Fred Wesley -

Fred Wesley (born July 4, 1943) is an American R&B/jazz-funk trombonist who emerged in the 1968–70 James Brown backing band, which morphed into the J.B.’s. Wesley headed the band on two 1973/74 albums on Brown’s People imprint. Between 1977 and 1980, Wesley headed two Atlantic titles with the Horny Horns and cut a solo album on Curtis Mayfield‘s Curtom label.

Background

Fred Wesley was born Frederic Alonzo Wesley Jr. on July 4, 1943, in Columbus, Georgia. His family moved to Mobile, Alabama, in 1947, where Fred Wesley Sr. taught music at Mobile County Training School and Central High School. Wesley Sr. also led the Rhythmic Sensations big band. Wesley began piano lessons at age three with his grandmother, pianist and music teacher Janie Wesley Panting.

Wesley entered Booker T. Washington Junior High School on trumpet after private lessons with bandmaster E.B. Coleman. Coleman shifted him to baritone horn in the school band and later offered him a trombone chair in the E.B. Coleman 16-Piece Orchestra after Wesley learned bass clef. Wesley entered Central High School in 1957, where John Irons directed the school band and Fred Wesley Sr. taught music theory. He also sang in the school choir and played local dates with the Coleman orchestra.

Wesley enrolled at the Mobile Branch of Alabama State College after high school and majored in music with a history minor. He completed the two-year branch program and continued at the main Alabama State College campus in Montgomery, where he played nightly with the Al Stringer Band at the Afro Club. Wesley also practiced with tenor saxophonist Willie Gresham while pursuing the college program.

Club Harlem owner Tom Koch connected Wesley with Ike Turner in 1962 after Wesley returned to Mobile from Montgomery. Wesley joined the Ike & Tina Turner Revue as trombonist and arranger at twenty-five dollars per night. He left after nearly a year for Hank Ballard and the Midnighters in Atlanta. Wesley returned to Mobile after the Ballard dates and resumed local club dates.

Wesley enlisted in the U.S. Army in July 1964 and trained at the Armed Forces School of Music in Little Creek, Virginia. He joined the 55th Army Band as first trombone at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Wesley formed Mastersound in Huntsville with bassist Sonny Davis, drummer Teddy Caldwell, guitarist Burley Marshall, saxophonist Carl Jackson, and trumpeter Carl Gholston. He received his Army discharge in July 1967 and led Mastersound through regional clubs across Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee.

Saxophonist Henry Freeman alerted Wesley to a trombone opening with James Brown. Wesley joined Brown in 1968 and played on “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud” and “Mother Popcorn.” Brown promoted Wesley to bandleader after bandleader Pee Wee Ellis left the organization. Wesley left the band in 1970 after a rehearsal dispute with Brown and moved to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Sam and the Goodtimers hired Wesley for Soul’d Out club dates on Sunset Boulevard. Elsewhere, clarinetist Clifford Solomon connected Wesley with horn-overdub sessions for arranger Maxwell Davis. By December, Brown called Wesley back to New York and appointed him music director of the James Brown band.

Brown paired Wesley with arranger Dave Matthews and contractor Emile Charlap for New York studio dates under a new Polydor contract. Wesley recorded “Blessed Blackness” and “Wine Spot” at a 1971 New York session for the J.B.’s, which included both Wesley compositions on the 1972 People album Food for Thought. Wesley asked Brown to issue a record under his name after Maceo Parker received a separate People album. Brown issued the 1973 single “Doing It to Death” under the billing Fred Wesley & the J.B.’s., a billing retained for the next People album, Damn Right I Am Somebody.

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