Perhaps as much as any work of a twentieth-century entertainer, the music of James Brown has had a profound impact on American culture, both musically and socially. A great influence on everyone from Miles Davis and Sly Stone to the Black Panthers and scads of contemporary drum 'n' bass sampling deejays, James Brown literally founded what we call funk. R&B existed before the "Godfather Of Soul" injected it with his scalding moves and dizzying dance steps, but with much grit and gusto, he supercharged it into the 1960s and beyond.

The songs ring like an American manifesto of freedom and rejuvenation, kind of like a musical Declaration Of Independence. Of course, this was independence of a super-syncopated, mean­eyed, "Give The Drummer Some" style: "I Got The Feelin'," "Licking Stick," "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag, Part I," "Night Train," "Make It Funky," "Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud)," and of course "Cold Sweat." And the grooves on these classics still chill the spine. You could say that James Brown focused a feeling that was pure sex into an extraordinary tongue-in­groove rhythm section.

But to say that Brown invented the funk sinzle-handedIv would make Jabo Starks and Clvde Stubblefield… well… break out in a cold sweat. As with most innovations, JB’s funk wasn’t cre ated in a vacuum. A thorough listen to the JB two-CD set Soul Pride: The Instrumentals 1960-1969 attests to this. Prior to the arrival of Starks and Stubblefield, witty drummers such as Melvin Parker, Nat Hendricks, and James Brown himself played slippery ruffs and irregular beats that resemble the funk we know. But with Jabo's appearance on "New Breed," the groove became more agitated and assured. The drummer's popping snare drum and fatter bass drum foot lent the music greater authority and drive than on previous tracks. On "Jabo," Starks' steely style is joyous, driving the band with glee.

Clyde shows up on disc two with "In The Middle, Pt. I," dropping his slamming bass drum and dancing stick figures head-on, like a steam train coasting with a full load of coal, The sound is so relaxed, almost arrogant, and the feel is wet but nail-hard and passionate-and always so cool. Clyde's groove exists in the perfect space all drummers seek but hardly ever find. "Soul Pridel" "Sudsy," "The Chicken," and the famous, heavily sampled "Funky Drummer" are what modem funk is all about.

Without Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield, the legacy we call funk would be an entirely dif­ferent animal. The tracks the two greats played on are hard to clarify, but luckily Jabo has the memory of an elephant. His contributions include "Sex Machine," "Papa Don't Take No Mess," "Make It Funky," "Super Bad," "The Payback," "Doin' It To Death," and "Licking Stick." Clyde does it to death on "Mother Popcorn," "Cold Sweat," "Funky Drummer," "Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud)," "I Got The Feelin' , " and "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose." (Giving credit where it's due, they both point out that drummer Clayton Fillyau is responsible for JB classics "I Got You [I Feel Good]" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag.")

Surprise! The funk that this dynamic duo created over thirty years ago has not changed. Watching the pair record an upcoming instructional video for Rittor Music in an upstate New York studio, the funk slams you in the face like a sharp-heeled tidal wave. Playing with organist John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood) and guitarist John Scofield, along with James Brown alumni trombonist Fred Wesley and bassist Fred Thomas, the grooves are unbelievably deep. Far from living or playing in the past, Starks and Stubblefield still exude a palatable chemistry, and their styles are as potent as ever. Sixteenth-note grooves, shuffles, gnarly locomotive funk, swing-the pair eat it all for lunch and keep driving the youngsters hard.

Keeping with their personalities, it's fair to say that Starks is the more extroverted of the pair, the one more influenced by jazz, the one with the more driving swing cymbal touch and the hotter snare drum sound, and the one with the bigger, more gregarious smile on his face. Stubblefield, by comparison, says more with less. Using bigger drums, his grooves are deep, soulful, and more simple. At the videotaping, on one song the band drops out and it's just Clyde and the groove. That's when you hear it, what Jabo calls that "Holy Ghost" feeling. It's a groove that is so locked in and swinging, rock-hard but greased to maximum effect-the feeling that nothing else exists but that groove. It's that primal feel that all people can feel in their gut (and all drummers cry over with envy).

And when the pair play together, it's a regular old church meeting, a grand concourse of laughs, grooves, and grins. Above all else, the two are the best of friends and have kept each other on track for these many years. From soul serenader Bobby Blue Bland to Godfather James Brown to techno rockers Garbage, Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield have made them all give the drummer some. And then some.

Ken Micallef

KM: It's been thirty years since the heyday of James Brown & The Fabulous Flames, yet you two are still together and still slamming. What's the secret?

