Rickey Vincent Music.com
Here we go! The Rickey Vincent CD, all kinds of fun, with a little silly-seriousness tossed in. I hope y’all enjoy it.
This project took almost three years. When local funk producer Phil "PTFI" Jones walked up to me at a Katdelic show and said "you're next Rick!," we both knew exactly what he meant. It took just one session of listening to his Atomic slam funk beats - fully formed instrumental songs - for me to visualize almost the entire album!
Phil likes to make his own tracks from scratch, and his PTFI albums with Zootzilla, Dr. Illenstein and New Trinity Revolution are tha bomb! But very quickly in the process I came up with diabolical plans to add guest artist after guest artist, and the process just grew and grew. But everything turned out the way I was hoping for, so it is all good, and I hope you will agree!
THE STORY BEHIND THE RICKEY VINCENT CD
The Rickey Vincent CD began way back in 2012! And the idea began even before that. Well before the CD started, Phil "PTFI" Jones was producing music for our homie Sam "Zoot Zilla" Brown. His first CD P'n All Over The Place is one of the best indie P-Funk jammy CD's around, and that inspred a lot of us Bay Area funkers to Put Somethin' Out!
I was teaching classes at Bay Area schools on "The History of Funk," and "From Bebop to Hip Hop" and the funk story kept on unfolding. Meanwhile PTFI was on board with Ronkat Spearman's KATDELIC as beats player and hype man. At a December 2012 Katdelic show, Phil came up to me and said "Youre next Rick!" And it started from there.
The next week Phil and I had a session and he played some of his massive archive of fully formed funk tracks. I was able to pick and choose the hottest and stankyest tracks that would one day be on the Rickey Vincent CD!
Sam "Zoot Zilla" Brown, Phil "PTFI" Jones and Rickey Vincent celebrating the release of "Who The Funk is PTFI"!
The record took time because we al had our own lives, and were moving, raising kids, & expanding our careers while all the time working on our funk and our funkativity! Phil knew how to keep a project going through to the finish, and I kept coming up with more and more ideas for collaborations and guest stars. Eventually all of this came together in the summer of 2016 and it was time to put somethin' out! Learning each and every step along the way was part of the most exciting and fulfilling parts of this whole thang! and now the proof is in the puddin'!
THE BOOTSY CONNECTION
In September 2015, Bootsy's Rubber Band played the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. They could have been playing on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, I was on a mission to let Bootsy know about the RV CD, and to get him to say the one funky phrase... "Rickey Vincent, you a fool for tha funk!"
I felt strongly that Boots would dig the recordings - I only had about half the tracks finished - and that if he could hear the album, he would be happy to add a little flava to the jam.
So I reached out to Patti early on, and she is always looking for fresh angles to introduce ideas and thangs to the show, and she invited me to introduce the band that night! Whoohoo that was something else!
But I also was on that mission, and waited for Bootsy and his whole family operation to wrap up their show and for Boots to wind down. I got to hang with bass player Mike Cobb, and the lovely Candi Can Do Cheatham, and I was able to talk with MuddBone and let him know what was up too! Then Bootsy was ready and I played him the jams!
When the song that features my talk with James Brown came up, Bootsy was truly moved. He stood up, & said "Rick this is over due!" He also talked about James Brown and how much he was a father figure to him. So he gave me that sound byte, and it felt like I was Certified with the Funk to keep on going!
Then in August 2016, almost a year later, the RV CD was just about done, but it had a few edits remaining, and the sound needed to be finished, the disc needed to be mastered. But right around August 1st I realized Bootsy was coming back to The Bay to play in Oakland at the Paramount on August 26th. I was on a mission to finish the album, get it mastered, get the cover design wrapped up, and get copies of the CD ready so I could hand one to Bootsy in Oakland!
Phil said it was going to take too long, but we got the mix finialized, and with the help of Lyz Luke I got in touch with Piper Payne of Coast Mastering in Berkeley and we cranked out that mix!
I then got some promo CD's made and handed one to Bootsy, and Muddbone the night of their KILLER Oakland show! Thank U Bootsee for the Inspiration baba!!