by Rick James
Mom was right. I was out of options. I hated like hell to give myself up to the Man. It was against everything in my nature. But because Motown had validated my talent, I knew I could break through to the big-time. If that meant spending some time in the brig, well, I’d do what I had to do.
It all happened quickly. Still on speed, I raced back to Buffalo, called the FBI, and told them on a Friday to pick me up at Mom’s Saturday morning. One last night with Mom, family, and friends.
“Got a treat for you,” said Mom. “I wanna give you a memory to ease the pain of prison.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Miles Davis is playing at the Royal Arms. I got us a table up front.”
Mom understood more than anyone. More than scoring some high-powered drug or some hot woman, I’d rather go see Miles than do anything else. I’d just bought his new record, Miles Smiles, which was the first time I heard his group with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. In my mind, Tony was the most talented drummer since Art Blakey. The cat could play polyrhythms and cross-rhythms like no one else. He was light as a feather but strong as a raging river. Much as I dug Miles, I considered Tony the star of this group—and to see him live was the treat of a lifetime.
True, I had fucked up big-time.
True, I had cost myself and the Mynah Birds a chance at Motown stardom.
True, I had worked myself into this winless position where the FBI was coming to put my black ass in prison—and all this before I’d turned nineteen.
But to sit there in the club and watch Tony work his magic, to hear Herbie’s beautiful chordings, Wayne’s gorgeous sound, Ron’s warm heartbeat, and Miles’s moaning low on his muted horn, I felt that God was in the room. God was with me. Mom had brought God with her.
Next morning Mom cried when the FBI men put me in cuffs and escorted me to the their car. I was sad to leave my mother and uneasy about what the future held, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t still hearing Miles in my head. I was carrying his joyful noise into whatever awaited me in the next chapter of my life.
PART TWO
BREAKING IN
IN AND OUT
What was it like?” asks Brotha Guru, wondering about the time when the FBI came and got me in Buffalo.
“It was hell.”
“Where’d they take you?”
“They threw me in a brig at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was a lockdown on the top floor of one of the dorms on the base guarded by marines. The marines would rather beat you than look at you. They called me ‘faggot’ and a ‘sissy hippie’ because of my long hair. They cut my hair and took turns kicking the shit out of me for no reason. They threw me in with the angriest cats, the ones in for assault or murder. Some of them had actually shot themselves as a way to leave Vietnam. Every one of those motherfuckers had a story that could fill a book. But once they learned I could sing, they left me alone. The brothas would have me singing their favorite Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett songs. I told them that I had a deal with Motown, but most of them thought I was bullshitting.”
“I bet you got in shape, though,” says Brotha Guru.
“Great shape. Went from a beanpole to one hundred sixty pounds of solid muscle.”
“How long before your trial?”
“Court martial came after seven or eight months.”
“Were you scared?”
“Scared shitless. If they convicted me for desertion I could spend the rest of my life in military prison. But I had a good naval lawyer. He had me testify how, in good conscience, I had turned myself in. He had me apologize and explain how my passion for music had gotten in the way of good judgment. I was contrite.”
“Did you mean it?”
“Fuck no, but I sold it. I can act, and when it came to saving my skin, I put on an Academy Award–winning performance.”
“And it worked?”
“Like a charm. I was charged with AWOL, not desertion. That meant I could get out in another six or seven months.”
“And the Me Monster was back in charge.”
“Why you always gotta be talking about the Me Monster?”
“You the one doing the talking. You the one telling me how you fooled the system.”
“I did more than that,” I say. “I broke out of that motherfucker.”
“How’d you do that?”
