You see as long as we had James Brown in control even though he had that high energy and that bold attitude he still maintained a, a, a, an amount of respect of what he said on records. He would never use a curse word. He would never disrespect women, disrespect authority, ah, anything political. He, he maintained a certain decorum about himself, you know. The band had to dress a certain way, we, we danced a certain way on stage. There was a certain amount of regimentation even though the music was away from the norm and the attitude was free and it made you dance really, really, really free. George Clinton came along and removed all of those boundaries. Now you can dress like you want to. You can say anything. The music was gone completely crazy. Bootsy came up, when I heard the first "Mother Ship Connection" rhythm tracks I couldn't believe what was happening, you know, although I loved it. It was just, it just totally freer than the dump, dump, dump, what the James Brown thing was. This was doom, doom, da, doom, stuff going all kinds of different ways, you know. And I, I asked George I said, well, what kind of horns are you going over there? He said, I don't know. Give me something bad, you know, I'm free, I can do anything I can want to do so instead of going da, da, da, I'm doing anything, anything that came to my mind I could do it. So now the language is gone, the dress is gone, the music is completely out, out of the box. The rhythms are dynamic, loud and the guitars are hooked up to these, these monster amplifiers. So everything is, is free now. The shackles are off. We are in big trouble. So what these gangsta rappers, rappers are doing now we have only ourself to blame because we took the shackles off. We led the way. We opened the door. We gave them permission to do what they're doing now. We only have ourselves to blame.

What was it like being on the stage?

You mean the P-Funk experience, the first Mother Ship Earth tour, you know there were times that I would look around on stage and wonder if maybe these people really were from outer space, had come down to earth and was trying to be earthlike and was getting it wrong. One guy was wearing a beekeepers hood, maybe he thought that's how people dressed maybe the first person he saw was a bee keeper. Another guy had these, these Halloween masks on. Maybe the first person that he saw was, was somebody trick or treating. I say, maybe these guys really are from outer space, you know. But then I'd look, I looked at myself, I say, well I'm actually from Alabama so I'm not from outer space, I'm out here doing the …so it was really a movement. And then like I say it was a freedom, freedom thing, ah, ah, free your mind and the rest of your body will, will follow. And that's, that was the prevailing attitude of the times and it was right on time for the music. I don't know if the attitude created the music or the music created the attitude but it, it was the prevailing attitude of that time, the seventies. And, like I say, I don't know if the music created it, if it created the music. But it was altogether freedom, free love, hippies, all of this was right in the same vein during that time.

Where does Sly and the Family Stone fit in here?

You know Sly was like a early rebel. He was, was, George always admired Sly. Of course we all did 'cause he, he took he gave James Brown's funk, it's all James Brown funk, let's face it, James Brown he, he was the one who, who started the whole thing because like I say he has the phenomenal nerve to think that whatever he does is correct. So Sly was one of the first people to follow in his footsteps. He didn't take it as far as George did but then, like I say, he maintained the same amount of respect for a certain amount of values, you know. So, ah, ah, he was, we admired him because the music was great musically and it was, it was great danceably, we could dance to it real good. And, ah, it, he, he started a lot of things. He started a lot of new things exponent of the James Brown funk. So he, he was just one of the early models that we followed.

What effect did disco have? How did it change things?

I, I'll give you an example. Disco, it was like formulated funk.

It was simple to do especially for a musician. A lot, lot of musicians got into disco even a lot of jazz people got into disco. I remember the whole Creed Taylor record label, he had did disco albums on everybody from Ron Carter to Esther Philipps, you know, you got, it was funny really, you know, everybody was doing disco because it was so simple to do. You did a silent beat, some horn, some string, Van McCoy for instance, a great musician, ah, Richie Rome a great musician, he had it on the disco thing because all you needed was the simple disco formula which was a song, a beat and some flowery strings and horns. And you had a disco. And if you had proper distribution and, and label you had a hit. So, frankly I loved disco because, ah, I was musician I got called to do a lot of horn and string arrangement. I made a lot of money during the disco era. And I loved it. I, I really did enjoy doing it because again it was the same kind of a freedom within boundaries, you had certain boundaries you had to stay within. But it was a good time for me because I made a lot of money doing disco records.