JABO: Friendship. There's a lot of friendship and respect for each other. What we've done is, all the things that most people say would be adversity, we've turned into positive things. We've shared much adversity, but we laugh at it 'cause you still have to understand where you come from and where you are now. It's been a learning process.

CLYDE: And it's been fun to play together and be able to experiment and not have problems doing it, It's like being a mad scientist in a way. You can play what you feel as long as it's done tastefully and within the pocket. We do that pretty well. It's amazing how Jabo and me work. He plays one type of beat and I come along and play a different groove against what he's playing. And it works! We can't explain it. But Jabo and I come from sort of the same background. We've heard the same things. He was inspired to play the drums when he went to a parade and heard the drummers, and it was the same for me. That's what got us interested.

JABO: I heard that lead drummer take charge. When he stopped you knew, he wasn't playing. I couldn't understand it at the time, but I knew I wanted to do that.

CLYDE: Same thing for me. And Jabo has always been my idol as a drummer. I have others now, but coming up, from that marching drum corps to listening to Jabo with Bobby Blue Bland, I knew I wanted to do that. I never had the slightest idea that I would ever meet this man. [laughs] It just came out of the blue! We were on the same path.

JABO: There is teamwork, but there's also respect and love for each other. After we met, the friendship was there. You play, but you form a bond with each other. That means more than a whole lotta stuff.

KM: When you play together, there's a spiritual quality present. It may sound corny, but....

JABO: Why would you say "corny"? We are blessed to be able to do what we do. We thank God for that gift. He's why you see the two of us here. You must understand that when Clyde and I play together, it intertwines, it fits. We've played together a long time. We understand each other. When he's playing I complement what he's doing, and vice versa. We don't get in each other's way, we just groove with it, man. And we've got a certain way that we can look at each other, and I know exactly what he wants to do.

CLYDE: It's magic.

KM: When you play there's an element of excellence that you don't see in the average musician.

CLYDE: What I admire about Jabo is his caring and sharing with other musicians. We just have a good time doing our drums, enjoying ourselves, and meeting other people. We don't care about being big stars.

JABO: We want to share what we know and what's happened to us with other drummers. But when people say we were the innovators, well, we never looked at it that way.I think we were disciplined, and we learned to be that way from all the dues we paid. Now we know that it's not about trying to outplay anybody. I don't try to show how many chops I got. I don't have time for that. I just want to groove with what Clyde is doing. I'm not there to say I'm the world's greatest. I'm there to make the music happen. Besides, the minute you think that you're the best, there's always some other guy who will cat you alive. But I will say this much: When it comes down to being funky and grooving, nobody can beat us at our own game. We jell with each other.

KM: Jabo, you seem to play more with the shank up on the hi-hat, while Clyde seems to have a thicker-sounding rimshot. And Jabo, you play traditional grip but Clyde, you play matched.

CLYDE: He plays his style and I play mine. His snare drum is tighter than mine. Jabo has a beautiful touch-nice and light. I look for a thuggy, fatter sound, but Jabo looks for a sharp sound. You'd think the combination wouldn't work, but somehow it does.

JABO: We play differently. I'm a bit more traditional, more jazz-inspired.

CLYDE: I've never asked you, Jabo, do you dance?

JABO: I used to dance. I was real good!

CLYDE: See, when I'm playing drums, I play with a lot of motion. I think that's what helps me keep the groove going. Jabo's motion is more inside of him-more subtle-but he still plays with a lot of bounce.

JABO: Clyde and I had James' show down to a science. When we were playing we had to watch him, because at any given moment he would point and that would tell us which one should play-and that could happen anywhere, even in the middle of a song!

CLYDE: He would switch us while a song was going on. But the groove would stay strong. That took some doing, but we got it. It's amazing to think back about that. What a show!

KM: These days so much of what's recorded is cut to a click track. Did you ever wonder if you were playing behind or ahead of the beat?

JABO: No, no, no! Let me say something about that: We're human.

CLYDE: Correct.

JABO: So therefore, don't try to take the human factor out of it. Anything that is mechanical will fail. Sure, musicians and drummers may vary the tempo a little. But if you're locked in with the rest of the rhythm section, who's going to know if you varied it a little bit? You tell us where you want the time, and we'll play it there. Now we may vary the tempo, but it's going to feel good. There's no way I can play with anything mechani­cal.

CLYDE: I consider us to be human metronomes. When I was a kid, going downtown with my mom, I walked in time. You stumble over your own self if you don't. [laughs] I'd hum a song while I was walking, and I think that's how I got into the rhythm of drums. Keep it natural.

JABO: I was blessed to be able to play time. I will not let a horn player, a guitar player, or a bassist sway me to the point where I'll go off from where I am. We will lock in. As a drummer you are the heart of the group, you pump energy to all the instruments that are there. If you stop pumping, it's going to be dead.

