A bit of P-Funk to help blow away the post-Christmas hangovers. The sleevenotes to the Gettin’ It Off compilation (see Discogs link) reveal that Boots was short for former James Brown backing bassist, Bootsy Collins, and that In The Pocket was a previously unreleased track. The title refers to the first note in any bar of music, the one that roots all of the work and improvisation that any musician goes through before returning to that first note throughout each stanza. Collins is kind enough to demonstrate it here.
While researching the post, I came upon a forum discussion which wondered whether the track on Gettin’ It Off might actually have been the identical tune, Side Saddle recorded by Donald Austin for his 1973 album, Crazy Legs. The theory being that Collins played on that recording. There are definitely similarities in the tone of many of the instruments, especially the guitars. Only a slightly slower tempo and the lack of conga drums on Austin’s recording really mark it out as different from the one ascribed to Collins. Touchingly, one of the contributors to the forum post said that he would ask Collins in a couple of days, given that he was due to make a promotional appearance in Cincinnati to advertise the Bootsy Brewski IPA beer (yes, really) But, this was March 2020, with Covid starting to impact on public gatherings, and they never posted on that thread again, so the mystery remains conclusively unsolved…
My own theory is that it might be an outtake from Collins’s time playing with Funkadelic. Over three-quarters of the artists featured on Gettin’ It Off had issued material either on Westbound Records or its sub-label, Eastbound Records. None of Collins’s work was ever issued on Westbound, but Funkadelic’s first seven albums were and it’s highly possible that Collins led the band through a jam of the track during a bit of free-time in the studio. Regardless, Bootsy’s version is my favourite of the two.
Videos courtesy of xCharmxx (Boots) and Musical delicacy (Austin).
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