“With the help of two friends—Doc, a brotha, and Eddie, who was half black, half Puerto Rican. Doc said he’d pulled a big job before he was put in the brig and had thirty-five large ones stashed at his mom’s crib, right there in Brooklyn. By then we were in a looser part of the lock-in because the three of us had been perfect prisoners. Doc had also gotten close to one of the guards, who got sick and had to go home early. He asked Doc to close down the mess hall. Doc alerted us. After the other prisoners had left, Doc showed us the one door that led to the emergency exit. Beyond that door was a staircase that went all the way down to the street—and freedom. Our only choice was to kick in the door, and that would make a racket. Doc found a couple of clothing carts that made even more of a racket when they rolled around the mess hall. So while Eddie and Doc were rolling the carts, I was kicking in the door. It finally broke open, an alarm went off, but we were down the six flights and out on the street before the guards had time to react. Sunlight! We put on our regulation navy hats and calmly walked off the base. Doc, the Brooklyn native, led the way to Flatbush Avenue, where we caught a cab. We’d done it! We’d flown the fuckin’ coop.”
“Congratulations,” says Brotha Guru.
“You don’t believe me?” I ask.
“Sure, I believe you. You were Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.”
“Right on! That’s just how I felt.”
“It’s a beautiful story, Rick, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re in jail telling the story.”
Brotha Guru is always busting my chops. I don’t mind, though, because he’s a good listener and someone who’s helping me remember all the crazy shit that happened to me.
I remember that first week of freedom. Turned out Doc wasn’t bullshitting. He did have a wad of cash stashed at his mother’s. He picked it up, gave us each a nice taste, and the three of us were on our way to a three-bedroom penthouse suite in midtown Manhattan. Ray Charles had a hit out called “Let’s Go Get Stoned.” They were playing it on the radio every five minutes. And sure enough, an hour after we checked into the hotel there was a knock on the door. Doc’s dope man had arrived with something for everyone. Doc was deep into scag. Eddie and I weren’t into heroin, but we gorged ourselves on smoke and coke. That night Doc’s lady came by with two super-fine bitches. There’s nothing like your first fuck after being locked up for nearly a year. Pussy never tasted so sweet.
Except that Elke’s pussy tasted even sweeter. By the end of that week we’d flown to Toronto, where I thought we’d be safer. Elke and I fucked for three straight days. I fixed up Doc and Eddie with some of Elke’s friends and things were mellow until word got round that the FBI was after me. We hightailed it to Montreal, where we hung for a month. We were still high on the excitement of being fugitives, not to mention the high of the coke, smoke, and smack.
I was sitting in at a club singing Billy Stewart’s stuttering version of “Summertime”—Billy was Doc’s favorite—when afterward this smokin’-hot long-legged bitch came up and said she was an acrobat at the circus and loved her some soul singing. For the rest of the trip she had my nuts in knots—not that I’m complaining. I loved how she contorted her body to where she could lick her own clit. Her hire-wire act was something I’ll never forget. Meanwhile, I was forgetting all reality—until I called home to check on Mom.
“What do you think you’re doing, son?” she asked.
“Just avoiding jail, that’s all.”
“Not for long, James. They back on your tail. They calling every day. I don’t even wanna know where you are ’cause they probably got
this phone tapped. You got to come on in.”
“Not yet, Mom. Not now.”
“Longer you stay out, worse it’s gonna get. I’ve been in touch with my cousin Louis Stokes. He’s been elected a United States congressman.”
“Cousin Louis from Cleveland?”
“The same. I told him all about your situation. He checked with the navy. He says they’re as anxious to get rid of you as you are to get rid of them.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if you turn yourself in now, Louis can help. But you gotta turn yourself in.”
“Again?”
“Hell, yes, again,” said Mom.
So here we go again. I packed my bag, bought a plane ticket to Buffalo, and found myself flying home when I picked up a magazine someone had left on my seat. Mindlessly, I leafed through the pages—Vietnam was still tearing the country apart. Counterculture leaders were calling for be-ins. The Black Panthers, who I dug for their gutsy fuck-you attitude, were making noise in Oakland. All this was interesting, but the article that stopped me cold concerned music. It mentioned two groups—Buffalo Springfield, featuring Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, and Steppenwolf, featuring Goldy McJohn. Both groups had major record deals and were the talk of L.A. Those were my boys.
