Rick James

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James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer.

James, a born and raised in Buffalo, New York, began his musical career in his youth.

He was in various bands before joining the United States Navy in order not to be drafted in the early 1960s.

James left Toronto, Canada, in 1964, where he formed the Mynah Birds, who later signed a recording contract with Motown Records in 1966.

After military investigators learned his whereabouts, James' service was suspended and eventually sentenced him to a one-year jail term for the charges related to the draft, he had to resign his position with the company.

Since being released, James migrated to California, where he formed a number of rock and funk bands in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After starting the Stone City Band in Buffalo in 1977, James eventually found fame as a singer after signing with Motown's Gordy Records, which has released the album Come Get It! "You & I" and "Mary Jane" were two of the hits in 1978. James released Street Songs, his most popular album, which included career-defining hits such as "Give It to Me Baby" and "Super Freak," the latter song's biggest crossover single, fusing elements of funk, disco, rock, and new wave.

Personal life

With Syville Morgan, a former singer and songwriter, James had two children. Tyenza's daughter and Rick Jr. were married, as well as a son, Rick Jr.

Linda Blair, a 1982 to 1984 actress, was dated by James. They met after James read an article in which Blair called him sexy. During a short stint at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, he called her and spent time getting to know the actress. Blair became pregnant and had an abortion early in their relationship. "I loved Linda and it pained me that she would want to abort our child" without even wishing to tell me about it first," James wrote in his book. "I'm still reflect on her pregnancy with sadness and trepidation over our children, and how having the child may have changed my life." "Cold Blooded" was his hit song about his friendship with Blair. In his memoir, Linda wrote, "It was about how Linda could freeze my blood."

In 1989, James met Tanya Hijazi, a 17-year-old partygoer. In 1990, the two met for the first time in a relationship. The couple had their first child and James' youngest, Tazman, in 1993. The couple married in 1996 and divorced in 2002 after being released from jail for attacking Mary Sauger and Frances Alley.

In 1979, James was very close to Teena Marie, whom he knew and began collaborating with. "For two weeks," Teena Marie said. Marie and James' professional association continued into 2004 when she released La Dolla, which featured her and James' duet "I Got You." Following James' death, Teena Marie was "devastated by his death" and suffered with a painkiller binge.

James had a close friendship with Eddie Murphy, whom he first met in 1981. Charlie Murphy, Murphy's older brother who served as a security guard for his brother, was also close. Charlie Murphy recalled instances of James' mistreatment on the Chappelle show skits.

James was a good friend of actress Debbie Allen. Allen once invited James to a Broadway show and sent a car to pick him up; after the performance, James fell asleep due to exhaustion from previous sexual pursuits. Allen confronted him in the dressing room later. She pinned him down and pleaded that he was thrown away his life. "All you do is get high and have sex," she said. He promised to change his ways but that night, he broke his promise.

As a youth, James was also a mentor of fellow Motown act performers Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, who were both a favorite of singer James Bond's childhood. In addition, he befriended Gaye's second wife, Janis, and he was the godfather of Gaye's daughter Nona. James' friendship with Robinson began shortly after James signed with Motown, and the pair scored the hit "Ebony Eyes" in 1983.

In 1982, James adored former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin and Ruffin's self-proclaimed cousin, bass vocalist Melvin Franklin, and hoped to produce "Standing on the Top" for them. Before that, the then-current lineup of the group performed background vocals on two James-associated projects, including "Ghetto Life" and "Understand") and Teena Marie's It Must Be Magic, as well as James' Street Songs (singing "Ghetto Life") and "Super Freak"), and Teena Marie's It Must Be Magic (singing on the title track). "Temptations, SING" in "Super Freak" and "It Must Be Magic" as well as "Standing on the Top" James Spikeout, James was one of the first to cry out.

James began smoking in his teens, first with weed and opium. In the late 1960s, he began using cocaine for the first time. By the 1980s, cocaine use had risen dramatically, and he was back to freebasing by the end of the decade. He often sprayed aluminum foil over the windows to discourage onlookers when he smoked crack cocaine in his Beverly Hills home. Despite James' statement that he stopped smoking before going to prison, his autopsy revealed there was a tiny amount of the drug in his bloodstream at the time of his death.

His opioid use resulted in serious health issues. He was hospitalized in April 1984 after being discovered unconscious at his house by a neighbor. During a performance at Mile High Stadium in Denver in 1998, James suffered a stroke after a blood vessel in his neck burst in his neck. "From jumping around on stage and heroin use," he had hip replacement surgery to repair bone damage earlier this year.

