Clyde Stubblefield

With Jabo Starks, drummer Stubblefield laid down the beat for James Brown's biggest '60s hits. Stubblefield helped drive such seminal Brown funk-fests as "Mother Popcorn," "Cold Sweat," "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)," "I Got the Feelin'," and "Funky Drummer." Stubblefield's famous break on the latter was reappropriated so many times that it earned him the unofficial title of "World's Most Sampled Drummer." Stubblefield grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He began playing drums as a child, beating on tin cans, pasteboard boxes, and whatever else he could get hold of. After leaving Brown around 1970, Stubblefield briefly settled in Detroit, then moved to Madison, Wisconsin. Stubblefield played with the reconstituted J.B.'s, and was the drummer for humorist Michael Feldman's show Whad'ya Know on Wisconsin Public Radio. He also freelanced with groups based in Wisconsin, and collaborated with Starks on a series of instructional videos. Stubblefield died in Madison in February 2017; he was 73 years old.
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