KM: Do some people have good time and others don't?

CLYDE: I think everybody's got the abili­ty to have good tirne. But if you don't focus in on it, like knowing yourself and what you do with it, you won't play it as well. Playing the groove is life for us. It's our breathing. It's what we're all about.

CLYDE: Absolutely. It’s so important.

JABO: We also tazlk about drummers being themselves. Be you. Take a little from Clyde, take a little from me, a little from David Garibaldi, a little from Steve Gadd, and mix it all in the same bowl and come up with your own thing. We also focus on learning to play with a rhythm serction. If you never lock in, you’’ll never get called.

CLYDE: You’ll also never feel that flow, which is so exciting. And that flow is in all music. Jabo and I have no preferences on what type of music we play - well we do, but we should say we’re able to play any type of music. We put our feeling to what’s going on, be it reggae, blues, rock’n roll, country or jazz.

KM: It’s great that you’re out there giving so much of yourselves at your clinics. Is your clinic program structured ?

CLYDE: We talk and play individually, then we play together. We field questions. Most of questions we get are about how we played certain James Brown patterns.

JABO: hat’s what we did on our video as well. We tried to show younger drummers the simplest way we know how to play tune and make them groove. I don’t think it’s so important for them to play the exact same beat that we played, as long as they go for the feeling.

CLYDE: For someone to play the same pattern that we played, well, they’re probably not going to get the same feel we got. You want to play a feeling. Working on the patterns is certainly a good thing to do, but you have to keep the groove in mind.

KM: Watching both of you play, I notice you that you don’t use the toms all that much.

CLYDE: We don’t look ot the toms as solo drums, but as seasoning for the groove. We didn’t use the toms with James Brown much at all. We focused on the snare, hit-hat and bass drum. We might use the floor tom a little bit, but we didn't really need it.

KM: Do you two feel that you're better musicians now than you were then?

CLYDE: Yes. I didn't actually know what I was doing back then. I was having a good time, and everybody was bragging about what I was doing, which was okay. But now I understand what they were bragging about! Now I'm trying to take what I was doing then and go further with it.

JABO: Age brings about experience. I think I'm more focused now.

KM: Has your internal clock slowed down?

CLYDE: It can if you let it, but we haven't let ours slow down one bit.

JABO: For what reason? The time is strong, although I know I don't play the way I did when I was twenty. I'm in a different place, but I like it.

KM: Had you both played with John Scofield before?

CLYDE: I had been on the road with him last year for his new CD.

JABO: This was the first time I've played with both John Medeski and Scofield. But the funny thing is, it felt like we had been playing together for years. That was a groove! We were feeding off each other.

CLYDE: When you work with other musicians, you have to be at peace with yourself. You have to respect yourself in order to deserve respect and love from others. If you don't respect yourself, you aren't going to do too much in your life that is beneficial. Respect yourself, and respect others.

KM: Do you hear anything missing among younger players today?

CLYDE: Discipline. A lot of younger drummers don't stay focused on the groove.

CLYDE: I didn't know about discipline when I came into his band. I just knew that this was the greatest gig I ever had, and my job was to perform. I had to keep it together.

JABO: When James Brown hired someone, there was an understanding that he was running an organization. You had to adhere to the policies of the organization or you weren't going to make it. He had a dress code, you had to have a certain respect for one another, you had to be on time-you couldn't be fooling around.

KM: After working with James Brown for a number of years and recording all of those classic grooves, eventually you both left his band to do other things. What came after James Brown for you?

JABO: Well, when I was with James, there was a point when the whole band left to go with Maceo, Parker. I would have gone too, but I had a contract with James. So I couldn't leave. We'd all had enough of it, though. When they left I was the only one who stayed. I lived up to my obligation. Bootsy Collins and those other guys came in, and I stayed for a while. But eventually I left to go with BB King. After that I went back home.

CLYDE: After I left James I went to Detroit and joined up with Motown, which was in 1970. But I couldn't take Detroit; it was too violent. I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. That's where, years later, I met Butch Vig and played on the Garbage CD. But before that, I played with Ben Sidran, Randy Sabine, and the Michael Feldman show on public radio. I also have my own thing in town. And from time to time I get to come out and play with my musical brother, Jabo. We have such a great time, doing clinics and playing gigs.

JABO: I still play five nights a week in Grayton Beach, Florida, with the Red Bar Jazz Band. It's a good group. And the rest of the time I work with Clyde. We've also been doing some work with the older members of James Brown's group. That group is called The Funkmasters. Clyde and I are hoping to record with them soon. So there's a lot going on.

We've both been blessed.