James' heroin use by the 1990s was well-known in public. He was heavily dependent on cocaine and then confessed to spending over $7,000 per week on drugs for five years in a row. During a week of cocaine binge, James and his partner Tanya Hijazi were arrested on August 2, 1991, tying her up, requiring her to perform sexual offences, and burning her legs and abdomen with the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe. If convicted on all charges, which included assault with a deadly weapon, escalated mayhem, torture, forcible oral copulation, and kidnapping, James faced a maximum sentence of life in jail.

While out on bail for the incident, James, a drug-addict, assaulted music executive Mary Sauger at the St. James Club and Hotel in West Hollywood on November 3, 1992. Sauger says she met James and Hijazi at a business meeting, but the two women kidnapped and beat her over a 20-hour period.

James was found guilty of both crimes, but he was not convicted of a murder charge that could have put him in prison for the remainder of his life. James lost a civil case to Sauger, who was fined almost $2 million in damages in 1994. He was serving his five-year term at Folsom Prison. James was ordered to pay her $1 million; the hotel and a private security company were found liable for almost $750,000 in damages as a result of negligence. After serving more than two years, James was released from jail on August 21, 1996.

In 1998, James was charged with sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman, but the charges were later dropped. In 2020, a woman who accused James of raping her when she was 15 years old at a group home for homeless youths in Buffalo, New York, was sued for $50 million. The complaint was later dismissed.

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Life and career

Johnson was born in Buffalo, New York, on February 1, 1948, to Mabel (née Sims) and James Ambrose Johnson Sr. He was one of eight children. At St. Bridget's Catholic Church, he served as an altar boy and choir member. When James was 10 years old, James' father, an autoworker, left the family. His mother, Katherine Dunham, was a dancer and later worked as a cleaner and later became a numbers-runner for the Buffalo crime family at night to make a living. James' mother would take him on her collecting journey, and it was in jails where she worked that James saw artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Etta James perform. Later in the autobiography Glow, James said he lost his virginity at "age 9 or 10) to a 14-year-old local girl, saying his "kinky nature came in early." Prior to dropping out, James attended Bennett High School. James was introduced to heroin at an early age and was arrested for burgling as a young teen. James joined the United States Navy Reserve at 14 or 15 years old, despite his stints in prison for robbery, in order to avoid the draft. During that time, he also worked with local jazz bands in New York City. He was ordered to Vietnam due to his absence from his twice-monthly Reserve sessions aboard USS Enterprise.

James moved to Toronto in 1964. Three inebriated men assaulted him outside a club, and a group of other men arrived to his rescue soon. Levon Helm, one of them, was a member of Ronnie Hawkins' backing band at the time. Later that night, Helm invited James to their show, but the band ended up onstage with the band. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, two local musicians, made friends in Toronto. James went under the assumed name "Ricky James Matthews" to defuse US military authorities. The Mynah Birds, a band that performed a fusion of soul, folk, and rock music, formed in the same year. The band briefly appeared on Columbia Records as a Canadian division of Columbia Records, releasing a single titled "Mynah Bird Hop"/"Mynah Bird Song." Nick St. Nicholas, a member of Steppenwolf fame, was a member, but Bruce Palmer had to replace him by the time "Mynah Bird Hop" was released. Tom Morgan, Xavier Taylor, and drummer Rick Mason were recruited by James and Palmer to form a new Mynah Birds line, and they soon moved to Detroit to record with Motown. Morgan left, unhappy with the label's attitude towards musicians before the band started recording their first songs for the label, left when the company was first released. Neil Young was eventually dismissed from office. James encountered his musical heroes, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, while in Detroit. Wonder felt the name "Ricky James Matthews" was "too long," and told James to shorten it to "Ricky James" after meeting Wonder and telling him his name.

A financial crisis in Toronto between James and the Mynah Birds' handler Morley Shelman led to Motown's discovery of James' fugitive service in the Navy. After straightening out their legal issues, Motown executives assured Rick they would not be publishing any more of their information and persuaded him not to come back and work with them, in the hopes of avoiding any scrutiny. James surrendered himself to the FBI in May 1966, and the Navy suspended him to five months' hard labor for unauthorised absence. He was only 19 years old when he was born. James recovered from the Brooklyn Naval Brig after only six weeks in jail, but a second time as a fugitive surrendered himself. James found legal help from his uncle, future congressman Louis Stokes, and another prosecutor, former Marine Captain John Bracken, who pleaded James' second court-martial decline from five years' hard work to five months, with support from his mother. After being released from Portsmouth Naval Prison in August 1967, James returned to Toronto and faced another detention, ultimately delaying his resuming of his war with Mynah Bird bandmate Neil Merryweather, with whom he would later collaborate, first in Motown and then in Los Angeles.

