Customer Reviews

Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman

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I finished reading the book yesterday. It was a VERY interesting book......one that I recommend every aspiring professional trombone player or other aspiring professional musician to read.

The autobiography covers Fred's musical career from his musical beginnings learning or rather attempting to learn piano as a child to his present day professional musical career. We learn that Fred played professionally as a teenager with a jazz big band. His father was a high school choral director and profesional jazz pianist. His grandmother was a piano teacher.

He covers his days playing for Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and their bands of Parliament/Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber Band. We learn of his playing days with the Count Basie Band.

Wesley is very candid regarding what he feels are the good points AND the bad points in his playing. He talks about his failed audition for a college band scholarship because of his playing shortcomings. He also talks about the major adjustment that he made from being a member of the Parliament/Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber Band bands to taking over the second chair that was previously vacated in the Basie band by Al Grey.

Wesley is also candid about the dual temptations of women and drugs that are faced by those musicians who are world famous or who are sidemen to the world famous. In addition, he talks about the ruthlessness of the music business, not only the managers and record company owners but also some of the fellow sidemen and the superstars that employ the sidemen.

The major thrust of the entire book is that Wesley managed to persevere with a combination of talent, hard work and a smattering of luck. He talks a great deal about his love/hate relationship with James Brown, The Godfather of Soul/Hardest Working Man in Show Business. It is positively hilarious to read Fred's accounts of disciphering James Brown's grunts into music that could be played by the band.

Througout the entire book, you get a feel about a man who has a deep love for music, especially jazz. However, his path always seemd to work its way back to the funk genre. He tells of solos that he played and that he recorded and that he was ashamed for his musical peers to hear. Hmmm......some of the solos that he was ashamed to play were ones that I found especially entertaining to hear and play when I was in high school in the early and mid 1970's!

He not only played trombone. He wrote and arranged music for several different bands. He worked as a studio musician and even scored a couple of movies. This is a frank and revealing book about a vastly talented man who worked extremely hard to make a living as a professional musician, supporting himself and his family.

Fred Wesley is "THE MAN". Here is a musical funk legend who has really paid his dues. He was the glue that kept the Funk going strong despite of James's legendary self-righteous super-ego and his harsh tyranny ways that interferred with the creative freedom and progressive potential of the most talented musicians that God has ever put on earth. James invented Funk which I will give him the credit he rightfully and respectfully deserves, but he definitely didn't do it on his own (thanks to the talented musicians of Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Alfred 'Pee Wee" Ellis, St Clair Pinckney, Waymon Reed, Richard 'Kush' Griffin, Jimmy Nolen, Al 'Country' Kellum, Clyde Stubblefield, John 'Jabo' Starks, Melvin Parker, Fillyau Clayton, Bootsy and Phelp Collins, Bernard Odum, Sweet Charles Sherrell, Johnny Griggs; the talented singers of Marva Whitney, Vicki Anderson, and the late great Lyn Collins; last but definitely not the least, I can't forget Bobby Byrd because if not for him, James life would have taking a bleaker turn since Byrd and his family not only helped James get out of prison and on parole, but got James into his gospel group which James would later become the frontman of and, with his ambition and talent, would take the group further than they had ever imagine. There are other James Brown musicians names that I can't remember but had a major influential impact on builting the structural foundation on the sound we now know as 'Funk'. This book honestly puts everything on the table with his experiences as a professional musician as well as how shady the music industry really is.

What a wonderful book! I've seen Fred Wesley live playing with Maceo Parker and the JB horns. He's down with the funk and he's been everywhere and seen everything. JB, Maceo, Ike and Tina Turner, LA and trying to make it playing an acoustic instrument soulfully in an age of production. The great thing about this book is that Fred seems to write with a minimal agenda. He's not a charting artist who's trying to magnify his own star, he just lays it down honestly. Anybody down with James Brown will gain from his insights on why musicians stuck through and put up with James' abuse and degradation.

