Day 235: Rick James – Street Stories

I was in the market for a car album today after being in the park. Can you believe it was 16 degrees in Glasgow? I’ve already announced that summer is here, which I know it’s not but let me have this, it’s sunny in Scotland for once. I thought I’d go for Rick James, an artist who I only know the hits from and have never listened to on purpose.

Album cover courtesy of Gordy Records

I didn’t know anything about Rick James, but it turns out his rise to fame is a bit more interesting than your usual stories of “I worked very hard for a long time to reach overnight success.” He became a self-taught musician when he built a passion for music from tagging along with his mafia employee mother to jazz clubs as a child. Then he got drafted and moved to Canada to dodge the draft, where he was outside of a night club and almost got beat up by a group of drunk guys. He got saved by another group of guys, one of whom was Levon Helm.

Helm invited him to his gig that same night, and somehow Rick James ended up on stage performing with the band. From there, he became a part of the Toronto music scene. He started a band with some guys from that same scene: Neil Young, Nick St Nicholas (later of Steppenwolf) and Bruce Palmer (who later joined Buffalo Springfield). However, the military found him after someone associated with the band ratted him out, so he ended up in jail in America.

After that, Rick James moved to Los Angeles and became a part of the local music scene there, although to limited success. That didn’t really come until his third album, which was his 1981 release Street Stories. It’s a concept album of funky disco with rock and new wave influences that details life on the streets with prostitutes, junkies and criminals. It’s sort of oscillating between being a socially conscious album and Rick James singing songs that are unabashedly horny.

Having read a bit more into Rick James, it’s fair to say that he should have reined that in and been abashedly horny instead, to say the very least. I hate hearing an album that I like and then finding out that it’s very much not made by a person who one should support. He’s dead now so the money from the streams is at least not going to his pockets, but don’t read about his kidnapping case if you ever want to enjoy “Super Freak” again.

Good song about police brutality, bad songs in hindsight about Rick James’ personal life. I’ll leniently give it a 7/10.