In 1968, James wrote and performed songs for acts including The Miracles, Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, and The Spinners, who appeared under the pseudonym Ricky Matthews. During this time, James briefly participated in pimping but eventually stopped because he was not qualified for it due to the brutality and the violence of women there. James met musician Greg Reeves during his third stay at Motown. Reeves, who were hoping to find a better place than the US$382 per week (2021 dollars), joined Berry Gordy as a session bassist, hoping to "hitch a lift from Neil Young's rising star," and migrated to Los Angeles.

James was crashing on musician Stephen Stills' couch on one of his first nights in Los Angeles. As he awakened, he discovered a stoned young man in the lotus position. The man's wrists were bleeding when he was rescued by a terrified James. James was later introduced to Jim Morrison, the Doors' lead singer. Morrison tricked James into taking acid at the Whisky a Go Go Go.

James began as a pair with Greg Reeves in California, but it was Reeves, not James, who was hired as bassist for the newly formed rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who jumped right away. Around this time, James created several versions of the rock band Salt'N'Pepper, as well as hair stylist Jay Sebring, who promised to invest in his music. 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. Sebring was discovered dead after he saw the Los Angeles Times headline "Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered."

Ed Roth, a 1971 salt and pepper member, appeared on Bruce Palmer's solo album The Cycle Is Complete. In Toronto, the pair was also part of the group Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth eventually changed their name to Great White Cane and released a self-titled album for Los Angeles' Lion Records, which was released in 1972. Hot Lips, James' successor, formed a new band. In the Toronto blues band McKenna Mendelson Mainline, he briefly replaced Mendelson Joe. During this period, James and Mainline guitarist Mike McKenna co-wrote "You Make the Magic," which would later be released by The Chambers Brothers as a B-side to their single "Boogie Children."

In 1973, James signed to A&M Records, where his first single under the name Rick James, "My Mama," was released in 1974, becoming a club hit in Europe.

In 1976, James returned to Buffalo and formed the Stone City Band. He began to perform "Get Up and Dance" shortly after. "It's his second single to be announced. In 1977, James and the Stone City Band signed a Motown/Bostonist Gordy Records imprint, where they first released their first album in New York City.

James released Come Get It!, his first solo album on which the Stone City Band appeared, in April 1978. "You and I," the album's first top-one R&B hit, debuted on the top 20 hits. "Mary Jane" was also included on the album, as the hit single. It eventually sold two million copies, launching James' musical career to fame and assisting Motown Records in a period when label fortunes had dwindled. Bustin' Out of L Seven, James' second album, followed the previous album's success in early 1979, selling a million copies. Fire It Up, a third album, was released in late 1979 and has gone gold. Around the same time, James launched his first headlining tour, the Fire It Up Tour, and announced that Prince, the then-upcoming artist, as well as singer Teena Marie, would appear as his opening act. James had produced Marie's smashing Motown debut album, Wild and Peaceful, and was featured on the hit song, "I'm a Sucker (For Your Love)" in the hit duet. On the album, James was credited with naming Marie, "Lady Tee," a term that stayed with Marie for the remainder of her career. After accusing the musician of ripping off his show, James' Fire It Up tour culminated in him forming a bitter rivalry with Prince May.

Following the conclusion of the tour in 1980, James released the ballads-heavy Garden of Love, his fourth gold record. Street Songs, James' best-selling album to date, was released in 1981, which was a concept album like his previous four albums. Street Songs featured a fusion of genres, including rock and new wave, as well as James' brand of crossover funk, enabling James' own style of "punk funk." The album featured hit singles including "Ghetto Life," "Fire and Desire," "Give It to Me Baby," and his highest crossover hit to date, "Super Freak," which peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over 1 million copies. Street Songs reached their peak in R&B and number three pop, selling more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. Following up to their success, James released two more gold albums, 1982's Thrown' Down and 1983's Cold Blooded.

