When TM Stevens met James Brown: “I said, ‘One day I'm going to play with you!’ He said, ‘Don't do it! Stay in school!’”

Musician James Brown performs on stage at the Miller Rock Thru Time Celebrating 50 Years of Rock Concert at Roseland September 17, 2004 in New York City.

Throughout the '80s and '90s, TM Stevens forged a reputation as one of the bass world’s most wanted. Aside from his tenure with The Pretenders and in Steve Vai’s Sex and Religion band, he also laid down the bass to some true funk classics, including Narada Michael Walden’s I Should Have Loved Ya and James Brown’s Living In America.

Speaking to Bass Guitar Magazine in 2009, Stevens recalled his relationship with Brown, which stems back to the early '60s at the Apollo Theater. “When I was a kid I would take the subway down to the Apollo on 125th Street in Harlem. I would go there at midday and watch cartoons and guys like The Three Stooges, and then in the evening it was time for James Brown. I would sit there in the balcony and watch every single show.