There’s no doubt that Clyde Stubblefield will live on through his music.
Best known for making hits with soul music superstar James Brown during the 1960s, Stubblefield — aka The Funky Drummer — laid down drum beats that have become the building blocks of blues, soul, R&B and rap tracks over the past few decades.
But now, one of his former bandmates has memorialized him in a different way — by creating a coloring book around the man and his music.
“When Clyde died, it really shook me — it really shook us all,” says Carolynn Schwartz, who has been singing with The Clyde Stubblefield All-Star Band for more than a decade. Stubblefield, who was 73 years old but still played regular monthly Funky Monday shows at the High Noon Saloon, died in February after years of battling kidney failure.
The author of a handful of coloring books, Schwartz — who Clyde nicknamed “SoulMama” — dealt with Stubblefield’s death the best way she knew how. “I just sat down and started drawing,” she says. “It’s a coping thing for me — it helps me relieve stress.”
Out of that came Give The Drummer Some!: The Clyde Stubblefield Coloring Book. The book is full of almost 20 outlines of lyrics from Stubblefield’s songs and images of him; one page lists 70 of the musicians who’ve sampled the song “Funky Drummer.”
The book will be for sale at AtwoodFest (the All Stars play at 8:15 on July 29); it is also available on Amazon, through Schwartz’s online Etsy store and at other shows and festivals. Two dollars of the $10 cost will be donated to the Clyde Stubblefield Scholarship Fund, which supports college students majoring in music.
“I hope that the book helps people remember him and his smile [and] try to make something beautiful out of the pain of his death,” says Schwartz. “Put on some of his music and make some art while they enjoy it.”