Drummer Joey B. Banks Talks Clyde Stubblefield’s Heavenly 80th Celebration

Hey man here. Yeah. Wow. And we have a special guest in the studio this morning.

Along with rocker, we have Joey B. Banks, fabulous drummer. Joey. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Madison institution yourself. How long have you been

playing here in the Madison area? I started playing with Charlie Brooks when

16 years old stone high school. Yeah, sophomore. We're only 28 now. 28 plus 30.

All right. Well, you know, it's pleasure to have you here. And we want to get into a little bit

about your current band, funky JB's, right? Yeah. Correct. You've been playing in Madison for

a long, long time. But this is your current lineup, right? Tell us a little bit.

Well, I have two bands that are mine and they're both kind of anchored in the Clyde legacy concept.

One is like a jazz funk group. It's called the JB 3's. It's a smaller combo version of the

funky JB's. JB's is funky. JB's is a large horn based R&B soul funk group.

So, and there's all Clyde legacy components involved in both of those.

Well, tell us about the Clyde legacy thing. Yes. Well, what do you mean by that?

His songs, his beat, his history, his impact. My son is producing a movie about him right now

called Give the drummer some that's going to be a pretty big deal. We started in 2015.

Part of that movie is to really push the visibility of Clyde's life and influence and

hopefully get him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame someday. Out of all the musicians in Madison,

I'd say over the, I don't know, last 50 years Clyde's double field kind of stands alone,

you know, stands above. I mean, he was such an institution here. Everybody knew Clyde and

he played here for so long, but he didn't, he didn't start out here, right? No, he's from

Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yeah. And when he was really young, he was playing with actually

Otis Redding and Augusta, Georgia and was discovered by James Brown. And, and then he's 21 years

old, he playing at in New York City at the, the famous, the Apollo. Sure. I remember, I remember

him telling me stories about, you know, he's basically gets off the bus and he's in New York City

and it's like a line around the Apollo four shows in a row. Yeah. So that's his first. What

year through though? I'm sure that I think it was like 65. Okay. Yeah. The year I was born. Yeah.

So, yeah, you can see old video, old film Clyde playing with James Brown. And he was really the

inventor. I mean, everybody bows down to Clyde because he invented the funk beat really. I mean,

yeah, he was, he was the guy and his funk beat is still being sampled today, right? Right. Exactly.

You know, Nicki Minaj, like most like hip-hop artists at Sheridan, like most recently, a lot of

pop artists have used that beat. But yeah, he's, he's for sure. When he came under the scene and you'll

see this in the movie, when the movie comes out, a lot of the people in the movie, these great,

incredible world-class drummers that all were influenced by him said, when he came onto the scene,

it changed everything. And nobody had heard that beat before. Nobody had, I've ever seen that beat

before. And, and Cold Sweat in 1971 was the first funk R&B hit on the radio ever. Yeah. Wow.

That was amazing. Yeah, I got, I'm just realizing now I told you that I told the guys here anyway

that I went to a James Brown concert, you know, by 1965. I wonder if I saw Clyde Stubbelfield. I

didn't know it. Probably my sister dragged me down to the arena in Milwaukee. And, you know,

it was a, it was a life experience. I mean, it's really truly something at 15 years old. I mean,

it was jam packed. Yeah. And it was an incredible concert. It really was my first concert. It was,

it was, it was more than likely it was him or it was Parker. It was, the Papa's got a brand-new

bag drummer. Yeah. So you met him when you were 16? I met him when I was 16. I frequented a couple

of local jams. One was club to wash and one was Morgan's. Oh, okay. And we're going back now.

Yeah, we are. Yeah. We're going to wash club to out. Yeah. And, yeah, rest in peace club to us.

It was a great, great place. I was. We're talking with Joey B. Banks here, a drummer for

funky JB's and his other groups around here. And I, you know, I had the pleasure of meeting Clyde

a few times, just connected with when he was with Michael Feldman occasionally. Correct.

