Fred Wesley, Mobile’s Funk Trombonist, on James Brown, Count Basie and His Alabama Humanities Honor

MOBILE, Ala. — Fred Wesley has spent most of his life standing a few steps behind the star. As a trombonist, arranger and bandleader, he helped build the sound of James Brown’s funk, played in George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic universe and sat in the trombone section of the Count Basie Orchestra. Now the Mobile-raised musician is getting the spotlight himself: Fred Wesley is one of the newest Alabama Humanities Fellows, the highest humanities honor the state bestows.

The Alabama Humanities Alliance will recognize Wesley on Monday, Oct. 19, alongside country music greats Emmylou Harris and Randy Owen of the band Alabama, as well as Mobile-born songwriter Will Kimbrough. In a recent interview, Wesley reflected on the honor and on two very different bosses, James Brown and Count Basie, who shaped his career.

‘I’m really proud of this’

Wesley, who as a solo performer earned the nickname the “forefather of funk,” said he was still taking in the idea of sharing a stage with names like Harris. He described himself as a “lowly trombone player that worked with James Brown” and said he had not realized how many people even knew who he was.

“That’s great. I’m really proud. I’m really proud of this,” Wesley said.

For a sideman, the recognition is a particular kind of vindication. Wesley’s work is woven into some of the most sampled and imitated music of the last half-century, but the names on the marquee were usually someone else’s.

A Mobile upbringing

Wesley was born in 1943 in Columbus, Georgia, and raised in Mobile, the son of a high school teacher and big band leader. He studied piano and trumpet as a child and played baritone horn and trombone in school before settling permanently on the trombone. The Alabama Humanities Alliance describes him as a Mobile native and a current Montgomery resident.

Mobile’s music scene of that era plays a part in his story. In the interview, Wesley recalled jam sessions around town, including playing alongside a local saxophonist named Ed Pratt, whom he called “the baddest saxophone I ever met.”

How a jam session led to James Brown

At one of those Mobile jam sessions, Wesley crossed paths with trumpeter Waymon Reed, who had come through town traveling with a circus. The two hit it off as players, Wesley said, and stayed friends even after Reed left town and Wesley spent time in the Army.

Years later, Reed turned up in an unexpected place. Wesley said he would have expected a trumpeter of Reed’s caliber to be with jazz bandleaders such as Art Blakey or Horace Silver, but Reed was playing for James Brown. When a spot opened, Reed called Wesley and asked if he wanted the job.

That call changed the course of his life. During the late 1960s and 1970s, Wesley became a pivotal member of Brown’s bands, playing on hits such as “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” and “Mother Popcorn” and co-writing tunes including “Hot Pants.” He went on to serve as bandleader and musical director of Brown’s band, the J.B.’s, handling much of its composing and arranging. “Doing It to Death,” credited to Fred Wesley & the J.B.’s, sold more than a million copies and was certified gold in 1973.

Working for the ‘Godfather of Soul’

Brown’s reputation as a demanding boss is well documented, and Wesley did not dispute it. He said Brown was “kind of hard on people,” but described him as a man on a mission who wanted his band to “look right and sound right.”

Asked about stories that Brown performed without a fixed set list and steered the band with hand signals, Wesley said that was close to the truth. The band had a basic set, he explained, but rehearsed so relentlessly that Brown could change direction in the middle of a song with a gesture of his hand or leg, and the musicians would follow.

That same approach produced one of the most famous catchphrases in funk. When Brown called out “Hit me, Fred,” it was Wesley’s cue to take a trombone solo. Wesley said those moments were not planned.

“It was all spontaneous,” he said.

In the studio, Wesley said, Brown would get a song where he wanted it and then arrange it on the spot by hand gestures, calling on individual players to step forward. The phrase later became the title of Wesley’s 2002 autobiography, “Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman,” in which he writes about the stars he worked with over the years, including Ike and Tina Turner.

Parliament-Funkadelic and beyond

Wesley left Brown’s band in 1975 and spent several years in George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic projects, where he also led a spinoff horn group, the Horny Horns. That work helped define the brassy, cosmic funk of the late 1970s, and Wesley’s parts from both the Brown and Clinton years have been sampled widely by hip-hop producers.

A ‘sweetheart gig’ with Count Basie

By Wesley’s account, Count Basie was a very different kind of boss, and the same friend opened that door. After leaving Brown, Reed eventually landed in the Count Basie Orchestra, and once again he called Wesley.

Wesley said his first reaction was disbelief. Coming from the world of James Brown and George Clinton, a chair in one of the most storied big bands in jazz seemed out of reach. But he reasoned that if Reed believed he could do it, he should take the chance.

Wesley called it “a sweetheart gig” and said, “I loved every minute of it.”

He joined the Basie band in 1978 and described it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The downside was money. Wesley said he had grown used to what James Brown and George Clinton paid and had a family depending on that income, and Basie’s band paid considerably less. He stayed about a year.

Wesley said the word among musicians was that Basie did not fire people so much as let them quietly disappear if he did not care for them. By that measure, Wesley figured Basie must have liked him at least a little: the bandleader gave him a funk tune to play, which Wesley said was recorded live in Japan.

A long career as a leader

The Basie stint helped establish Wesley as a force in jazz. He went on to release albums under his own name, including “To Someone,” “New Friends,” “Comme Ci Comme Ca” and “Amalgamation.” In the early 1990s he toured with fellow James Brown alumni Maceo Parker and Pee Wee Ellis as the JB Horns, and later formed his own group, now known as Fred Wesley and the New JBs.

Over the decades he has played with or arranged for artists including Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Van Morrison and De La Soul. He also taught as an adjunct professor of jazz studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 2004 to 2006 and has worked with students as a visiting artist at schools including Berklee College of Music.

The Alabama Humanities honor

The Alabama Humanities Alliance, founded in 1974 and a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, bestows the title of Alabama Humanities Fellow on people whose work in the humanities has made a lasting impact. Past fellows include Harper Lee, Bryan Stevenson, E.O. Wilson, Rick Bragg, Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell.

This year the alliance is presenting its Alabama Colloquium as a two-part series, in part to mark America’s 250th anniversary. The expanded slate also includes honorees the group had intended to recognize last year; the alliance said it canceled its 2025 colloquium after federal funding for state humanities councils was revoked in a DOGE-initiated cut.

The first event, held Oct. 12 at American Village in Montevallo, honored fellows Bill Baxley, Kathryn Braund and Ashley M. Jones. The second focuses on music:

• Event: Alabama Colloquium II: “Celebrating the Music of America, Made in Alabama”
• When: Monday, Oct. 19, at 6:30 p.m.
• Where: Lyric Theatre, Birmingham
• Honorees: Emmylou Harris, Will Kimbrough, Randy Owen and Fred Wesley
• Tickets: Available through the Lyric Theatre and Ticketmaster

According to the alliance, each honoree will share stories and a short set of songs from their careers, followed by a conversation moderated by Burgin Mathews, founding director of the Southern Music Research Center. Henry L. Cobbs Jr. is scheduled to present Wesley’s award, while Allison Moorer will present to Harris, Kate Campbell to Kimbrough and Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter to Owen.

Two Mobile musicians in one class

For the Port City, the 2026 class carries extra local pride. Wesley and Kimbrough, an acclaimed songwriter and guitarist, both have Mobile roots, putting two musicians from the city among the four honored on the Lyric stage.

Wesley, for his part, sounded like a man still a little surprised by it all. After a career spent answering the call of “Hit me, Fred,” the trombonist from Mobile is finally the one being called to center stage.