Book Stone City Band for colleges, corporate events, fairs, festivals, casinos & private shows. Contact Degy Entertainment for booking info.
Stone City Band is the funk and R&B outfit Rick James built in 1978 to be his exclusive recording and touring band, and the group that actually played the parts behind hits like "Super Freak," "Mary Jane," and "Give It to Me Baby." That "Super Freak" groove has outlived the era that made it, resurfacing decades later as the sample underneath MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This." The band released its own albums on Motown's Gordy label, including In 'n' Out in 1980 and Out from the Shadow in 1983, and shares in the Grammy, American Music, and Soul Train Award recognition tied to the James-era hits they helped build.
They built that sound the hard way, playing night after night as James's road band through the peak of his commercial run, then kept going after his story started to unravel. When the band's run with James wound down in the late 1980s, they didn't fold: they toured with Bobby Brown and then became New Edition's touring band on the Heartbreak Tour, carrying the same rhythm section discipline into a new era of R&B.
Beyond James, the band's studio and stage credits include work with Teena Marie, the Mary Jane Girls, the Temptations, and Eddie Murphy, and appearances on the Grammys, the American Music Awards, Soul Train Awards, and Saturday Night Live. With a lineup that still includes original members more than four decades in, including Oscar Alston, Lanise Hughes, Tom McDermott, and Danny LeMelle, Stone City Band remains one of the few acts that can deliver an era's authentic funk sound live, making them a strong booking for festival and fair lineups, college events, casinos, corporate dates, and private engagements.
