“All I remember is thinking that the bass turned into a snake. I broke all the strings, threw it down and left the stage”: Bootsy Collins was tripping on LSD when he took the James Brown bass chair to its most in-your-face level

Bootsy Collins on 4/14/91 in Chicago,Il.

The music made by James Brown is among the most influential of the 20th century. The key element was the musical concept itself – a constantly evolving and, at times, combative vision between Brown and a band that reinvented itself more times than Madonna.

Almost as legendary as the man and the music is the iron-fisted manner in which Brown ran his bands. Tales of fines for missed cues and unshined shoes have loomed large in the lore of working musicians.