Rick said – It was about three in the morning. We had just put the horn parts on “Give It to Me Baby” when I was sitting in front of the console with my bass. I wasn’t trying to write. I was just noodling. This bass line came out of nowhere. Four descending notes. Nothing particularly striking. It was cheesy, but it was also catchy. I couldn’t stop playing it. At the same time, I started singing, “She’s a very kinky girl…” I was about to stop — the whole thing sounded a little dumb — when one of my cats said, “Cut it, Rick.”
“You crazy?” I asked. “No man, it’s cool. It’s hypnotic.”
I kept playing the riff and realized that it was hypnotic. Right then and there I had the engineer hook up a mic and started singing the story as it came to me — this story of a super freak. I never wrote down a word. Made it up on the spot.
AND…who are the super freaks he’s referring to?!
James reported liaisons with: Linda Blair (The Exorcist), Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas), Catherine Bach (The Dukes of Hazzard TV show), Ola Ray (the video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”), Iman (the supermodel), Teena Marie (his protégée), Jan Gaye (the wife of his friend and mentor, Marvin Gaye).