What did you thing of Gamble and Huff?

The Gamble and Huff style like put a bow tie on, on the funk, you know, it, it, it made it elegant. It was still funky but it with the, with the string and horn arrangements and the sounds that Tom, Ben and those guys out of the, the combination of instrument, it put a certain elegance, a bow tie, a tuxedo on the funk. I loved it.

"Cold Sweat"... revolutionary of "Cold Sweat".

Well "Cold Sweat" was a pivotable, pi… pi… was a pivot point. "Cold Sweat" was a pivot point in music because, number one as I said it before it took one change and did a lot with it. It, it made the, ah, ah, it was counterpoint to put it musically between the, the drums, the bass, the guitar and the horns and the vocal. They all did a different rhythmic part that jelled together that the chords actually bounced off of each other and it, it was a, James Brown got total credit for it, well, not total credit for it, James Brown and Pee Wee Ellis got credit for it but it was a collaboration between all the members of the band: Clyde

Stubblefield's drum, beat is a classic, I mean it has never been definitely recorded like that before, the Jimmy Nolan guitar line that went against the drumbeat was definitely a, a major part of it. The Bernard Otem bass line which was so simple yet so important. All of these parts jumped around on each other and maybe that's why it made you dance because these parts were bouncing off each other. It was just one of those things that all fit together perfectly and the horn line flowed across of it and then the vocal flowed across all of that. All of these things fit together perfectly. And I don't know if, I, I'm sure it wasn't intentional. I'm sure it didn't happen intentionally but it laid a foundation for things to come after it. All funk that James did I know came within that, that formula whether it was that perfect or not, I don't think it ever was that perfect but it was that basic formula. And as I say I'm sure it was an accident but you had all of these great musicians doing their part with that attitude and that energy that I mentioned before to create this pattern for all music to follow from now on, for all funky music to follow from now. It was so perfect, so simply perfect that it made the pattern for funk even as we know it today.

... made that shift.

Well, you know, different musicians brought different things to James. Like Jimmy Nolan definitely had his own thing and Catfish and Bootsy, they had their own thing. So I think that, that Bootsy energy brought a new, okay like the band that, that James had at first with, with Maceo and Bernard and Clyde and Melvin seem like they all fed off his energy. And, and but with the Bootsy experience, like I say, Bootsy brought his own energy. Bootsy was, he was not quite so subservient to James as the other band was. This band was, had more of its own attitude. They didn't exactly follow James. They kind of led him and James had to…

Bootsy.

Okay, the, the Maceo band with Jimmy Nolan and Clyde Stubblefield, Melvin Parker, Bernard Otem, this band more or less followed James' lead, they followed his energy. They, they, they went where he said, how he said, which the Bootsy band did also but Bootsy brought his own energy and a lot of times, most of the times, not only was he following James but he was leading James, too. He, his, his bass line was so dynamic. See James didn't give Bootsy's bass line, James would give Bootsy an idea of what, what the bass line should be and Bootsy would kind of take it to wherever Bootsy went with it, you know. And, ah, a lot of times, as I said before, when Bootsy starts playing you either get in with it or get run over by. So even James Brown had to get out of Bootsy's way, so to speak, of, of lead, follow where Bootsy led him. And Catfish was just as strong and energetic as Bootsy was with those two together, and, of course you still had the Jabo on drums which was James' drummer, right. So it was just a different source of energy that, that led in a different direction. It made it even more energetic, made it, made it more instead of laid back type of energy it was more of hyper type of energy with the Bootsy rhythm section.

Now I'm the one musically in a 4-4 bar you have 1, 2, 3, 4 of course which is 1 is the one but as James Brown characterizes the 1, I don't think he really meant 1 of the 2, 3, 4. I think he meant wherever he put his foot down the hardest as the 1. Like I say I'm not sure about this. Everybody takes the 1 as something different but like our …say, everything is on the 1 which was on the 4, right there, you know. So when you ask me about the 1 you're not asking somebody that's really knowledgeable about it, I'm just someone who just puts the wherever someone else thinks the 1 is and I go with the 1 as strong as I can. I have no 1. Everything is 1 to me.