During this period, when Prince was also a success as a producer of other bands including The Time and Vanity 6, he and the Mary Jane Girls, starring his former background singer Joanne "JoJo" McDuffie, found success with the latter group, "All Night Long" and "In My Home." "Standing on the Top" was James' top-ten R&B hit in 1982. With singer Smokey Robinson, James recorded "Ebony Eyes" as well as a ballad "Tell Me What You Want" with Billy Dee Williams' introduction. With the album "Party All the Time," James produced another hit for entertainer Eddie Murphy in 1985. He appeared on an episode of The A-Team with Isaac Hayes earlier this year. James signed with Warner Bros. Records, which released the album Wonderful in 1988, which also included the hit, "Loosey's Rap," after the introduction of his ninth solo album, The Flag, in 1986.

James' tumultuous and provocative image became threatening at times. During a time when simple possession of marijuana may result in a long-term prison term, James was often threatened by cops in several cities that if he smoked marijuana on stage during concerts of songs such as "Fire It Up" and "Mary Jane," he was often threatened. Most Motown employees mistakenly thought the former song was a "simple cute love song to a girl" unaware of the fact that it was about marijuana, according to Kerry Gordy.

James' overtly sexual bravado made it impossible for him to be a bigger mainstream performer. James attempted to introduce the music video to MTV in August 1981, but the channel refused to air the song. James referred to the network of bigotry. MTV denied this, arguing that MTV's real reason for "Super Freak" was turned down by MTV was because James' video was too vulgar for the channel. In a 1983 interview, Michael Jackson and Prince accused the two artists of being "tokens" and demanding that any black artist with a video appearing on MTV remove their video from the channel in protest. Despite the success of Jackson and Prince, David Bowie, who complained with MTV VJ Mark Goodman about the lack of black artists on the channel, was cosigned by James.

In the case of MTV and BET's reluctant to air "Loosey's Rap" due to its explicit sexual content, James considered the networks hypocritical in light of them still playing provocative videos by artists such as Madonna.

Kickin', James' 11th album, was only released in the United Kingdom in 1989. By 1990, he had broken with Reprise/Warner Bros., and James was battling with personal and legal difficulties. "U Can't Touch This," MC Hammer's hit single this year, which sampled the popular opening riff from "Super Freak" from "Unclear." In 1991, James and his co-writer on "Super Freak," Alonzo Miller, received a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, and all three of them received a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.

In 1997, James released Urban Rapsody, his first album since being released from jail on assault charges, and he toured to promote the record. In interviews for the VH1 musical documentary series Behind the Music, which aired in early 1998, he spoke about his personal and professional life. After suffering a minor stroke at a concert in 1998, James' musical career slowed again. For the 1998 soundtrack album Chef Aid: The South Park Album, he appeared on the song "Love Gravy" with Ike Turner. In the comedy-drama Life (1999), James accepted Eddie Murphy's invitation to appear in the comedy-drama Life (1999).

In early 2004, after years of being out of the spotlight, James appeared in a comedy sketch on Chappelle's Show in a segment entitled "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories." During the early 1980s, James and Murphy shared amusing tales of their lives together. "I'm Rick James, bitch!" says James' character, played by Dave Chappelle during the sketch. "Cocaine is a hell of a drug," James narrated his previous use with the term.

Since being on the show, James enjoyed a comeback in his career. He supported Teena Marie's tour of her album La Doa and toured with her in May 2004; he appeared at the KBLX Stone Soul Picnic, Hayward, California. On June 29, 2004, James made his last public appearance and appearance at the fourth annual BET Awards. With Teena Marie, he produced a live rendition of "Fire & Desire." "Never mind who you believed I was, I'm Rick James, bitch," James yelled out backstage when he didn't recognize him by saying, "Never mind who I was, I'm Rick James, bitch." As James walked off the stage, the audience erupted and gave him a standing ovation.

At the time of his death, James was working on an autobiography called The Confessions of a Super Freak: Memoirs of a Super Freak, as well as a new album. Colossus Books' book was finally published in 2007 and includes a snapshot of his tombstone. David Ritz, a music journalist and biographer who had been recruited by James to work on the book with him, later said that this version did not accurately reflect how the musician wanted himself to be presented. Ritz released Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James in 2014, a re-edited version.

James was the subject of a documentary film 'Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James' directed by Sacha Jenkins, which was produced and broadcast by Showtime in 2021. The documentary has 100% positive reviews from 13 professional reviewers, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

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