The J.B.’s “More Mess On My Thing.” The Funk Starts Here!

Here it is, rumored no more: More Mess On My Thing, the demo Bootsy Collins and his band recorded for James Brown in 1969 that won them the title “The J.B.’s” – and changed the course of popular music.

Top photo: The J.B.’s. Front: Frankie Waddy, Catfish Collins, Bootsy Collins. Back: Robert McCullough, Chicken Gunnels, unknown.

Buy Now» The J.B.’s – More Mess On My Thing
Guaranteed in stock via our web store at Rappcats.

This is the companion piece to Now-Again’s first-ever issue of the lost J.B.’s album These Are The J.B.’s. All tracks mixed by Mario Caldato, directly from the original multi-track masters. Overseen by Egon and Universal Music Group’s in-house Brown expert Harry Weinger. MORE

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Out now – James Brown’s Psych-Rock Albums, the definitive reissues

James Brown issued two psych-rock albums. Sho Is Funky Down Here is the one he released under his own name.

OUT NOW » JAMES BROWN – SHO IS FUNKY DOWN HERE
OUT NOW » DAVID MATTHEWS – THE GRODECK WHIPPERJENNY

Sho is Funky Down Here and The Grodeck Whipperjenny are a pair of albums that are the result of an unlikely but highly productive musical relationship between James Brown, a superstar at the creative and commercial peaks of his long career, and David Matthews, a then young arranger-musician whose limited professional experience had little or nothing to do with the funk and soul of his collaborator.

James Brown Goes Underground – a short film about these albums by Bennett Piscitelli.. MORE

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“These Are The J.B.’s” – Second Edition On Sale Now!

By popular demand – a second edition of the lost James Brown/Bootsy Collins album

Buy the album at our webstore at rappcats.com – ships immediately!

We quickly sold out of the first run of the J.B.’s These Are The J.B.’s album. So fast, in fact, that we were inundated with requests from funk fans who couldn’t fathom that a record that was meant to sell for $25 wasn’t available in their local store and was appearing on the secondary market for between $35 and $50.

They asked us to remedy the situation and we did.

We’re pleased to announce that we have produced a second edition of the album in production. Copies are now in stock and shipping via our Rappcats webstore.

Here are the differences between the first and second editions.

– The first edition comes in an old-school, thick-cardboard, “tip-on” LP sleeve – the second edition comes in a regular, “new-style” LP sleeve.

– The color way has changed for the second variation (see above for the way the second variation will appear).

– The second edition is labeled “second edition” in the legal line on the back.

All else remains the same: same quality of wax, same booklet, same funk. But we wanted to make sure the folks who bought the first edition had something special and there would be no confusion between the two issues.

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Out NOW: the lost James Brown/Bootsy Collins album “These Are The J.B.’s”

Previously unreleased and unheard 1970 album by James Brown’s backing band the JB’s, led by Bootsy Collins. Out NOW. 
First edition limited to 3000 pieces – vinyl only.

More information at our webstore at rappcats.com!

In 1970 James Brown perfectly captured a definitive moment in modern music when he called Bootsy Collins into the studio to record the tracks that would be These Are The J.B.’s, a title given to a King Records test-press LP that was never released, and only rumored to exist.

This album is the epitome of funk music, Brown’s innovation that influenced everything that came after it, from Afro-beat to disco to hip-hop. And if there is any funk ensemble as influential as Brown’s in the post-“Cold Sweat” musical landscape, it’s the Bootsy Collins/Parliament/Funkadelic contingent. Those two streams, as Grammy-winning James Brown historian Alan Leeds details in this album’s liner notes, converged for the first time here, making this a Rosetta Stone of funk’s dominant idioms.

This link between Brown’s funk and all that followed features Bootsy and his young band running through twelve-minute instrumental take of Marva Whitney’s “It’s My Thing,” replete with blues chord changes, alongside interpretations of the Meters, Kool and the Gang and none other than Jimi Hendrix. This is a young band’s James Brown-turned-on-his-head style of funk that they nail in a one-minute vamp – available to hear now on our Soundcloud – that embodies the essence of the psychedelic-flavored music that would propel them into the orbit of George Clinton’s mothership.

This is the first commercial issue of this album, overseen by Now-Again’s Eothen “Egon” Alapatt alongside Leeds and Universal Music Group’s James Brown expert Harry Weinger. It was mastered specifically for vinyl by Elysian Master’s Dave Cooley, from the original two-track stereo master that James Brown and his engineer Ron Lenhoff delivered to production forty-four years ago. It’s packaged in a thick, “tip-on” Stoughton jacket, with a booklet with liner notes by Leeds and Alapatt and unpublished photographs.

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