He and Jabo were two of the best drummers of all time. It's unfortunate that he didn't get the credit/money he deserved. At least some of today's musicians are a bit wiser and more mercenary when it comes to such things.

By BEN SISARIO
Published: March 29, 2011
Aside from musicians, record collectors and D.J.’s, the name Clyde Stubblefield does not make many ears perk up. But no matter who you are, you probably know his drumming.

If you’ve heard Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” or “Fight the Power,” you know his drumming. If you’ve heard LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” or any number of songs by Prince, the Beastie Boys, N.W.A., Run-D.M.C., Sinead O’Connor or even Kenny G., you definitely know his drumming, even though Mr. Stubblefield wasn’t in the studio for the recording of any of them.

That is because he was the featured player on “Funky Drummer,” a 1970 single by James Brown whose 20-second drum solo has become, by most counts, the most sampled of all beats. It’s been used hundreds of times, becoming part of hip-hop’s DNA, and in the late 1980s and early ’90s it was the go-to sample for anyone looking to borrow some of hip-hop’s sass (hence Kenny G.).

Yet Mr. Stubblefield’s name almost fell through the cracks of history. The early rappers almost never gave credit or paid for the sample, and if they did, acknowledgement (and any royalties) went to Brown, who is listed as the songwriter.

“All my life I’ve been wondering about my money,” Mr. Stubblefield, now 67 and still drumming, says with a chuckle.

A new project tries to capture at least some royalties for him. Mr. Stubblefield was interviewed for “Copyright Criminals,” a documentary by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod about the gray areas of music copyright law, and for a special “Funky Drummer Edition” DVD of the film released on Tuesday, Mr. Stubblefield recorded a set of ready-to-sample beats. By filling out a basic licensing form, anyone willing to pay royalties of 15 percent on any commercial sales — and give credit — can borrow the sound of one of the architects of modern percussion.

“There have been faster, and there have been stronger, but Clyde Stubblefield has a marksman’s left hand unlike any drummer in the 20th century,” said Ahmir Thompson, a k a Questlove of the Roots, who was to play “Fight the Power” with him and Public Enemy’s Chuck D. on NBC’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday. “It is he who defined funk music.”

Born in Chattanooga, Tenn., Mr. Stubblefield was first inspired by the industrial rhythms of the factories and trains around him, and he got his start playing with regional bands. One day in 1965 Brown saw him at a club in Macon, Ga., and hired him on the spot. Through 1971 Mr. Stubblefield was one of Brown’s principal drummers, and on songs like “Cold Sweat” and “Mother Popcorn” he perfected a light-touch style filled with the off-kilter syncopations sometimes called ghost notes.

“His softest notes defined a generation,” Mr. Thompson added.

“We just played what we wanted to play on a song,” Mr. Stubblefield said in a telephone interview last week, referring to himself and his fellow Brown drummer John Starks, better known as Jabo. (Brown died in 2006.) “We just put down what we think it should be. Nobody directs me.”

You might expect Mr. Stubblefield, who has appeared on some of the greatest drum recordings in history, to have gone on to fame, or at least to a lucrative career playing sessions. But for the last 40 years he has happily remained in Madison, Wis., playing gigs there with his own group and, since the early 1990s, playing on the public radio show “Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know?”

Alan Leeds, whose time as Brown’s tour director overlapped with Mr. Stubblefield’s period in the band, remembers him as a gifted but not terribly ambitious musician. “He was a fun guy,” Mr. Leeds said. “But if one guy was going to be late for the sound check, it was Clyde.”

The technology and conventions of sampling — isolating a musical snippet from one recording and reusing it for another — also kept him from greater recognition. “Funky Drummer” didn’t appear on an album until 1986, when it was on “In the Jungle Groove,” a Brown collection that was heavily picked over by the new generation of sampler-producers.

The lack of recognition has bothered Mr. Stubblefield more than the lack of royalties, he said, although that stings too.

“People use my drum patterns on a lot of these songs,” he said. “They never gave me credit, never paid me. It didn’t bug me or disturb me, but I think it’s disrespectful not to pay people for what they use.”

In 2002 Mr. Stubblefield had a tumor in his kidney removed, and now he suffers from end-stage renal disease. He qualifies for Medicare but has no additional health insurance...

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GREAT article.


Lyn Collins died a couple of years back. Her song "Think" was in the running for one of THE most sampled songs ever. The most famous use was probably Rob Base's late 80s hit "It Takes Two", but I can think of about 50 songs that sample some part of that song. She died and no mention of it in "rap publications".

James Brown did cast a large shadow, though.

In the book "Hit Me Fred", Wesley talks about Brown with both intense love and total contempt-sometimes in the same paragraph.

He says that Brown's general attitude towards the musicians was that if they didn't like how he ran things, they could leave. many of them did just that of course.

Most drummers in popular music don't get songwriting credits and especially not from someone who was as big of a control freak as Mr. Brown.

Thank you for posting that article Lilo. I had no idea who this guy was and as a lifelong fan of Public Enemy, LL, Prince and NWA, I think it's about time I got to know who this guy is. I hope there's some way for this guy to get what he's owed. Brilliant people like this deserve millions.

members of Parliament and or Funkadelic had the same issue with George Clinton.

Yup. I'm not sure whether Clinton and Billy Bass Nelson are on speaking terms again. I know for a while they weren't.

It's doubtful that he can gain monetarily under the copyright laws. It sounds as if he doesn't hold a copyright and even though he may have created some unique stylings, he can not collect for the use of his work. I'm not familiar with his work or how much was sampled.

Yup.
Probably at least 1/2 of all rap music created in the 80's or early 90's features a James Brown sample somewhere and of that proportion there's a good chance that either Clyde or Jabo were the drummers featured.

I think that sampling was like the Wild Wild West back then. People weren't exactly sure how to deal with it. Since that time I believe it's been a bit more formalized and so usually the writer(copywright holder), publisher and/or record company must be paid for sampling (if they agree-they can withhold permission and prevent sampling which has been the stance of Prince and a few other artists). But as you point out there are relatively few instances where Mr. Stubblefield has any writer's credit. Brown was notoriously cagey and tight about such things, which was a source of frustration to many of his musicians.

In the book mentioned, Fred Wesley goes on at great length about what an egomaniac and bad musician Brown was.

But Brown would likely say "Don't tell me how to do my thing when you can't do your own"

Usually there is a bias against rhythm players getting composer's credit. But since so much of Brown's music reduced or occasionally even eliminated melody, he likely should have given his band more composer's credit than he did. But that would have meant sharing credit and money and Brown didn't make it out of segregated impoverished Augusta, GA by being willing to take a back seat to anyone.