Profile of Bootsy Collins on Famous Like Me

Bootsy Collins (born William Collins on October 26, 1951, Cincinnati, Ohio) is a pioneering funk bassist, singer, and songwriter.

With his brother, Catfish Collins, and Kash Waddy and Philippe Wynne, Collins formed a group called The Pacesetters in 1968. Until 1971, the Pacesetters were the backing band for James Brown, and were known in that context as The JB's.

A possibly apocryphal story states than Brown fired Collins after the latter suffered LSD hallucinations on-stage. Regardless of his reasons for leaving Brown's band, Collins then moved to Detroit, following the advice of singer and future Parliament member Mallia Franklin.

Franklin introduced both Collins brothers to George Clinton, and 1972 saw both of the Collins brothers, along with Waddy and Wynne, join Funkadelic. Bootsy played on most of their early albums, garnering several songwriting credits as well. His bass playing was hard, driving and rhythmic, and has been very influential in the development of Funk, Heavy Metal and Soul music. Bootsy's characteristic watery sound, produced by envelope filters, is particularly one of the things that identifies him as a bass player.

He also took the name "Bootsy" during this time, adopting it as part of an ever-evolving character, an alien rock star who grew gradually more alien, bizarre and flashy as time went on (see P Funk mythology). He also adopted his trademark space bass around this time. When Bootsy, Catfish, Waddy, Joel Johnson, Mudbone Cooper, Robert Johnson and The Horny Horns formed Bootsy's Rubber Band in 1976, the character of Bootsy evolved into Bootzilla, a rhinestone-bedecked, flashy rock god.

Bootsy's Rubber Band is a part of the P Funk umbrella of bands. Most of Bootsy's albums in the post-Parliament and Funkadelic days were released under the name Bootsy's Rubber Band.

In 1990 Bootsy collaborated with Deee-Lite on their massive hit "Groove Is In The Heart" where he contributed bass and additional vocals. He also appeared in the music video.

Collins has collaborated extensively with Bill Laswell and made bright appearances on two Fatboy Slim records.

Bootsy recently provided "vocal spice" on the TobyMac album Welcome to Diversity. He also appears on Nicole C. Mullens' latest album, "Everyday People".

Bootsy Collins served as "Heineken's Amsterjam 2005" curator and master of ceremonies on Randall's Island, NY.

He has also worked with Praxis.

Discography

External link

• Official Homepage for Bootsy
• Bootsy Collins at the All Music Guide

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Bootsy Collins