Bootsy Collins gives love to Detroit as city salutes bass pioneer at Friday funk show
For Bootsy Collins, a show in Detroit isn’t just another gig. Any time the groundbreaking bassist visits the Motor City — as he’ll do Friday, Aug. 8, for a Music Hall tribute concert — he is back in his second hometown.
It was here, after all, that Bootsy and his star-shaped Space Bass rocketed into the funk-soul universe, first with George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic and later with his own Bootsy’s Rubber Band, with wind-me-up hits like 1978’s “Bootzilla.”
Bootsy Collins performs at the at House of Blues Sunset Strip on Nov. 12, 2013, in West Hollywood, California.
Having run the musical gauntlet in the early ’70s as part of James Brown’s original J.B.’s group — famously enlisted on the fly after other band members bailed — the Cincinnati native soon found his way to Detroit.
In that post-Motown era, Clinton was becoming the ringleader for a next phase of urban musical energy. The charismatic bass playing of Collins made an ideal fit.