Rick James
James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, musician, producer, and songwriter. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, James began his musical career in his teenage years. He was in various bands before entering the U.S. Navy Reserve to avoid being drafted into the army. In 1964, James moved to Toronto, Canada, where he formed the rock band The Mynah Birds, who eventually signed a recording deal with Motown Records in 1966. James's career with the group halted after military authorities discovered his whereabouts and eventually convicted him of desertion related charges. He served several months in jail. After being released, James moved to California, where he started a variety of rock and funk groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
For other uses, see Rick James (disambiguation).
Rick James
August 6, 2004 (aged 56)
Ricky Matthews
- Singer
- musician
- record producer
- songwriter
- 1964–1990
- 1996–1998
- 2004
4
- Vocals
- bass guitar
- guitar
- keyboards
- drums
- percussion
After forming the locally popular Stone City Band in his hometown of Buffalo in 1977, James finally found success as a recording artist after signing with Motown's Gordy Records, releasing the album Come Get It! in 1978 which produced the hits "You & I" and "Mary Jane". In 1981, James released his most successful album, Street Songs, which included career-defining hits such as "Give It to Me Baby" and "Super Freak", the latter song becoming his biggest crossover single, mixing elements of funk, disco, rock, and new wave. James was also known for his soulful ballads such as "Fire & Desire" and "Ebony Eyes". He also had a successful career as a songwriter and producer for other artists including Teena Marie, the Mary Jane Girls, the Temptations, Eddie Murphy, and Smokey Robinson.
James's mainstream success had peaked by the release of his album Glow in 1985 and his appearance on the popular TV show, The A-Team. His subsequent album releases failed to sell as well as their predecessors. Rapper MC Hammer sampled James's "Super Freak" for his 1990 hit, "U Can't Touch This" which won Best R&B Song at the 1991 Grammy Awards. James received his only Grammy for composing the song.[1] By the early 1990s, James's career was hampered by his drug addiction and he was embroiled in legal issues. In 1993, he was convicted of two separate instances of kidnapping and assaulting two different women while under the influence of crack cocaine, resulting in a three-year sentence at Folsom State Prison. He was released on parole in 1996. His health problems halted his career again after he had a mild stroke during a concert in 1998, and he announced a semi-retirement.
In 2004, James's career returned to mainstream pop culture after he appeared in an episode of Chappelle's Show. The segment involved a Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories-style sketch that satirized James's wild lifestyle in the 1980s. This resulted in renewed interest in his music and that year he returned to perform on the road. He died later that year from heart failure at age 56.
Life and career[edit]
Early life[edit]
Johnson was born on February 1, 1948, in Buffalo, New York, to Mabel (née Sims) and James Ambrose Johnson Sr. He was one of eight children. He was an altar boy and choir member at St. Bridget's Catholic Church.[2] James's father, an autoworker, left the family when James was 10. His mother was a dancer for Katherine Dunham, and later worked as a cleaner in the day, and as a numbers-runner for the Buffalo crime family at night to earn a living.[3]
Early career[edit]
In 1964, James fled to Toronto.[4] Soon after his arrival three drunk men tried to attack him outside a club; a trio of other men came to his aid. One of them, Levon Helm, was at the time a member of Ronnie Hawkins' backing band.[5] Helm invited James to their show later that night and he ended up performing onstage with the band.[4] To evade US military authorities, James went under the assumed name "Ricky James Matthews". That same year, James formed The Mynah Birds, a band that produced a fusion of soul, folk and rock music. In 1965, the band briefly recorded for the Canadian division of Columbia Records, releasing a single, "Mynah Bird Hop"/"Mynah Bird Song". At one point, Nick St. Nicholas, later of Steppenwolf fame, was a member; by the time "Mynah Bird Hop" was recorded bassist Bruce Palmer had replaced him. James and Palmer recruited guitarists Tom Morgan and Xavier Taylor and drummer Rick Mason to form a new Mynah Birds lineup, and soon traveled to Detroit to record with Motown. Before the group began recording their first songs for the label, Morgan left, unhappy about the label's attitude toward the musicians. Neil Young eventually took his place. It was while in Detroit that James met his musical heroes, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. After meeting Wonder and telling him his name, Wonder felt the name "Ricky James Matthews" was "too long" and told James to shorten it to "Ricky James".
