The Temptations back from the dead with Standing on the Top, 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:06.439