R.I. P. Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis: Sax Man Extraordinaire

It is with great sadness that we report the death of sax man Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis at age 80.

This from 13th Floor’s Marty Duda:

Pee Wee was best known as one of James Brown’s finest sidemen, playing with JB from 1965-1969 and co-writing such funk classics as Cold Sweat and Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud. 

After leaving the James Brown organization, Pee Wee recorded for the CTI label, then later as Van Morrision’s band leader.

Eventually Pee Wee regrouped with fellow JB alumni Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley and they toured and recorded as the JB Horns from the 1990’s onward.

On a personal note, I met Pee Wee in the late 1980s as he was living in my hometown of Rochester, New York. Eventually we assembled a band of veteran r&b stars and dubbed them The Fabulous King All Stars as most of them had recorded for the legendary King Record label based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

So, with Pee Wee’s help we recorded an entire album’s worth of material in one day in November of 1988. Along with Pee Wee we had:

Fred Wesley, Bootsy Collins, Bobby Byrd, Vicki Anderson, Country Kellum, Clyde Stubblefield, St. Clair Pinckney, Hank Ballard, Bill Doggett, Cal Green, Bubba Brooks, Toni Williams, and local house band The Essentials. 

The 11 songs were played, recorded and mixed live that day and released on my After Hours record label.

It was a beautiful thing.

Here is a video clip of Pee Wee conducting the band during Vicki Anderson’s heart-stopping performance of It’s A Man’s World (that’s Pee Wee in the blue shirt).

And, this is a Pee Wee Ellis composition titled Ham that we also recorded that day: