“That part gets me every time,” Humphrey shouted as he played along to the music rumbling out of the speakers. “That is funky. I can’t stand it.
“Tell me you can’t feel this?”
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it was some lost funk record unearthed from the bedrock and carbon-dated to the prehistoric Nixonian era.
But this is actually Humphrey’s latest album — 13 years since the last one and about 35 since anybody made party music this fun, this funky.
It’s got horns.
It’s got Sugarfoot of the Ohio Players on vocals.
And it’s got Humphrey’s bass — sweet Lord, yes, that bass.
Popping.
Slapping.
“Ugh!” he grunted, still playing along.
Listening to an early mix of the album is like standing near the La Brea Tar Pit and watching in disbelief as a mastodon rears up out of the gunk.
The funk ain’t extinct.
It lives — in Hump’s basement.
And it’s in his van, an antique of a conversion van that he’s painted pumpkin orange and equipped with air horns.
Slide open the side door and grrrrrrowl! It’s a saber-toothed tiger!
Is that really wood paneling? Living room carpet?
Also not extinct.
At 54, the lifelong Springfielder isn’t actually stuck in the past. This is just who he is.
He’s the real thing, a man who could’ve — should’ve — been one of those fabled bass gods whose licks were admired by fans, copied by imitators and stolen by rappers.
Down in his basement, there’s a copy of “Ahh ... The Name is Bootsy, Baby!” sitting atop a stack of vinyl.
Had he been a little older, a little luckier, that might’ve been a drawing of him on the LP cover, shirtless, surrounded by nubile ebony foxes.
And yet here he is.
Stuck like a mastodon in a tar pit.
Not enough money to even finish his CD.
“Yeah, I know. I ‘ought to be,’ ” Humphrey confessed. “Why are we sitting here?”
He’s heard it all before.
“It just takes the right person to hear me,” he reasoned. “The world’s full of bad bass players. We’re a dime a dozen.”
He used to worry that his opportunity might pass him by.
He still tours frequently with California soul singer E.C. Scott, a woman who summed up Humphrey’s situation to a tee back in 2002 when they played the old Ringside Cafe together.
“He’s too talented to be just local,” she said.
But Hump now refuses to be defined by resentment.
“If it’s meant to be,” he said, “it’s going to happen. You just have to keep pushing, because I’ve got the funk.”
He might not be able to make a living playing music, but he lives to play it.
“Music has gotten me through my entire life,” he said.
At this point, he’s never been happier.
“When I’m happy,” he explained, “I’m creative.”
Humphrey is built like a rhino, but his hands are like two hummingbirds — constantly in motion.
Get him near a bass, you’ll get an instant groove.
Get him near some lumber or a bag of cement, you’ll get an extreme home makeover.
“I made that fence,” he said. “I did that concrete work there.”
He made the entertainment center in the family room.
He made an upright bass.
Down in the basement, there’s a picture of him with bass virtuoso Victor Wooten.
“I made the frame,” he said.
And he’s making music. More than he’s made in years.
The new one, “Bringin’ the Funk to You,” which he’d like to have ready by summer, consists of 16 tracks — and he’s got 14 more for the next one.
“This,” he said, “is all a result of me being happy.”
He credits his new girlfriend.
It’s plainly evident in the music he’s making in his basement studio.
Certainly, it shouldn’t sound this good for having been recorded in a basement.
While the new one still retains some of the smooth-jazz touches that dominated the last one, there are moments of pure funk on this.
This, at long last, is pure Hump.
“I love it all,” he said, “but funk is where I live.”
Humphrey once toured the country in the ’80s with former Ohio Players sax player Clarence “Satch” Satchell.
Bootsy Collins is a friend.
But a man can have only one best friend, and his is former Ohio Players frontman Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner.
Humphrey got Sugar to lend his unmistakable nasal-jive to the new song “We Are Here to Play for You.”
For a guy with such an old-school heart and soul, Humphrey is ironically banking on technology to get him where he needs to be.
“It’s hard to do this with no money,” he said, “but we have the Internet now.”
Let’s just hope it’s easier to master than the grandkids’ video games.
“They’ve got this game, ‘Guitar Hero,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t do no good at it.”
Now that’s ironic.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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