In 1966, a financial dispute in Toronto between James and the Mynah Birds' handler, Morley Shelman[6][7][8] led to Motown's learning of James's fugitive status with the Navy. Hoping to prevent any scrutiny, Motown execs told Rick they would not be releasing any more of his material and convinced him to come back and work with them after straightening out his legal issues.[6][8] James surrendered himself to the FBI, and, in May 1966, was sentenced by the Navy to five months' hard labor for unauthorized absence. He was not yet 19 years old. James escaped from the Brooklyn Naval Brig after only six weeks' confinement, but following another six months as a fugitive, surrendered himself a second time. With help from his mother, James found legal assistance from his cousin, future Congressman Louis Stokes, and another attorney, former Marine Captain John Bracken, who pled James's second court-martial down from a potential five years' hard labor to five months.[9] After his release from Portsmouth Naval Prison in August 1967, James returned to Toronto[10] and endured another detention, initially derailing resumption of his career with Mynah Bird bandmate Neil Merryweather, with whom he would later collaborate, first at Motown and then in Los Angeles.[8][11]
In 1968, again working under the pseudonym Ricky Matthews, James produced and wrote songs at Motown for acts such as The Miracles, Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, and The Spinners. It was during this third stint at Motown that James met musician Greg Reeves. Reeves, hoping to find a better situation than the US$38 a week (US$745 in 2023 dollars[12]) he was earning as a session bassist for Berry Gordy, joined James, looking to "hitch a lift from Neil Young's rising star," and relocated to Los Angeles.[13]
On one of his first nights in Los Angeles, James was crashing on musician Stephen Stills' couch. When he awoke, he saw a stoned young man sitting on the floor in the lotus position. The man's wrists were bleeding so a scared James sought help. James was later formally introduced to the man who was Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors. After the Doors opened for Buffalo Springfield at the Whisky a Go Go, Morrison tricked James into taking acid.[4]
In California, James initially worked as a duo with Greg Reeves, but soon after James introduced Reeves to Neil Young, it was Reeves, not James, who was hired as bassist for the newly formed rock supergroup, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.[14] Around this time James formed several versions of the rock band Salt'N'Pepper.[14] James claimed that in 1969 Sebring invited him to attend a party at actress Sharon Tate’s house, but he was too hungover to get out of bed. The next morning, he discovered that Sebring had been murdered when he saw the Los Angeles Times headline "Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered."[5][4]
In 1970, James and Salt'N'Pepper member Ed Roth participated in the recording of Bruce Palmer's solo album The Cycle Is Complete. The duo also recorded as part of the group Heaven and Earth in Toronto. Heaven and Earth eventually changed their name to Great White Cane and recorded a self-titled album for the Los Angeles label Lion Records, released in 1972. James formed another band, Hot Lips, afterwards. He also briefly replaced Mendelson Joe in the Toronto blues band McKenna Mendelson Mainline.[15] During this period, James and Mainline guitarist Mike McKenna co-wrote the song "You Make the Magic", which would later be released by The Chambers Brothers as a B-side to their single "Boogie Children."[16]
Personal life[edit]
Relationships and children[edit]
James had two children with Syville Morgan, a former singer and songwriter. They had a daughter, Tyenza, and a son, Rick Jr.
James dated actress Linda Blair from 1982 to 1984. They met after James read an interview where Blair called him sexy. He contacted her and spent time getting to know the actress during a short stint living at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.[34] Early in their relationship, Blair became pregnant and had an abortion. James wrote in his memoir, "I loved Linda and it hurt me that she would choose to abort our child without even wanting to talk to me about it first. I still look back on her choice with sadness and wonder about our baby, and how having that child might have changed my life."[35] His hit song "Cold Blooded" was about his relationship with Blair. "It was about how Linda could freeze my blood," he wrote in his memoir.[5]
In 1989, James met 17-year-old party-goer Tanya Hijazi. The two began a romance in 1990. In 1993, the couple had their only child and James's youngest, Tazman. Following their respective releases from prison for assaulting Mary Sauger and Frances Alley,[36][37] they married in 1996 and divorced in 2002.
James was very close with Teena Marie, whom he met and began collaborating with in 1979. Teena Marie stated they were engaged "for two weeks."[38] Their professional partnership lasted into 2004, when Marie released her comeback album, La Doña, which included her and James's duet "I Got You". When James died, Teena Marie said she was "devastated by his death" and struggled with a painkiller addiction following his passing.[39]
Friendships[edit]
James had a close friendship with Eddie Murphy, whom he met in 1981. He was also close to Murphy's older brother Charlie Murphy, who worked as a security guard for his brother. On the Chappelle show skits, Charlie Murphy recalled occasions of mistreatment by James.
James was good friends with actress Debbie Allen. Allen once invited James to a Broadway show and sent a car to pick him up; during the show, James fell asleep due to exhaustion from prior sexual activities. Afterwards, Allen confronted him in the dressing room. She pinned him down and pleaded that he was throwing his life away. "All you do is get high and have sex," she said. He promised to change his ways, but he broke his promise that same night.[5][4]
James was also a friend of fellow Motown act performers Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, singers James idolized as a teenager. Additionally, he befriended Gaye's second wife, Janis, and he was godfather of Gaye's daughter Nona.[40] James's relationship with Robinson began shortly after James signed with Motown and, in 1983, the duo recorded the hit "Ebony Eyes".
James also idolized former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin and Ruffin's self-proclaimed cousin, bass vocalist Melvin Franklin, and grabbed at the chance to produce the hit "Standing on the Top" for them in 1982. Before that, the then-current lineup of the group recorded background vocals on two James-associated projects—James's Street Songs (singing "Ghetto Life" and "Super Freak") and Teena Marie's It Must Be Magic (singing on the title track). In "Super Freak", "It Must Be Magic", and "Standing on the Top", James famously shouted out, "Temptations, SING!"
Drug abuse and health problems[edit]
James's drug abuse began in his teens, first with marijuana and heroin. He began using cocaine in the late 1960s. Although James claimed that he quit cocaine when he entered prison, his autopsy showed there was a small amount of the drug in his bloodstream at the time of his death.[41]
His drug use led to major health problems. In April 1984, he was hospitalized after being found unconscious at his house by a friend.[42] In 1998, James suffered a stroke after a blood vessel ruptured in his neck during a concert at Mile High Stadium in Denver.[22] Earlier that year he had hip replacement surgery to repair bone damage "from jumping around on stage and substance abuse."[22]
Kidnapping, rape, and assault convictions[edit]
By the 1990s, James's drug abuse was public knowledge. He was heavily addicted to cocaine and later admitted to spending about $7,000 per week on drugs for five years straight. On August 2, 1991, James and his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi were arrested on charges of holding 24-year-old Frances Alley hostage for up to six days, tying her up, forcing her to perform sexual acts, and burning her legs and abdomen with the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe during a week-long cocaine binge.[37][43] James faced a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on all charges, which included assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated mayhem, torture, forcible oral copulation, false imprisonment and kidnapping.[36]
On November 3, 1992, while out on bail for that incident, James, under the influence of cocaine, assaulted music executive Mary Sauger at the St. James Club and Hotel in West Hollywood. Sauger said she met James and Hijazi for a business meeting, but that the two then kidnapped and beat her over a 20-hour period.[36]
James was found guilty of both offenses but was cleared of a torture charge that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. While serving his five-year sentence at Folsom Prison, James lost a civil suit to Sauger, who was awarded nearly $2 million in damages in 1994.[44] James was ordered to pay her about $1 million; the hotel and a private security firm were found liable for nearly $750,000 in damages due to negligence.[45] James was released from prison on August 21, 1996, after serving more than two years.[46]
In 1998, James was accused of sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman, but the charges were later dropped.[47] In 2020, his estate was sued for $50 million by a woman who accused him of raping her when she was 15 years old at a group home for troubled youths in Buffalo, New York, in 1979.[48][49] The suit was later dismissed.[50]
James's entire Motown Records back catalogue was released in 2014 on iTunes for the first time in digitally remastered form. This marked the first time many of his albums were widely available since their initial releases. Physical copies of James's albums, namely Fire It Up, Garden of Love and The Flag, have become rare and highly sought-after by fans.
