I just read this off of the Rick James site, and thought it would be cool to share. It's quite long, and will be broken up into 3 different segments.

Copyright info at the bottom of each story.

The first time I ever heard about Rick James was in 1980 when I got the phone call to go to work for him. I had just finished seven months on the KISS DYNASTY TOUR. but KISS had no immediate plans for going back out and they were not paying me a retainer either. This had been my first tour and I had loved it but I did not know if there would be a life on the road for me after KISS. It had been unbelievable that I had gotten that job in the first place and as far as I knew my little dream was over.
All my life I had been a music lover. Nobody in my family had anything to do with or knew anybody who even worked in show business so all I had were records and movies and dreams. When I was ten I won a series of talent competitions doing stand up comedy that included an impression of John Lennon. I used my winnings to attend my first concert and I saw the Beatles live. Even then, at that early age, I tried to finagle my way backstage. I loved Rock and Roll.
Now that I had gotten a taste it only got worst. I can clearly remember riding in the back of the family car but in my mind I was in the back of a limousine and my father was not my father but my chauffeur driving me to my concerts.
Concerts, I was hooked on live concerts and went whenever I could. I saw everyone including the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, and anything that rocked. We saw Jethro Tull and they blew off some flash pots and I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen. In no time me and my friends were sending away for flash powder and making our own effects..
After I graduated from University of California at Santa Cruz with a degree in psychology I began working as a counselor for disturbed adolescents in different residential group homes. On weekends I managed to get a part time job as a security person for Bill Graham Presents in San Francisco so I got to see all the concerts and on top of that I was paid to be there,
From there I made supervisor and then began working as a stage hand. It was great because there I was helping set up and actually handling the instruments and equipment of musicians I secretly idolized. My childhood friend Tim Zoch and I had continued playing with pyro as a hobby. He and I were always in competition to see who could outdo the other one and he scored big when he got hired as the assistant pyrotechnician for KISS and actually got to go on the road with a real Rick band. Well, wait, it was KISS so make that almost a real rock band but it was a big band.
The next year he outdid himself and killed himself drunk driving just a few days before KISS was supposed to go to Japan. When KISS started their American Tour I was hired to fill my friends position so I was honor bound to do a good job. I had lasted the whole tour and done a good job but as I already said, that might have been the end of the rock and roll career.
Then I got the call to go to work for somebody named Rick James. Believe it or not in the early 80's Rick James was not getting a whole lot of air play on the heavy metal rock stations I listened to so all I really knew about him I had learned from the few cassette tapes they sent me in the mail. It was certainly different that what I was used to but still it sounded pretty good. It really didn't matter, he could have totally sucked and I would have been there if it meant going back on tour again.
They invented the term "culture shock" for times like my first week with the Stone City Band. I had grown up in Texas before relocating to California, the adopted child of a mild mannered Christian railroad worker and his homemaker wife. Now I may have grown up in the South, I was even born in Mississippi, but the environment I was raised in was anything but the red neck racist stereotype so many people assume concerning southerners. My father was the gentlest man I ever knew but the one thing that would get him mad was racism. He hated it with a passion. I remember him working for civil rights when I was very young. If he even say racist graffiti on a wall he would clean it off or change it to say something else and absolutely no racial slurs or jokes were ever permitted in our home. I sometimes wonder what happened in his life to make this such a prominent issue with him and I guess I may never know but that was how he was and that was how I was raised.
I knew from my upbringing then that we were all God's people and there was no difference between black people and white people. I knew a whole lot of stuff. The only thing was I had never really ever been around any black people. There had been a few black kids (three) at my high school but they had kept pretty much to themselves, Suddenly I was thrust into a world where everybody was black except for a few of us white guys and I remember hoping that everything my Father had believed so deeply in and he had worked so hard to install in me was indeed actually true,
The experience of being a sheltered white guy suddenly immersed into the black culture could possibly be somewhat unnerving but I would not know anything about that. I was a sheltered white guy suddenly thrust into the culture of Rick James and the Stone City Band which looking back was pretty much like black squared. They came walking into the rehearsal studio in Beverly Hills cocky and arrogant and leaving no doubt that they owned that stage
. My two clearest memories of this initial encounter was first of all just how big they were (Oscar was well over six feet and Levi had the athletic build of an NFL Linebacker) and secondly what the hell was up with their hair? The only time I had ever seen braids was on Bo Derek in that movie "ten" but none of these guys looked like Bo Derek. Their hair was wild, their clothes were wilder and one more thing. They were loud. The guys were in a great mood, laughing and joking with each other. I was introduced and all I heard was somebody say "Oh shit, we got us another white boy." and with that they laughed even louder.
I wondered what had I gotten myself into. I busied myself with setting up the pyro demonstration that my boss, Hank Schmel, had brought to show the band. I watched Hank while he B.S'ed with the guys while I did all the work. So far this was just like KISS except this time Hank would not be coming on the road with us and I would be on my own. The more I watched the more I began to wonder, which one of these guys was Rick James? I am not saying they all looked alike but they did all have their hair in those braids so which one was the star?
I was wasting my time because just about then the door came flying open and in whirled a presence that made the arrogant cockiness of his predecessors seem like amateur hour. Rick came in big and loud bearing gifts. Behind him were assistants carrying boxes with the new "Fire it Up" tour jackets for the band. Everyone was grabbing and searching for the ones with their name stitched on it and trying them on.
Hank introduced me to Rick, He eyed me up and down and said "We aint got no tour jacket for you"
I said "Well I'm new"
Rick just went "Fuck that...California, get this mother fucker's measurements and get him his colors. Man got to have his R.J. colors on if he gonna be hanging with us."
A thin guy with braids and a full beard ran over with a tape measure and took my dimensions. I never did get that tour jacket.
Rick pulled out a joint and lit it up. This guy had balls. I knew rock stars did stuff like that but they did it in their hotel rooms or dressing rooms with the door closed. Not this guy. He just lit it up and seemed to dare anybody to say anything about it.
Hank was ready to show off. He had some fountains hanging in the lights and they were supposed to come down making a golden curtain of sparks. I had argued with him about the placement. I wanted to put them behind everyone but Hank wanted them downstage in front of the band. Hank's company so guess what, Hank won. Hank said to set it off when I noticed that there were some sound monitors that had been added and they were right underneath where the fountains were. I pointed them out to Hank but he insisted it would be fine and for me to stop fooling around and set the fountains off.
I pushed the button and the row of fountains fired and a pretty gold curtain of sparks began cascading from the lights to the floor. This was followed by a pretty golden fire erupting on the stage as the gray carpet like material that covered the monitors erupted into flames. People ran around and began firing extinguishers and throwing water, soda, beer, or any handy fluid until the fire went out. Then the monitor engineer, a fiery little Scotsman named Brian Hendry went off and started cursing Hank out and calling him every filthy name he could think of.
Rick stepped in and put an end to the name calling saying it was an honest mistake and that it was time to get on with the rehearsal. As the band started tuning up Rick cornered me off to the side. He looked me square in the eye "You didn't want to put those things there did you"
"No sir" I said quietly;
"You gonna burn my shit up?"
"No sir" I said again.
Rick said "Good, see that you don't" and slapped me on the back as he walked over to pick up his bass. He started making up a song about Hank the Master Blaster which seemed to restore Hank's hurt feelings. Then they went through the set while I took notes. I had my work cut out for me. The next few days all I did was work and work and work some more. I was cutting cables and building the control board with Hyperspace and learning the songs and watching the rehearsals.
I was too busy to even think about being the new white boy but all that seemed to just fade away the more and longer I worked with the guys. They were all very helpful and better than that they were a lot of fun. We ran out of time and packed up and headed for the first show in Ft Worth Texas.
Once in Texas I realized how far behind I was and worked from the time we loaded in until show time. I was not finished so I got a flashlight and just kept working while the opening act was playing. This is considered rude but I had no choice. I had to get my show up. As I sat there working in the dark it all felt pretty good. True, I had been surprised by the braids and wild make up the band wore but KISS wore wild make up so I was sort of used to that already. The band was a great bunch of guys that were a lot of fun to work with and Rick, who could come off as very demanding, was really focused on putting on a great show and I sure respected that. It seemed that everything was going to work out just fine until I looked up.
I looked out onto the stage and could not believe my eyes. The opening act was playing away but their singer was dressed or should I say undressed so he was looking and acting like the gayest thing I had ever seen. He was shirtless with black satin hot pants that showed off his butt cheeks like he was Daisy Duke on the Dukes of Hazard television show. On his feet were these little velvet black bootie high heeled things with a silver star on each ankle. Hot pants and booties were all he had on except he was wearing enough makeup he could have been a tramped up whore version of Tammy Fay Baker.
I went over to the side of the stage and asked the stage manager "What in the hell is that?"
"That" he said "is Prince."
"Is he just with us tonight?" I asked hopefully
"The whole tour"
"The whole tour?"
"The whole tour"
Dazed I went back to wiring my flash pots. Prince was singing something about wanting to be somebody's lover. He sure liked to thrust his hips and lick his fingers a lot. What the hell I thought, if I could hang with the braids and makeup then surely I could handle this too. Just then the spot on the side of the stage where I was working exploded in light. I looked up into the blinding spotlights and shielded my eyes with my hand. I could make out Prince's silhouette as he stood over me thrusting his hips and singing "I want to be your uh uh uh uh lover"
Fuck this, I wanted to go home.

To be continued

and that's the way it really happened

Copyright 2005
John Sherman Watkins

Ahh...this is the Part One that I was looking for.

Now on to part deux.