While I was running in and out of prison, my boys had carried on with the music and gotten somewhere. The article talked about the new soulful folk-rock sound they had cultivated up in Canada. I was part of that cultivation. I might even have been the major part of that cultivation. Now all I was cultivating was the thought of being thrown back in the brig to face another trial. Right then and there, I pledged that if cousin Congressman Stokes could help me put this navy thing behind me, I’d make my way straight to L.A. Like so many other teenagers in the country, I was California dreaming.
Back to Buffalo.
Another beautiful reunion with Mom, who, no matter how I messed up, never stopped believing that I’d eventually straighten up and fly right. Another call to the FBI. Another pair of agents who came to cuff me. Another trip back to Brooklyn.
What was new, though, was the reception I got when I returned to that top-floor brig in the dorm. I got a standing O. I was greeted like a hero. I was the cat who escaped. I tried to give credit where credit was due—Doc was the mastermind. But since Doc was still at large, I got the respect.
I also got lucky. During my second court martial, the court was lenient. I was given a general discharge. I was told I’d only have to serve six more months. That’s because I’d enlisted when I was underage at sixteen and also because they were tired of me. My escape had embarrassed them and they feared I’d do it again. Now I just had to get through another half a year.
Knowing that I had somehow beat the system, the supervisors and guards put me through my paces those last months. I was back to scraping shit off toilet bowls, washing dishes in burning-hot water, and mopping the kitchen floor. One of the guards, a racist asshole named Leo, had it out for me. One morning when he saw me on my knees cleaning tile, he kicked my ass so hard I fell on my face and busted my nose. I went for his throat, but before I could do anything he had a gun to my head. I was determined to get him back, but I had to wait. Two months later when they gave me potato-peeling duty, I managed to slip a mashed-up dead cockroach into the bowl of bean soup he was being served. The next day he didn’t report for duty because they said he was sick as a dog. I only wish the cockroach had been poisonous.
On the bright side of my final time in the brig was a young brotha from Seattle called Fire Ride. His first year in the service he got caught stealing navy cars and selling them on the black market. He said he was named after the horse that won his daddy ten thousand dollars the day he was born. He also said he knew Jimi Hendrix and came loaded with not only with Hendrix’s records but all kinds of great music. There was a little phonograph in the rec room that we could use on certain nights. That’s where me and Fire Ride got tight. At the same time, Doc was back in the brig—they’d caught him in Montreal—and he had a connection in Brooklyn where we got the freshest records off the street. So me, Doc, and Fire Ride would have these listening sessions that opened up my ears to everything happening on the outside.
The first side that came in was Two for the Price of One, an album that blew my mind. The artists were Larry Williams and Johnny “Guitar” Watson. The cover flipped me out—Larry and Johnny each standing on the hoods of Cadillacs while holding leather reins like cowboys riding their steeds. The music was cold-blooded. Mom had Larry’s old R & B hits in her collection—“Bony Moronie” and “Short Fat Fanny”—and I remember hearing Johnny’s “Space Guitar” when I was a little kid.
“Hendrix memorized ‘Space Guitar,’ ” said Fire Ride. “That’s where he got the idea of all that feedback and distortion. He stole the shit from Johnny.”
In Two for the Price of One, I heard how Johnny was putting a new kind of hurting on the funk. He was edgier than just about anyone else out there. He pushed the envelope in the same direction I would have pushed it had I not been locked up. He even had the balls to call a song “Coke.” Like me, Johnny knew how to blend R & B and jazz. On that record, he put lyrics to a song Joe Zawinul had written for Cannonball Adderley—“Mercy Mercy Mercy,” a combination jazz/R & B/soul hit. Meanwhile, rumors were coming in from the street that Miles was going electric and using Zawinul, Chick Corea, and guitarist John McLaughlin.
