Come Get It! (Remastered) Rick James

• 1Stone City Band, Hi!03:29
• 2You And I08:06
• 3Sexy Lady03:51
• 4Dream Maker05:16
• 5Be My Lady04:48
• 6Mary Jane04:57
• 7Hollywood07:33
• 8Stone City Band, Bye!01:09
• 9You And I (Extended M+M Mix)09:56
• Total Runtime49:05

Info for Come Get It! (Remastered)

Come Get It! album for sale by Rick James was released Feb 10, 1992 on the Gordy label. Rick James's first album holds up remarkably well decades after its release. While many funk and R&B releases from the late 1970s don't translate very well, due to dated production or concessions to disco (there are a few of those here), COME GET IT is sly, fun, buoyant, and--most importantly--well written. Come Get It!

James's first R&B hit, 'You and I,' with its meticulously tight groove, is one of the highlights here, as is 'Mary Jane,' the artist's smooth and breezy ode to reefer. Come With help from the Stone City Band, James's funk is both cosmic and primal, but it seems no accident that COME GET IT was released on Motown: the album has the smart production and clean, crisp sonics associated with the label. In short, James started building his distinctive brand of smart, sassy music on COME GET IT, laying the foundations of a style he would perfect over the next several years.

„After returning to the U.S. from London, where he fronted the blues band Mainline, Rick James cut one album with White Cane before he turned to his own solo venture. By 1977, he'd begun working with the Stone City Band, emerging at the end of the year with an album's worth of delicious funk-rock fusion. Released in spring 1978, Come Get It! was a triumphant debut, truly the sum of all that had gone before, at the same time as unleashing the rudiments of what would become not only his trademark sound, but also his mantra, his manifesto -- his self proclaimed punk-funk. Packed with intricate songs that are full of effusive energy, Come Get It! is marvelously hybridized funk, so tightly structured that, although they have the outward feel of funk's freewheeling jam, they never once cross the line into an uncontrolled frenzy. This is best demonstrated across the monumental, eight-plus-minute 'You and I.' With enough funk bubbling under the surface to supplant the outward disco sonics of the groove, but brought back to earth via James' vocal interpolations, 'You and I' became James' first R&B chart hit, effortlessly slamming into the top spot. 'Mary Jane,' meanwhile, was James' homage to marijuana -- honoring the love affair through slang, it dipped into the Top Five in fall 1978. More importantly, though, it also offered up a remarkable preview of his subsequent vocal development. With nods to Earth, Wind & Fire on 'Sexy Lady,' Motown sonics on 'Dream Maker,' the passionate 'Hollywood,' and the classic club leanings of 'Be My Lady,' it's obvious that James was still very much in the throes of transition, still anticipating his future onslaught of hits and superstardom. Many of the songs here have a tendency toward the disco ethics that were inescapable in 1978, and have been faulted as such; nevertheless, what James achieved on this LP was remarkably fresh, and would prove vitally important to funk as it grew older during the next decade.“ (Amy Hanson, AMG)

Rick James, vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, synthesizers
Levi Ruffin, Jr., keyboards
Billy Nunn, keyboards
Bobby Nunn, keyboards
Freddie Rappilo, guitar
Andy Rapillo, bass
Mike Caputy, drums
Randy Brecker, horn
Mike Brecker, horn
Steve Williams, horn
Richard Shaw, bass
Lorenzo Shaw, drums
Levi and Jackie Ruffin, background vocals
Bobby and Billy Nunn, background vocals
Sascha Meeks, background vocals
Richard Shaw, background vocals
Vanessa Brooks Nunn, background vocals
Joey Diggs, background vocals
Anthony Ceasar, background vocals
Roger Brown, background vocals
Calvin Moore, background vocals
Bennie McCullough, background vocals

Recorded 1977 at Cross-Eyed Bear Studios, Clarence and Record Plant, New York, NY
Engineered by Chuck Madden, Shelly
Produced by Rick James & Art Stewart

Digitally remastered

Rick James
In the late '70s, when the fortunes of Motown Records seemed to be flagging, Rick James came along and rescued the company, providing funky hits that updated the label's style and saw it through into the mid-'80s. Actually, James had been with Motown earlier, though nothing had come of it. After growing up in Buffalo and running away to join the Naval Reserves, he ran away from the Navy to Toronto, where he was in a band with future Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, and with Goldy McJohn, later of Steppenwolf. As the Mynah Birds, they signed to Motown and recorded, though no record was ever released. James had a journeyman's career playing bass in various groups before signing again to Motown as an artist, songwriter, and producer. His first single, "You and I" (May 1978), topped the R&B charts and reached the pop Top 40. "Mary Jane" (September 1978) was another hit. Both were on James' debut album, Come Get It! (June 1978), which went gold. Subsequent efforts were not as successful, though Bustin' Out of L Seven (January 1979) featured the R&B hit "Bustin' Out" (April 1979). James returned to form with the number one R&B hit "Give It to Me Baby" (March 1981), featured on the million-selling Street Songs (April 1981), which also featured the hit "Super Freak." James turned his production attention to resuscitating the career of the Temptations, recently returned to Motown, and "Standing on the Top" (April 1982), credited to the Temptations featuring Rick James, was an R&B Top Ten. (He also produced recordings by Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls.) James' follow-up to Street Songs was the gold-selling Throwin' Down (May 1982), which featured the hit "Dance Wit' Me." The title song of Cold Blooded (August 1983) became James' third R&B number one, and the album also featured his hit duet with Smokey Robinson, "Ebony Eyes." James' greatest-hits album Reflections (August 1984) featured the new track "17" (June 1984), which also became a hit. Glow (April 1985) contained Top Ten R&B singles in the title track and "Can't Stop," which was featured in the summer movie blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop. The Flag (June 1986) featured the hit "Sweet and Sexy Thing" (May 1986). James left Motown for the Reprise division of Warner Bros. Records as of the album Wonderful (July 1988), which featured his number one R&B hit "Loosey's Rap," on which he was accompanied by rapper Roxanne Shante. Nevertheless, his "punk funk" didn't seem to rest comfortably with the trend toward rap/hip-hop. In 1989, James charted briefly with a medley of the Drifters hits "This Magic Moment" and "Dance With Me." In 1990, MC Hammer scored a massive hit with "U Can't Touch This," which consisted of his rap over the instrumental track of "Super Freak." That should have made for a career rebirth, but James was plagued by drug and legal problems that found him more frequently in court and in jail rather than in the recording studio. The majority of his legal woes behind him, James returned in 1997 with Urban Rapsody, which didn't yield any hits but was well accepted by critics. Rick James died of a heart attack on August 6, 2004, at his Los Angeles home.

This album contains no booklet.