FAKING THE FUNK

HOW A BOOTSY COLLINS IMPERSONATOR OR TWO GOT AWAY WITH ONE OF THE WILDEST SCAMS IN MUSIC HISTORY

- DAVID BROWNE

AS THE EIGHTIES began winding down, Bootsy Collins was in his element during nights on the town in Washington, D.C. Flashing his signature star-shaped shades, according to one report, he was chilling with fellow musicians — including some who’d played with Miles Davis — and sharing stories about his former boss and colleague George Clinton from their Parliament-Funkadelic days. Every so often he’d slip into one of the giddy, over-the-top voices heard on Bootsy stompers like “Bootzilla.” And he was living as large as one would expect: “We’re gonna have fun with this plastic here!” he told a crowd in a restaurant, waving around a credit card.

But as the hours and days went on, the musicians he was spending time with began to think something was amiss. For starters, Bootsy didn’t live in D.C. Despite being one of pop’s monster bass players, he never picked up the instrument either, and kept complaining that Clinton and others in the P-Funk world had ripped him off. “He started going in on how George did this to him and so-and-so did that to him, and that he was starting to have hard times,” recalls Davis’ bass player Foley, a.k.a Joseph Lee McCreary Jr. When Collins began asking him for money, Foley really began growing suspicious. “I said, ‘What did you do with your royalties?’ ” Foley says. “He couldn’t really answer that. You’re Bootsy — you should be loaded. He would go into the Bootsy voice and try to change the subject.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t Bootsy Collins at all, but instead one of the most brazen impostors in music history. What’s more, this fake Bootsy wasn’t the only one strutting around.