On what do you know? Yeah. And because our friend Jim Packard was his announcer. Yeah.

We worked with a number of times. But Clyde was such a wonderful guy. I mean, he would, he had

such a great spirit. And talk a little bit about, you know, his musical history here. And when,

how long was he active here? From the time he moved here to, what time did he, when did he

landed, Madison? Well, he landed here because his brother was here. His brother Frank lived here

already. And he came to visit his brother in 1971. Okay. And he ended up staying here.

He loved Madison. Clyde is like you said, very kind, very genuine. He was a country boy. He's

a really small town. He didn't like big city. He didn't like, that's why he left James Brown. He

didn't like the tour. He didn't like the spotlight. He didn't like that big city life. He

liked simple life. And Madison was much more simple for him. And he planted himself here and was

quite comfortable living in people's backyards playing with just about anybody that would ask him

to play for something, you know, it's very simple. So let's talk a little bit about getting him

into the rock and roll hall of fame. Where's that stand? How do you do that? Well, you got to create

kind of a swell of interest. And you have to put the argument out there. I don't think there's any

doubt that he should be. And I think the movie that the movie doc that my son's producing will

will pretty much explain that why he should be in the rock and roll hall of fame. And there are a

lot of drummers. I always use the certain name of a person that was in a group called The Beatles,

who's in there, who as a drummer, not really influential, you know, I mean, Clyde basically

created two genres, right? He created funk. And then that funk got chopped up in the hip-hop beats and

became hip-hop. So his influence is vast. And a millions and millions of drummers that have been

influenced by him over, you know, still to this day. I was going to ask producers, not just drummers,

but like producers and people that create music. Where did they get the interview for the

documentary? You say Ringo was one of. No, he was not. He was mostly funk funk drummers. Dennis

Chambers, Sheila E. David Garballi, Tower Power, like the top. Tower Power. Nate Smith,

Nate Smith, like the top funk drummers of yesterday and today. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about

this event happening in the majestic, right? This is going on on Clyde's or would have been Clyde's

birthday. 80th is 80th birthday. Wow. Thursday, April 18th. What's going to be happening there?

Music. Lots of funky music. My band JB3s will open a show with some Clyde songs. We do

kind of a jazz funk model a little different, but they're Clyde tunes. And then VO5 comes up and

they'll do their brand of funk and disco. And then the funky JBs will come up at the end of the

evening and do a bunch of do some Clyde songs. And it's basically I'm trying to create the

funky Monday vibe. So the set is based off of a funky Monday set that you might have heard

across the street at the King Club on a funky Monday. Okay. So we're just trying to create,

bring that vibe back and really pay tribute to Clyde and his influence. And you know, it's

rocker jumping his Clyde's 80th birthday celebration though, correct? Dennis correct.

Yeah. His heavenly 80th. Yes. So that'll be quite an event. So now let's talk. You have a

joy. You have an album coming out of solo album, right? Yeah. I'm working on a solo album

at Clutch Studios with Brian Liston. Brian Liston is he's actually the guy who bought Smart Studios

from ButchVig back in the day. He's got his own studio, Clutch Studio sound and video. And yeah,

I'm working on some stuff. Hopefully, you know, by the end of the summer, it'll be done. But yeah,

I'm working on my own first. And I was inspired by actually by Clyde because Clyde did his first,

like one of his first original, the original album. It was produced by Ben Siderin. He did it

when he was 57, 57 years old. Wow. So I'm 58. I started it when I was 57. So I was trying to

get it done. Sure. But in the spirit of Clyde, I kind of like was influenced to do my own,

and I've been hundreds of other people's stuff and I've never really done my own thing. And

so it's time. So, I think we have something from Clyde lined up. Do we not?

It's playing right now. It's called Parties in the Kitchen. Turn it up, Sam.

Yeah, let's crank it up for a couple of minutes.

