Bobby Byrd - Solo Career and Continual Work With Brown

Solo Career and Continual Work With Brown

After two years away, Byrd reunited with Brown in 1970, hiring Bootsy Collins and his brother Catfish and their band to fill in for Brown's former band after they left him before a gig with Byrd quickly hiring them on the spot without rehearsal. After that performance, Byrd and Brown brought the band to a studio session where they recorded the seminal funk hit, "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" to which Brown and Byrd shared lead vocals and co-wrote, though the recording was issued as a James Brown solo recording.

When the Famous Flames were still together, Byrd and Brown co-formed the production company, Fair Deal, to distribute the Famous Flames recordings - and Brown's own solo recordings - to mainstream markets after years solely on the rhythm and blues circuit. This led to both Byrd and Brown signing solo deals with Smash Records. In 1964, Byrd recorded his first solo hit, "Baby, Baby, Baby" with Anna King. A year later he had a bigger R&B hit with "We Are in Love", which reached #14. Later in the late 1960s, as Byrd and Brown together began working under the yet-named genre of funk, Byrd had a hit with "I Need Help (I Can't Do It Alone)", a refrain later repeated in some of Brown's later hits.

In 1971, when Brown signed with Polydor Records, he and Byrd formed the label, People issuing several records by other artists, including Byrd himself, who recorded the funk hit, "I Know You Got Soul". Byrd appeared onstage with Brown from 1970 until leaving his band again in 1973 due to a combination of issues including uncredited compositions on some Brown hits, Brown's issues with singer Vicki Anderson, with whom Byrd eventually married and stayed married until his death, and wanting to start a family with Anderson. Though he remained in good contact with Brown following this final split, this ended Byrd's 21-year professional association with Brown, who had now gone by the nickname, "Godfather of Soul" after composing the soundtrack to the film, Black Caesar. Without Byrd's help, however, Brown began struggling with production of the music on People and soon went into financial troubles and without Byrd's help, his own recording success started dwindling as Brown's other band mates left for better opportunities.

In 1993, Byrd recorded a solo album, On the Move on the German record Label, Soulciety Records. After a few more live performances into 1996, Byrd decided to retire though he occasionally reemerged sometimes by the assistance of Brown: following his parole from drug and weapons charges in 1991, Brown hired Byrd to join him onstage for his pay-per-view 1992 concert. Byrd would occasionally perform for Brown in some venues. At his funeral in December 2006, Byrd sung "Sex Machine" with Brown's other band mates paying homage to his late estranged friend and former performing partner.

In 2003, a few years prior to his death, Bobby, his wife Vicki, and Famous Flames Bobby Bennett and Lloyd Stallworth, sued lead singer James Brown and Universal Music for non-payment of royalties stating that monies that rightfully belong to them for Byrd's hit "I Know You Got Soul", which was sampled by numerous rappers, including Eric B. & Rakim, were sent by Universal to James Brown instead, who allegedly subsequently kept them. The suit was dismissed to the statute of limitations having run out. However, rapper Jay-Z, who sampled Byrd's song "I'm Not to Blame" for his recording, "You Don't Know", off his 2001 multi million-selling The Blueprint, generously paid Byrd 65% of the royalties for the song, allowing Byrd and his family to secure a mortgage for their home, which was worth about $250,000.