We were also jamming to Sly, the master blaster of the sixties. His bass player Larry Graham had a thumb-poppin’ attitude that made all of us take note. There were other super-funky bass players—a bad white boy named Duck Dunn and of course Paul McCartney—but Graham came on with some shit we’d never heard before.
Fire Ride and Doc weren’t crazy about the Beatles’ White Album, but I was. I loved it almost as much as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of the most creative records I’d ever heard. On The White Album, I loved how the Beatles spoofed Chuck Berry on “Back in the USSR,” loved the funky “Rocky Raccoon,” loved the ballads like “Blackbird” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The Beatles were also pushing the envelope, writing killer songs like “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” where their slight-of-hand humor made a mockery of cornball pop music. The Beatles were out there.
I couldn’t wait to get out there so I could do what the Beatles, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, and Miles Davis were doing. I knew goddamn well I was hearing everything they heard. I could make righteous musical combinations of my own. I could bend and blend genres slick as anyone.
“Once you get out,” said Fire Ride, “I’m gonna hook you up with Hendrix. Jimi’s gonna love you. He might even put you in his band.”
“Hey,” I said, “he’d be lucky if I put him in my band!”
“Don’t forget us when you get out there,” said Doc, taking off this gorgeous record by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, The Inflated Tear, and putting on Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills. The album had a live cut, “Ball and Chain,” sung by this bad bitch Janis Joplin. If Hendrix was gonna be my guitarist, Janis was gonna be my chick singer.
“It’s all gonna happen,” said Doc, “just make sure I get to see you do it.”
“You’ll be road manager,” I told him. “And my man Fire Ride, he’ll be my musical consultant.”
The three of us had beautiful times listening to sounds. Those nights got me through the abuse I was taking from Leo and the other redneck crackers.
One morning Leo came to me while I was scrubbing the pots and pans. The big smile on his face worried me. I’d never seen that motherfucker smile—not once.
“Too bad you won’t be able to get any more of that jungle music snuck in here,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Doc, the guy who gets you all your records. He won’t be getting ’em no more.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s dead.”
I nearly stopped breathing.
“No one. The dumb bastard killed himself. Doctor says he OD’d. The dope got him so crazy that he jimmied up a window and jumped out.”
“That don’t make no sense.”
“Neither does taking dope or listening to jungle music. Both things make you wanna kill yourself.”
I wanted to kill Leo but was too shocked to do anything.
Losing Doc was rough. He was a good cat. He was one of my main supporters. He saw my talent and never tired of telling people that I was gonna make it.
The only relief came when was I transferred to another naval and marine prison, this one in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I was glad to get away from Leo and the asshole guards in Brooklyn. Portsmouth was more chilled. I got to sing for the prisoners in the mess hall, one of the most appreciative audiences I’ve ever encountered. Otis Redding had died the year before and once, after I sang “The Dock of the Bay,” one of the brothas yelled, “Otis has come back from the grave! Sing on, Otis!” They made me sing the song six straight times.
When I finally got out I went to Buffalo to be with Mom.
“You’re free now, son,” she said. “You’ve finally put all that navy stuff behind you. So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s got to have to do with music.”
“Can you do it here?” Mom asked.
“I’d love to stay with you, Mom, but nothing’s happening in Buffalo. You can’t launch a career from Buffalo.”
“Will you go back to Toronto? Toronto’s not that far. And I saw for myself how you’re already a star in Toronto.”
That weekend I went to Toronto, thinking that it’d be cool to stay in a city only a hundred miles from home. But when I got there, I realized that the entire gang was gone. I knew that Joni Mitchell, Bruce Palmer, Neil Young, and Goldy McJohn had left, but I didn’t know that Elke had gone back to Europe.
Toronto was always cool and Yorkville always hip, but it felt like its time had passed. I found some good musicians who I knew from before and worked up a little band. I figured some of the old club owners would be glad to see me fronting my group. Wrong. The old club owners didn’t give a shit and I couldn’t find a single gig. Pissed and discouraged, I spent my money on speed and coke.