Talkin' Dirty to Me

[March 30th, 2005] There's an old man swearing at me on the phone. "Hey, David, why did you butt-fuck Bethsheba, dog?" he asks with a maniacal laugh.

Before I can answer, he continues to lay into me, cursing up a storm and calling me everything from a "disgusting motherfucker" to a "pussy-eating piece-of-shit cocksucker." That last one seems like a contradiction in terms, but I don't care-it's not everyday Blowfly calls you a pussy-eating piece-of-shit cocksucker. I'm flattered. Honestly.

Back in the day, few things short of getting caught smoking pot or looking at dirty magazines would get you into more trouble than being discovered listening to Blowfly's "My Baby Keeps Farting in My Face."

Talking to me from a hotel room in Austin after playing South by Southwest, Blowfly is rambling a mile a minute about anything and everything. It's hard to understand most of what he's saying-the connection is bad, he has a thick, Southern-born twang, and he keeps laughing that maniacal laugh. Several times he even breaks into song, regaling me at one point with his latest, "My Niggarogative," a cynical parody of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" that blasts black celebrities who don't know how to conduct themselves. But for the most part, the only things I can understand are the cuss words. Those are clear.

To hear him tell the story, Blowfly was swearing even before he was Blowfly. Like the folk hero John Henry, who was born with a hammer in his hand, Blowfly was born calling anyone within earshot a motherfucker. That was 60 years ago in Cochran, Ga., when he was still Clarence Reid.

Clarence Reid is to the foulmouthed Blowfly what Clark Kent is to Superman. Reid is the Miami-based musician responsible for penning hit songs for Betty Wright, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Sam & Dave. This is the same Reid who dropped out of school to help support his family. "The kids today, white and black, think they got it hard-they don't know what hard is," says Reid while recalling the legend that is his life. "Hard is when you're 7 years old and you quit school to plow a fuckin' mule. You're a part nigger, part German and part Sioux Indian, and your momma collects all your money."

Reid, known as "Junior" back in those days, would pass the time working with that mule by singing popular songs of the day, only he'd replace the lyrics with whatever profanity he saw fit, "just to fuck with people. I like to get inside their minds and piss them off-if you piss them off, then you got 'em."

Whatever attention Reid was looking for, he got it. Some people were amused by his blue-humor parodies, while others took offense. "My grandmother would say, 'You're a disgrace to the black race. You're not better than a blowfly.'"

And that's how Blowfly came to be named after a parasite that lives off the flesh of dead things. By the 1970s, Reid had made a name for himself as an accomplished musician and songwriter. Meanwhile, wearing a mask to disguise his true identity, Blowfly also built a reputation by releasing X-rated underground party records. Those classic albums, which included The Weird World of Blowfly (1971) and Porno-Freak (1977), featured dirty parodies of popular soul songs-"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," for instance, became "Shittin' off the Dock of the Bay."

Part of what made those albums so popular was not just the silly, potty-mouth humor, but the expert musicianship. Blowfly was good at coming up with different ways to talk about oral copulation and defecation. But Clarence Reid was even better at getting such legendary musicians as William "Little Beaver" Hale, Benny Latimore and Chocolate Perry to play on his original recordings, while members of Fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers joined him later in his career. That odd combination would result in an impressive collection of recordings spanning the past four decades that combined bottom-heavy funk grooves with immature toilet humor.

With a new album, Fahrenheit 69, due from Alternative Tentacles, a new band that includes Tom Bowker, Chris Chavez, The Horny Triplets, Dennis Murcia and Mr. Lock, and a tour bringing him to Portland, Blowfly is showing no signs of slowing down or mellowing. Get him started on the younger hip-hop generation-all of whom, knowing or unknowing have been influenced by Reid-and Blowfly has a few choice words. "Why is it y'all sample me, and I don't sample your ass?" he asks of the rappers who've been quick to sample his work, but slow to give him credit as the godfather of rap. "They should be fucked up the ass by Godzilla with no vaseline."