Now-Again Records

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 It’s packaged in a thick, “tip-on” Stoughton jacket, with a booklet with liner notes by Leeds and Alapatt and unpublished photographs.

Announcing: Now-Again 7″ Sure Shots – Round One. Download a free MP3 now…

A series of four, limited edition 7”s ranging from Deep American Funk and Soul, Zimbabwean Fuzz Funk, Zambian Proto-Punk, and Rare Disco. 500 copies of each 7” produced: not to be repressed. Download card for entire series included with each 7”.

This series is now available to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm. We will offer a bundle option via our webstore at Rappcats very soon. Though they were delayed due to issues with our pressing plant, and the 7″s are now being shipped to stores – and will continue to be throughout December.

They are:

NA 7027 Richard Marks “I’m The Man For You”/Buddy Cantrell “You Ain’t No Good:” two of America’s most sought after deep funk/soul sides available on a 7” single for the first time. Originally issued on the tiny Atlanta imprint Tuska at the turn of 1970, both of these singles will appear on our forthcoming Richard Marks anthology Never Satisfied.

NA 7028 Stars of Liberty “Power To The People”/Eye Q “I Am Selfish:” two tracks from the 1970s Zimbabwean black rock scene. Stars of Liberty and Eye Q are two of the most fiery ensembles to release fuzzy singles in funky protest of Ian Smith’s oppressive Rhodesian regime. Now-Again will be delving head first into this pivotal part of the African rock and funk story with anthologies dedicated to the scene and its key players in 2015.

NA 7034 Chissy Zebby Tembo “I’m Not Made Of Iron/Fisherman:” two proto-punk Zamrock tracks from the drummer behind
Paul Ngozi’s Ngozi Family Band whose work is focus of ongoing investigation and reissue on Now-Again.. “Fisherman” was originally issued on Zebby Tembo’s lauded My Ancestors album. “I’m Not Made Of Iron,” from his untitled third LP, has never been released in any form.

NA 7035 Split Decision Band “Watching Out (45 Version)/Watching Out (Alternate Take):” one of the best independent disco songs ever released, out of the unlikely locale of Des Moines, Iowa, in the late 1970s. A reissue of the original 45 version of this song is paired here with an unreleased version, taken from an album that the band recorded but never released. We will issue it at Now-Again in full in 2015.

Download: Split Decision Band “Watching Out (45 Version)”