So what are we going to do when the beer runs out? Give me some home.

That's right. You know, if you're ever hanging with Clyde, right? Yeah. In your at his house,

the party was always in the kitchen. No matter what would happen, you'd be on the living room

and Clyde and the party would gravitate towards the kitchen. I don't know how much of that we

could talk about on radio, but he loved the party. He's a party, dude, for sure. He liked poker, too.

Yeah. We, you know, poker was a big part of our relationship playing on Sunday. We play

every Sunday. There's a group of us. And he hated losing. He loved winning and whenever you

did this thing, whenever you win the party, you'd be mine, mine. He scooped them. But yeah, he,

he, we, it was just like a bonding time as a time when we didn't talk about music or anything.

We listened to a lot of music and every song that came on, he's like, I'm on that, I'm on that,

I'm on that tune. But yeah, we would play on Sundays and I would get these phone calls and it'd be

like, Joe, are you coming to poker today? I'm making hot dogs. Joe, are you coming to poker today?

I'm making pizza. So you could, so you would always have something that he was, that he was going

to make for us, get us to come over. So, so was his last band, are they still sorting together?

Yeah. So, so when he died, actually, we, we were the Clyde Stubblefield All Stars,

right? Which is, which is a configuration of, yeah, this is like 50 musicians that played with

Clyde over a period of time. But we, I recreated his band. He got sick. He wasn't playing. We got him

back to life to do the scholarship series and then we started playing again on Mondays. And we

were called the Clyde Stubblefield All Stars. Yeah. And when he died, there was the little friction

and stuff. So I changed the name to the funky JB. So the origin of the funky JB's was the Clyde Stubblefield

All Stars game. All right. Yeah. Well, Joey B, it's great to have you in here. Thank you.

And again, that event happening in the Majestic on Clyde Stubblefield, what would have been his

80th birthday, Clyde Stubblefield is at the Majestic on Thursday, April 18th, along with V.O. 5 and

Kubumbox. We got, we got lots of tickets left. We, we really want to sell this out. We really want,

you know, part of it is our merchandise that you saw at this, this goes to the Clyde Stubblefield

Scholarship. Beautiful. The scholarship is given money to kids that have gone on to study music

in college. Most recently, Ben Dakota, who was on this show, graduated from the Berkeley School of

Music. He was the first recipient of that scholarship. So we want to continue to give local kids,

you know, money to go to college and support them and their venture to produce music and educate

and perform. Well, I'm sure that's a big time. Yeah. Yeah. He's an Oregon Wisconsin kid. So, you

know, they'll see a lot of Oregon Wisconsin kids going out to Boston. Yeah. Exactly. So it's great.

All right. Well, it's pleasure to have you here. Stick around. Thank you.

Rocker's going to give us a little bit of the lineup of what's happening on max ink this weekend,

but we appreciate you coming by and again, stay with us here. Okay. It is coming up on 749,

sunshine today. It's going to be beautiful weekend too, highs in the 70s, Saturday and Sunday,

and we'll be back with more of Joey B. Banks. Rocker in the studio talking about max inks. Stay

with us on the Johnny Gordy Show. Yeah, crank it up.

Oh, yeah. Bad radio WNDX 92.7 FM in 1580 AM on your radio dial.

If you're still using a radio, we're also on social media all over the place and the

Civic Media app as well. And we've been talking about the life in the times of Clyde Stubblefield

with Joey B. Banks and again, Joey is just great to have you in talk about Clyde. Yeah.

Thank you. You know, appreciate it. We can feel that excitement. Yeah. Listening to his

drumming is just amazing. I mean, one of a kind broke them all, you know, buddy rich, you know,

you could name a lot of drummers that are kind of like that. The buddy rich is, I grew up

listening to buddy rich too. Yeah, he died. That was it. He broke them all. It was never,

never going to happen again. And Clyde's kind of like like that. It's not going to be,

never going to be another Clyde. No question.