'This man's a little paranoid': When Christian McBride met his hero James Brown, this is what happened

They say never meet your heroes, but for the eight-time Grammy-winning bassist Christian McBride, the chance to meet James Brown "the godfather of soul" was too important to miss.

"I was willing to withstand whatever turbulence was coming," he told Q's Tom Power about his invitation to the music legend's house.

By the time McBride was nine years old, he had "already fallen deeply in love" with the soul/funk icon's music. He was bullied for his size and teased for his tastes, but Brown's music acted as his armour.

"Every time I heard James Brown, I was like, 'I'm protected. I'm good,'" he said. "I could put James Brown on my headphones and just walk to school and be, like, bulletproof."

As a longtime admirer of Brown, McBride was familiar with the musician's reputation for being temperamental and was prepared to encounter that side of him when they met. "I knew it was going to be an escapade, shall we say," he told Power. "I have done all my research on James Brown — and I knew that he was a lot."

The bassist actually got to meet Brown a few times throughout his life, but one of those meetings was particularly significant. 

"There's the kind of meet where you're a kid and you meet him backstage and you shake his hand and, you know, he gives you an autograph — so that happened when I was 11," said McBride. "And then I met him backstage at the Apollo Theater in 1994 when he was making what was to be his final live album at the Apollo."

Somewhere along the way, there was a crash and burn.- Christian McBride

By 1994, McBride knew a number of Brown's band members, but Brown didn't quite know who he was yet. The following year, McBride was on tour with the likes of Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Smith and Mark Whitfield, who were all staying at the same hotel as Brown.

"I pretty much knew everyone in his circle, but him at this point," he said. "So when we met in the lobby at the Vienna Hilton — I'll never forget it — that's when he finally put two and two together."

Hoping that they could collaborate, McBride suggested to Brown that they recreate his 1970 jazz album Soul on Top. "He [sounded] so impressed that I knew the album ... I knew that he loved jazz and that he understood the aesthetics of jazz, you know, and then somewhere along the way, there was a crash and burn," McBride told Power with a laugh.

WATCH | Christian McBride's interview with Tom Power:

McBride was close friends with two musicians in Brown's crew: vocalist Martha High and drummer Robert Thompson, also known as Mousey. Brown invited the group to a party that started off wonderfully and then took a 180-degree turn.

"At the beginning of the party he said, 'Mr. McBride, great to see you, son. I told all my friends Christian McBride's coming to the party. You all don't know,'" said McBride.

"By the end of the night, I said, 'Mr. Brown, can we get a picture before I go? So me, Martha High and Mr. Brown pose for a photo. And James Brown was like, 'I see what you're doing, son. You don't fool me. I'm hip to you. You don't think I see it, but I see it…. You're trying to steal my people from me! Trying to steal Ms. High from me. I see you sitting over there with all my people.'

"I remember the specific quote was, 'You're trying to take them for your own organization!' I was thinking, 'Wow, this man's a little paranoid.' And I was like, 'Mr. Brown, no, no, no, no, no, no, no — I have no use for Mousey, or Ms. High, or Mr. Ray. We're just friends.'"

Over the next several months, Brown started talking about McBride at rehearsal. "Mousey told me that Mr. Brown said one time, 'Yeah, Mousey, I know you're in touch with McBride. You're telling him all my secrets!'" he recalled.

The bassist didn't know why Brown was so paranoid about him, but he was still dying to play with the funk legend, so he called him up. 

"I had the equivalent of a cannonball being shot through my body," said McBride. "[Brown said], 'I ain't working with you! In fact, you can't even play.'"

McBride had heard from some of the best musicians that had ever played with Brown (including Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley) that Brown regularly yelled at them and told them they had no talent. 

"So I thought, 'What's little old me? Of course, at some point he's going to do that to me,'" he said. "And he did and it didn't feel good."

But in 2005, McBride finally got the chance to play with Brown, which he said was a feeling he'll never forget. 

"He came to New York and I want to go see him," said McBride. "And, you know, he's like, 'Son, I'm proud of you. You turned out to be a big man in the music business!' And so he was the nicest man in the world."

The full interview with Christian McBride is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Written by Vivian Rashotte. Interview produced by Ben Edwards.