Music

THIS EXISTS: Rick James was in a Toronto-based blues band (with some young dude named Neil Young)

by Tyler Munro

Every week, This Exists uncovers and explores musical peculiarities that exist in the dark corners of the internet, sometimes just outside the mainstream. Today we take a look at a mythical 1960s Toronto band named after a bird that featured, among others, Neil Young and Rick James

Did you know Rick James and Neil Young were in a band together? Okay, maybe you did, but it’s still kind of crazy to think about. Put it in perspective: Neil Young is one of the most iconic, singularly talented songwriters of all time and Rick James is the guy who provided the backing for MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” and is one of Dave Chappelle’s most memorable parodies.

But this band existed. They were called Mynah Birds and there are tons of weird stories about their early beginnings. It’s said that they were reportedly financed by an heir to the Eaton’s department store throne and that Rick James thought of himself as a black Mick Jagger (and once you hear the songs, you’ll understand why). Contrary to what some people believe, their name wasn’t chosen because of a promotion with a pet store or because it reminded audiences of the Byrds. Nope. It was given to them, unwillingly at first, by Colin Kerr, owner of the Mynah Bird club (which, among other things, featured topless, silhouetted dancers in the window).

At the time the Mynah Bird Club house band was Bobbi and Lee and the Scepters, but Kerr wanted them to change their name to the Mynah Birds to help promote the club as well as its owner’s bird, Raja. At one point he even insisted that the bird become the band’s official mascot. Kerr’s brother, Ben, even wrote a song for them called “the Mynah Bird Song,” the only recording by the band to actually surface before the noughties. This Mynah Birds is not the same Mynah Birds you’re reading about: Rick James and Neil Young weren’t actually in the band yet. How that happened is a little trickier.

Bobbi Lee Justice’s dad painted Scott Young’s house and gave him one of the few pressed copies of the single. Scott Young started coming out to the club and eventually he brought his son, Neil, with him. Eventually Neil started filling in, with James, whenever the regular band was off playing shows elsewhere. As for how James joined the band, the story goes that he met original bassist Nick St. Nicholas at a bar, joined them for a song and later won them over.

In the end Mynah Birds recorded 16 songs for Motown back in the mid-1960s (including “the Mynah Birds Hop,” which is often confused for “The Mynah Birds Song” mentioned earlier), all of which were permanently shelved once the label found out that Rick James (born James Johnson but went by Ricky Matthews at the time) was AWOL from the United States Navy.

Their record was never officially released, but things more or less worked out for this pre-supergroup supergroup. Neil Young and Bruce Palmer (who replaced Nick St. Nicholas on bass) sold some gear and headed south to form Buffalo Springfield, Goldie McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas went onto form what would be come Steppenwolf. As for Rick James, he surrenedered himself, spent a year in a naval prison and went onto work for Motown. In the 1980s he wrote two of the biggest hits of the decade, then partied the next twenty years ago until his heart finally gave out. He died in 2004.

All was not entirely lost. Eventually, through Motown compilations and this thing called the internet, some Mynah Birds originals finally made their way to the public’s ears (the Mynah Bird song was the only one to hit the airwaves back in the 60s, but that was a pre-Young, pre-James version done by Bobbi Lee and The Scepters).

If you listen to these expecting the silliness that made James so popular in the 80s, you won’t find it: he was just 17 when these songs were recorded.

Go On and Cry:

It’s My Time

I’ve Got You In My Soul

Not bad, eh?

Mynah Birds may only have been around for three years (James gave the band another try in 1967 before they officially called it quits), but that’s one hell of a ‘what if?’ to leave behind.