Bootsy Collins

His brother Phelps "Catfish" Collins (1943–2010) was also a musician.

He and Bootsy were once part of The Pacemakers.

Collins has maintained a strong connection with Cincinnati.

William Earl "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, and record producer.

Collins was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 26, 1951.

He said that his mother nicknamed him "Bootsy".

"I asked her why," he explained to a journalist, "and she just said, 'Because you looked like a Bootsy.' I left it at that."

With his elder brother Phelps "Catfish" Collins, Frankie "Kash" Waddy, and Philippé Wynne, Collins formed a funk band, The Pacemakers, in 1968.

Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s before joining the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Collins established himself as one of the leading names and innovators in funk with his driving basslines and humorous vocals.

He later formed his own P-Funk side project known as Bootsy's Rubber Band.

He was a frequent collaborator with other musicians from a variety of genres, including dance music (Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart"), electronic big beat (Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" and "The Joker"), and alternative metal (Praxis), among others.

In March 1970, after most of the members of James Brown's band quit over a pay dispute, The Pacemakers were hired as Brown's backing band and they became known as The J.B.'s.

(They are often referred to as the "original" J.B.'s to distinguish them from later line-ups that went by the same name.) Although they worked for Brown for only 11 months, the original J.B.'s played on some of Brown's most intense funk recordings, including "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine", "Bewildered (1970)", "Super Bad", "Soul Power", "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing", and two instrumental singles, the much-sampled "The Grunt" and "These Are the J.B.'s".

In regards to his tenure working for James Brown, Collins stated:

"He treated me like a son. And being out of a fatherless home, I needed that father figure and he really played up to it. I mean, Good Lord. Every night after we played a show, he called us back to give us a lecture about how horrible we sounded. [Affects James Brown voice] 'Nah, not on it, son. I didn't hear the one. You didn't give me the one.' He would tell me this at every show. One night, we knew we wasn't sounding really good – we were off – and he calls us back there and said, 'Uh huh, now that's what I'm talkin' about. Y'all was on it tonight. Y'all hit the one.' My brother and I looked at each other like, 'This mother has got to be crazy.' We knew in our heart and soul that we wasn't all that on that show. So then I started figuring out his game, man. By telling me that I wasn't on it, he made me practice harder. So I just absorbed what he said and used it in a positive way."

After parting ways with James Brown, Collins returned to Cincinnati and formed House Guests with his brother Phelps Collins, Rufus Allen, Clayton "Chicken" Gunnels, Frankie Waddy, Ronnie Greenaway and Robert McCullough.

The House Guests released "What So Never the Dance" and another single on the House Guests label, as well as a third as The Sound of Vision on the House Guests label.

Next Collins moved to Detroit, Michigan, after Philippé Wynne suggested joining The Spinners, for whom Wynne had been singing.

However, following the advice of singer and future Parliament member Mallia Franklin, Collins made another choice.

Franklin introduced both Collins brothers to George Clinton, and in 1972, both of the Collins brothers, along with Waddy, joined Funkadelic.

In 1976 Collins, Catfish, Waddy, Joel Johnson (1953–2018), Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, Robert Johnson and The Horny Horns formed Bootsy's Rubber Band, a separate touring unit of Clinton's P-Funk collective.

The group recorded five albums together, the first three of which are often considered to be among the quintessential P-Funk recordings.

The group's 1978 album Bootsy? Player of the Year reached the top of the R&B album chart and spawned the #1 R&B single "Bootzilla".

Like Clinton, Collins took on several alter egos, from Casper the Funky Ghost to Bootzilla, "the world's only rhinestone rockstar monster of a doll", all as parts of the evolving character of an alien rock star who grew gradually more bizarre as time went on (see P-Funk mythology).

He also adopted his trademark "space bass" around this time.

Collins played bass on most of Funkadelic and Parliament albums through the early 1980s, garnering several songwriting credits as well.

Collins released two 1980 albums, his first "solo" album Ultra Wave, and Sweat Band, on George Clinton's Uncle Jam label with a group billed as Bootsy's Sweat Band.

He also was credited for co-producing the debut of P-Funk spinoff Zapp.

In 1984, he collaborated with Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads to produce "Five Minutes", a dance record sampled and edited from Ronald Reagan's infamous "We begin bombing in five minutes" speech.

The record was credited to "Bonzo goes to Washington" (also referenced in the 1985 Ramones song "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg", derived from Reagan's starring role as Professor Peter Boyd in the 1951 comedy film Bedtime for Bonzo).

After a nearly five-year hiatus, he had a comeback in 1988 (with some help from producer Bill Laswell).

Laswell introduced Collins to Herbie Hancock, resulting in Perfect Machine (1988).

The techno-funk they recorded featured turntables for scratch appeal, and the smoothly-stylized vocals of Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner of chart-topping Ohio Players.

These were the first of many collaborations between Laswell and Collins on many albums and projects, with the prolific producer using Bootsy mainly as a bassist but sometimes as a rhythm guitarist.

In 1988, Collins appeared as a guest artist to play bass on Keith Richards and The X-Pensive Winos album Talk is Cheap.

In 1989, Collins played bass on and produced several tracks of Malcolm McLaren's album Waltz Darling, credited to Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra.

What's Bootsy Doin'? flaunted a new sound that foreshadowed the 1990s, such as the dance floor smash "Party on Plastic".

In 1990, Collins collaborated with Deee-Lite on their biggest hit "Groove Is in the Heart", and he contributed additional vocals.

He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.

In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Collins number 4 in its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.