This is what Maceo Parker did on his birthday: Left his house at 2:30 a.m., drove 2 1/2 hours to the airport in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and caught the first of a couple of flights to Salt Lake City. "I did not do a thing to celebrate," he said the next day from his EconoLodge room in Utah. "I traveled."
You'd think one of the most raucous saxophonists in R&B history -- the No. 2 man for Soul Brother No. 1 (James Brown), the straightest-looking funkateer for Dr. Funkenstein (George Clinton) and senior courtier to His Royal Badness (Prince) -- would have been partying for his 65th birthday on Valentine's Day. But, like his famous bosses, he's a road warrior.
"He's an absolute road rat," said Twin Cities R&B historian Alan Leeds, who as former road manager for Brown and Prince has known Parker 40 years. "This is a guy who goes crazy if he's not on a stage. He will play anytime, anywhere -- he just wants to play for people."
Parker's current tour, which brings him to the Dakota Jazz Club on Monday and Tuesday, is promoting a new double CD, "Roots & Grooves," recorded with a German big band. One disc, as you'd expect, is a live CD of some of the finest funk on the planet. But the other is Parker doing a spot-on vocal tribute to Ray Charles.
Who knew that Parker was a Charles devotee? Brown, for one, did not until he walked into a rehearsal in the mid-1970s and heard Parker's impression of Charles. So that night onstage in Raleigh ... well, let Parker pick up the story:
"At the end of 'Prisoner of Love,' we're doing a vamp and [Brown] says into the microphone, 'You know I walked in the other day and I ran into Ray Charles and I wonder if Ray is still around.' Then he backs up from the microphone and says, 'Hey, Ray. Has anyone seen Ray?'
"I ran off and said, 'Anybody got shades?' So I put shades on, and I come to the mike and [sing], 'You give your hand to me, and then you say hello.' And I'm thinking: 'How can I get out of this? Why is he doing this to me?' No rehearsal, no nothing. Sometimes it became part of the show, and sometimes it didn't."
