Rick James

Scheduled for release in 2005 is the DVD Rick James: Rockpalast Live, which features a 1982 concert performance from Essen, Germany. See also: Krautrock. Although he was married previously (and later divorced), he leaves behind three children, Tazman, Ty, and Rick James, Jr.; and granddaughters Jasmine and Charisma. In 2002 Q magazine named Kraftwerk as one of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". At the time of his death, he was working on an autobiography, Confessions Of A Superfreak, as well as a new album. The new album, Tour de France Soundtracks, was finally released in August 2003, making it the first album of new Kraftwerk material since 1986's Electric Cafe. Rick James was interred in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. An announcement by their record company of a July 22, 2003 release also fell through, with the perfectionists delaying again for several weeks.

A coroner's report released September 16, 2004 officially ruled his death as accidental, reporting nine drugs found in James' bloodstream:. The single Expo 2000, their first new song in 13 years, was released in December 1999, and was subsequently remixed by contemporary electronic musicians such as Orbital. James had died from pulmonary and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, and a pacemaker being listed as attributing factors. The growing time between recordings, the rarity of live performances and the increasingly exacting and protracted nature of the recording process were major reasons behind the departure of Flür and especially Bartos, whose improvisations were an essential part of the earlier Kraftwerk recordings . On August 6, 2004, Rick James was found dead in his Los Angeles home by his caretaker. Like a number of other recording artists, Hütter and Schneider appear to have become increasingly perfectionist in their attitude towards recording and releasing their music. Rick James' last public performance was at the 2004 BET Music Awards on June 29, 2004. Part of the on-stage routine involved a crowd-pleasing recital of the Chappelle's Show catch phrase by the real James himself. After years of withdrawal from live performance, Kraftwerk began to tour again more regularly in the late 1990s and in 2004, and stated that they were working on new material -- though speculation about release dates fell through several times.

The sketch was one of the most famous to come from the show, returning James to the public spotlight and making "I'm Rick James, bitch!" a popular catch phrase. They do however state that a reasonable fraction of the instrumentation is actually played live, and that they do improvise somewhat from show to show. The young James, played by Chappelle, was depicted as an egotistical, misogynistic cocaine addict who picked upon Murphy and constantly reminded people "I'm Rick James, bitch!" Charlie Murphy played himself in both the flashback sequences (complete with Jheri curl) and mock interview segments, which are contrasted with mock interview footage of the real James, who refutes some of Murphy's recollections while acknowledging his own problems at the same time. Footage where James uses the expression "Cocaine's a hell of a drug" is edited into the skit a number of times to sum up his alleged behavior. At times, mannequins built to look like the band members replace or accompany the live musicians, known simply as "the robots". The three-part skit was a fictional E! True Hollywood Story-style retrospective of the supposed love-and-hate friendship between James and Eddie Murphy's older brother Charlie Murphy during James' early-1980s peak. Their stage act involves the members standing behind minimalistic desks, controlling the various sequencers that drive the show. On February 11, 2004, Dave Chappelle aired a Rick James-parodying skit called "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories" on his sketch comedy television program, Chappelle's Show. Kraftwerk also pioneered the use of computer graphics as a backdrop for their shows.

Rick James attempted a comeback with a new album and tour in 1997, but suffered a mild stroke during a concert in Denver, Colorado, effectively ending his musical career. Kraftwerk have impinged on mainstream popular culture to the extent that they have been referenced in The Simpsons and Father Ted. He was released in 1995, and during interviews for a segment of the VH1 series Behind The Music, he spoke openly about his life and his battle with drugs for the first time. The tracks were cleverly reworked in a Latin American music style. Serving two years in Folsom Prison did not stop him from writing new songs, even if he did it behind bars. In 2000, electronic musician Uwe Schmidt, recording as Señor Coconut, released an album of Kraftwerk covers called El Baile Alemán. In 1993, James was convicted of assaulting two women, with the first assault during one of his cocaine binges. Kraftwerk have also been extensively sampled by some influential musicians and bands including Afrika Bambaataa, Beck, The Orb, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu/KLF, Madonna, Depeche Mode, De La Soul, R.E.M., Meat Beat Manifesto, Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, the Bloodhound Gang, and many more.

He was a recreational drug user, addicted mainly to cocaine. Five songs were arranged for strings for their album Possessed. As the 1980s segued into the 1990s, the dark side of James' life began to overpower his music. Their music has been recorded by the classical ensemble the Balanescu Quartet. During this period, he also helped launch the careers of Caucasian R&B singer Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls as well as producing actor Eddie Murphy's one-hit wonder "Party All The Time.". The single "Tour de France" featured lyrics in French. The stream of hits continued into the mid-1980s with "Teardrops", "Cold Blooded", "17", "You Turn Me On" and "Glow", which was his last R&B hit in 1985. Notably, all of their albums from Trans-Europe Express onwards have been recorded in two separate versions -- one with German vocals for sale in Germany, and one with English vocals for international sale.

Other hits from Street Songs included "Give it to Me Baby", "Fire & Desire" with protege Teena Marie and "Ghetto Life". They also pioneered the use of backing tracks that were generated by the electronic sequencing of purely synthetic sounds. "Super Freak", which features guest vocals from The Temptations, was sampled for MC Hammer's 1990 Grammy award-winning song "U Can't Touch This". Many of the vocals in Kraftwerk songs are processed through a Vocoder, or generated using speech synthesis software -- a Speak & Spell was used on their 1981 album Computer World. The 1981 release included "Super Freak", James biggest hit. Kraftwerk were certainly one of the first, if not the first "pop" act to record using pure electronic (or electronically processed) instruments and sounds exclusively. After 1980's lackluster Garden Of Love album, he then recorded a concept album entitled Street Songs. This was followed by a trio of albums that were to exert a huge influence on popular music -- Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977) and their masterpiece, The Man Machine (1978).

The latter included hits such as the title track and "Spacey Love" a ballad dedicated to singer Patti Labelle. After several early experimental albums their breakthrough came in 1974 (1974 in music) with the Autobahn album and the 22-minute title track (see "Autobahn" SAMPLE (252 kilobytes)), which was a worldwide hit and demonstrated their increasing reliance on synthesizers and electronics. 1979 saw James release two albums: Bustin' Out Of L Seven, in January, and Fire It Up that fall. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life -- a strong sense of alienation existing side by side with a celebration of the joys of modern technology. The album also featured his ode to marijuana, "Mary Jane". The lyrics are usually very minimal, but reveal both an innocent celebration of, and a knowing caution about the modern world, as well as playing an integral role in the rhythmic structure of the songs. James' breakthrough single was "You And I", an eight-minute magnum opus from his 1978 debut album Come Get It. Kraftwerk's lyrics dealt with postwar European urban life and technology—travelling by car on the Autobahn, travelling by train, using home computers and the like.

He soon began recording for Motown's Gordy label, first with the Hot Lips and then with a new version of the Stone City Band. Plank produced the first four Kraftwerk albums, but ceased working with them after the commerical success of Autobahn, apparently over a dispute about contracts. In 1977, he returned to Motown as a songwriter/producer. Plank worked with many other leading German acts (including members of Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia) and largely as a result of his work with Kraftwerk, Plank's studio in Cologne (Köln) became one of the most sought-after studios in Europe in the late Seventies. James signed to A&M Records the following year and issued a single entitled "My Mama". The input, expertise and influence of producer/engineer Conny Plank was also significant. An album's worth of material was recorded in mid-1973 but was never released. Following the departure of Flür and Bartos, various Kling Klang studio personnel such as Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz have appeared in the Kraftwerk live line-up.

At the end of 1972, James and Roth formed the first version of the Stone City Band with Peter Hodgson (bass), Danny Marks (guitar) and Malcolm Tomlinson (drums/vocals). Painter Emil Schult has been a regular collaborator with the band since 1973 (originally playing bass guitar and electric violin, then designing artwork and additional lyrics, and accompanying them on tour). The group recorded an album for Lion Records in Los Angeles in March 1972, but by that summer they had disbanded. This show saw the public debut of the group's striking self-built electronic percussion pads, played by Flür.). In 1971, James and Roth recorded two singles in Toronto for RCA Records with Heaven and Earth, a band that also featured guitarist Stan Endersby, bass player Denny Gerrard, and drummer Pat Little. James left Heaven and Earth later that year; he, Roth, and Gerrard formed a new group called Great White Cane with horn players Bob Doughty and Ian Kojima, drummer Norman Wellbanks, guitarist Nick Balkou, and keyboard player John Cleveland Hughes. (Flür had joined the band in 1973 as a drummer, in prepartion for a television appearance to promote their third album. The group recorded a demo for Atlantic Records, and played at the Fillmore West with Jethro Tull. This quartet would be the band's public persona for their classic output of the 1970s and 1980s.

Former Buffalo Springfield roadie Chris Sarns played bass for a while, before Ron Johnson from Kaleidoscope stepped in the following year. This saw the band presented as a electronic quartet, with Hütter & Schneider joined by Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos as electronic percussionists. In the summer of 1969, he moved to Los Angeles, California and formed a band called Salt 'N' Pepper with Canadians Ed Roth (keyboards), Dave Burt (guitar), and Coffi Hall (drums). What is generally regarded as the classic Kraftwerk line-up formed in 1975, for the Autobahn tour. He soon returned to Motown and became a songwriter and producer at Motown, working with Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers and The Spinners. The early Kraftwerk line-ups (1970-1974) fluctuated, Hütter & Schneider working with around half a dozen other musicians over the course of recording four albums and sporadic live appearances - most notably guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who left to form the revered band Neu!. James spent a year in the Brooklyn Brig, after which he returned to briefly returned to Toronto. The two had met as students in the late 1960s, and had already released one album (Tone Float) playing in a five-piece improvisation group called Organisation.

Motown told him to give himself up to the FBI, and the Mynah Birds' album was shelved. Kraftwerk was founded in 1970 by Florian Schneider-Esleben (flute) and Ralf Hütter (keyboards), the pair setting up their Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf. The band fired their manager, who in turn told the label that James was AWOL. Today many popular Techno DJs refer to them as one of their most important influences. With Young on board, the Mynah Birds returned to Motown to record an album, but their manager pocketed the advance money the label had given the band. The techniques that they introduced and the equipment that they developed are now commonplace in modern music. Morgan was unhappy with the label's attitude towards the musicians and left, with Neil Young taking his place. Kraftwerk (German for "power plant") is a German avant-garde electro-pop group from Düsseldorf that contributed much to the development of, and interest in, electronic music.

In early 1966, the Mynah Birds auditioned for the Motown label in Detroit, Michigan. Tour de France Soundtracks - 2003. Shortly afterwards, James and Palmer formed a new Mynah Birds lineup with guitarists Tom Morgan and John Taylor, and drummer Rickman Mason. The Mix - 1991 (new recordings of older songs). Nicholas left the band and was replaced by Bruce Palmer. Electric Cafe - 1986 (Originally scheduled by EMI for release in 1983 under the title Techno Pop, the material was re-worked into this album.). In early 1965, St. Computerwelt 1981 - (English title: Computer World).

By the end of 1964, the group had evolved into The Mynah Birds and recorded a single for the Canadian arm of Columbia Records. Die Mensch-Maschine - 1978 (English title: The Man-Machine). Nicholas. Trans-Europa Express - 1977 (English title: Trans-Europe Express). His first band was called The Sailor Boys, which also featured future Steppenwolf member Nick St. Radio-Aktivität - 1975 (English title: Radio-Activity). Fleeing north to Toronto, Canada in the summer of 1964, James continued his musical career. Autobahn - 1974.

He began missing weekend training because it interfered with his musical career and was reported AWOL. Ralf und Florian - 1973. Naval Reserve. Kraftwerk 2 - 1972. At age 15, James joined the U.S. Kraftwerk - 1971. His uncle was Melvin Franklin, the bass vocalist of The Temptations. Tone Float - 1970 (as Organisation).

Born in Buffalo, New York, James was the third of eight children; his father was an autoworker and his mother a former dancer. One of the most popular artists on Motown during the late 1970s and early 1980s, James was famous for his wild brand of funk music and his trademark locks, sporting them well before the style was popularized by actress Bo Derek. Rick James (James Ambrose Johnson, Jr.) (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004) was an African-American funk and soul musician, who worked as a singer, keyboardist, bassist, record producer, arranger, and composer during his long career. Anthology (2002).

Urban Rapsody (1997). Bustin' Out: The Very Best of Rick James (1994). Wonderful (1988). The Flag (1986).

Glow (1985). Reflections (1984). Cold Blooded (1983). Throwin' Down (1982).

Street Songs (1981; deluxe edition released 2001). Garden of Love (1980). Fire It Up (1979). Bustin' Out of L Seven (1979).

Come Get It (1978).