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Dressed in rhinestone-studded, multi-coloured suits, huge hats and star-shaped sunglasses, Bootsy Collins is the jive-talking, flamboyant king of funky bass licks, influencing everyone from Snoop Dogg to Fatboy Slim and Red Hot Chili Peppers. When James Brown's musicians quit over a pay dispute in 1969, it was Collins' first band The Pacesetters who stepped in to become the godfather of soul's backing band (renamed The J.B.s), playing on legendary tracks such as 'Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine)' and 'Super Bad', before Collins joined George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic in 1972. He set up Bootsy's Rubber Band as a side project in 1976, going on to achieve great success with third album 'Bootsy? Player of the Year' in 1978 and scoring the hit singles 'Bootzilla' and 'The Pinnocchio Theory'. He adopted the alter-ego Casper the Funky Ghost and became known for his star-shaped Space Bass guitar, before collaborating with Deee-Lite on the huge international hit single 'Groove Is in the Heart' and playing on the Soup Dragons' 1994 album 'Hydrophonic' before being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 with Funkadelic. In 2005 Collins collaborated on a song for his local football team, the Cincinnati Bengals, called 'Fear Da Tiger'. The following year he released festive album 'Christmas Is 4 Ever', featuring a selection of Christmas standards with an added Bootsy Collins twist. In 2007 he contributed to the soundtrack of the film 'Superbad' and performed at a tribute concert to the late James Brown. Later that year he revealed that he was working on new material, revealing a brand new album titled 'Living On Another Frequency'. In 2010 Collins founded the Funk University, an online bass guitar school where thost interested could go to learn more about the instrument and garner an understanding of funk music.
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