Surprises for me were the tales of Count Basie and his life in LA. I didn't realize that he had overcome so much personal stuff by the time that I had seen him. This is a very readable insightful book that I recommend without qualification to anybody interested in funk. Let's hope Fred gets his due and we get more books from the perspectives of the musicians that make the music we love happen.

I am a 57 year old Washington, DC trombonist with many years of "chittlin circuit" experience. Reading Fred Wesley's account of his life as a sideman really hit home with me. So far, I have purchased (at last count) twelve copies of this fascinating book and distributed them to fellow musician friends who I know would also appreciate it. This really feels good and also therapeutic that our story is being told and documented. Older musicians always used to talk about paying dues. Well it seems that we never stop paying them, and Fred really spells it out in a clear, brutally honest, and what I find to be a very humorous and entertaining fashion. I would highly recommend this book to musicians young and old and to anyone else interested in learning what it is really like for the majority of us in this bizarre and crazy business.

Lincoln Ross
[...]

Fred wesley's book takes you on a Journey of the Music industry that you seldom every get on the whole un-cut real. this Man is responsible for some of the Baddest Jams known to the Human Ear Drum. He is a Multi Talented Instrumentalist, Producer&Arranger. He Grew up Down south&dealt with so much,but that was just the start upon entering the Army, then His Exposure to the Music Business under the Controls of Ike Turner. back when Ike&Tina Turner were together. then Fred going over to James Brown's camp which alone makes this Book a Must have. He doesn't pull no punches about JB's Camp&How He ran&did things. then fast forward to George Clinton and the Whole P-Funk Mob&operation. you move on to Count Basie. this Book deals with Inflated Ego, Sex,Drugs,Music, Race, Politics of the Industry&so many other details that you just can't even imagine sometimes that go on behind the curtains. very detailed&a Must read.

"Hit Me, Fred" by Fred Wesley is one of the most honest and engaging autobiographies I have read. Honest in that Fred gives us uncolored insight into to the world of the music industry with all of the inflated egos, false hype, drug abuse, and intense politicizing. Also honest in his love and appreciation for his mentors, his unabiding affection for his fellow sidemen through out his career and his sense of awe when the James Brown band or Parliment or the Count Basie band were playing at their best. "Hit Me Fred" is engaging for all of the reasons above with the addition of Fred being a gifted story teller in general. This book is a must read for funk enthusiasts and aspiring musicians.

Despite being a big Fred Wesley fan, I must admit I was skeptical about any entertainer writing an autobiography with no co-author and no credited editor. In fact, I got a copy of this from the public library first because I just couldn't imagine that the book would really be worthwhile reading.

I was wrong. This book won't win a Pulitzer prize but Fred writes a very readable and entertaining memoir. It's particularly enjoyable to those of us who believe Fred is one of the most important musicians of the latter 20th century, but reads well enough that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone who had no idea who the author is.

Yet I couldn't put this book down.
My husband bought this book because he's a big fan of Fred Wesley and he loves jazz and funk.
I picked the book up to glance at the pictures and I was hooked. You don't have to be a music fan to love this book
It was like reading a great story. There was an inside look at a world that most people only see the most public part of.
I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a book that they just can't put down.

fred wesley is a legend that's been overlooked too long and it's about time something like this dealing with black music comes out since fred has seen lots of artists come and go with james brown the man invented funky jazz with george clinton and bootsy collins he helped rewrite the book on funk and the world is stil feeling those vibes that he helped create an interesting novel fred goes into details about what mr.brown was really like why he fired vickie anderson how he abused lyn collins, and marva whitney, all into him pulling a pistol on a pilot in flight into how he met george clinton and how he made all those classic songs for jb, and p funk the man is a legend and this is for all funk and jazz fans hell this is for music lovers period.

This book really hit home about life on the road and the ups and downs of a musicians life. Fred is very candid about his own shortcomings as well as his fine points. Anecdotes are at once hilarious, sad, joyful and meaningful. Fred is extremely kind to remember and name every musician he ever played with. A great book about the love of music, the trombone and of life.