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Members of the original funk band War say they can't be friends with PepsiCo. They're suing the soft drink maker for more than $10 million, saying it did not negotiate with them to use their song "Why Can't We Be Friends" in a new commercial. Even if PepsiCo and its agencies got rights from the music's publishers or anyone else who owns them, attorney Ken Freundlich and his co-counsel Max Sprecher said the company should have negotiated with the artists too. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, some of the group's original members and a relative said they learned the 1975 hit was in the ad for Pepsi MAX only when the commercials launched in July. PepsiCo said in a statement it believes the lawsuit has no merit. "Pepsi has a long history of partnering with iconic celebrities and musicians and we value our relationship with the music and entertainment industry," the company, based in Purchase, N.Y., said in a statement Thursday.
A spokesman for ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day declined to comment Thursday, referring all questions to PepsiCo. The ad is part of a campaign pushing the no-calorie Pepsi MAX. The spot with "Why Can't We Be Friends" is a remake of the company's "Diner" Super Bowl commercial from 1995, but this time Pepsi MAX is pitted against Coca-Cola's popular Coke Zero. In the original, one of the best loved commercials from Super Bowl XXIX, delivery drivers from the rival soft drink makers form a short-lived friendship in a diner over music. Backed by the song "Get Together" from The Youngbloods in 1995, and War's hit in this year's ad, the drivers sample each other's drinks and the Coca-Cola driver prefers the Pepsi product. In both ads, the friendship comes to an abrupt — and funny — end.
But the War members apparently weren't amused. They have asked for a jury trial and "confiscation of unlawful profits" in amount to be determined. Original members listed in the lawsuit are Harold Brown, Lee Oskar Levitin, Howard Scott, and Morris Dickerson. Laurian Miller, daughter of Charles Miller, is also a plaintiff. "Pepsi is selling its billion-dollar brand based on their voices and they have to pay for it," Freundlich said.
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 Another influential music artist has passed. On Saturday we reported the death of actress and jazz great Abbey Lincoln. Now, the Tulsa World is reporting that Robert Wilson of the Gap Band has died. He was 53.
Wilson, a native of Tulsa (OK), and his brothers, Charlie and Ronnie, started the Gap Band in the early 70s before moving to Los Angeles and finding fame as one of the premiere funk bands of the era.
Known as the “Godfather of Bass Guitar,” Wilson died from a massive heart attack in his home, his publicist and manager, Don Jackson said. His family became concerned about him when they didn’t receive their regular phone calls from him throughout the day. His adult son found Wilson’s body on Sunday afternoon in Palmdale, Calif. Funeral details will be disseminated as they become available, confirmed his publicist.
Ironically Wilson gave what is most likely his last public interview to the Tulsa World last week to promote a show he was scheduled to do on August 28. The news outlet said he expressed joy about returning to his boyhood home of Tulsa and an upcoming festival headlining show and following tour.
The Aug 28 show will go on as planned, but will now be a memorial to Wilson.
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 R&B/Funk guitarist Phelps “Catfish” Collins, a veteran of James Brown’s J.B.’s, Parliament-Funkadelic and his younger brother William “Bootsy” Collins’ Rubber Band, died of cancer last Friday at his home in Cincinnati, reports the AP. He as 66.
Bootsy Collins said in a statement that “my world will never be the same … Be happy for him, he certainly is now and always has been the happiest young fellow I ever met on this planet.”
Bootsy’s wife, Patti Collins, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Catfish “was a father figure to my husband. He’s the reason why Bootsy is who he is.”
Catfish, eight years Bootsy’s senior, suggested his brother put bass strings on an old guitar. After being recruited by James Brown, they played on such classics as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,” “Super Bad” and “Soul Power.”
By 1971 they had left Brown’s employ, going on to form the House Guests and then joining Funkadelic in 1972 for albums such as “America Eats Its Young” and “Cosmic Slop.” Catfish remained with the group — which also lost guitarist Garry Shider to cancer in June — until the mid-’80s.
“(Catfish) was a hell of a musician,” keyboardist Bernie Worrell, who played with the guitarist in Funkadelic, told the Enquirer. “People seem to forget that the rhythm guitar behind James Brown was Catfish’s creative genius, and that was the rhythm besides Bootsy’s bass.”
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 Sitting down and talking to music industry veterans is one of our most favorite things. It seems that everyone has a story or two about someone they once associated with. Most of the time those stories are very funny, but they are often sad as well. Recently EURweb.com had the pleasure speaking with longtime industry veteran Robert Funderberg about his onetime client and longtime friend, Rick James.
As you can imagine, it’s almost impossible to speak about the late funk-rocker without the subject of drugs coming up. Funderberg recalls a hilarious, but somber story of the DEA, Rick, a guitar and yes drugs.
[Read on/and or scroll down to listen to Funderberg's account]
“This is during the Urban Rhapsody Tour, so we had a show at the House of Blues in Orlando,” he explained. “I got a call from the DEA. They wanted to know if Rick James would sign a guitar they were going to auction off for a charity function. I said no problem. In exchange they would go take his family on Safari that they had down there. I arrive at the performance and I have two DEA agents on either side of me. We’re talking, enjoying the show. I tell them I’m trying to change Rick’s image and, hopefully, we’re trying to move forward, do a serious come back, he’s changed, etcetera.”
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 Garry Shider, the longtime musical director of Parliament-Funkadelic known as “Starchild,” died Wednesday at his home in Upper Marlboro, Md, reports the Associated Press. He was 56. Shider, also known as “Diaperman” because of the loincloth he often wore on stage, had been diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in late March, according to his son Garrett. He then briefly went out on tour one last time but had to stop because of his failing health.
“He was a beautiful man who had a beautiful heart, who loved his fans just as much as they loved him,” Garrett Shider said. “I’m sure if he had the choice, he would have passed on a tour bus, because he loved playing music, playing for the fans.” A New Jersey native, Shider started his musical career as a young boy, performing mostly gospel music in churches in a group that included his brother and was overseen by their father. The band also played backup for many prominent gospel artists when they performed concerts in the area, but Shider’s musical taste soon grew more diverse.
The teenager first met P-Funk mastermind George Clinton in the late 1960s at a Plainfield barbershop Clinton owned, where future P-Funk members would sing doo-wop for customers and counsel local youths. Then, when he was around 16, Shider and a friend went to Canada, where they formed a funk/rock band called United Soul, or “U.S.” Clinton, who was living in Toronto at the time, heard about the band from people in the local music business, and took the band under his wing upon learning that Shider was a member. He helped produce some of their songs and eventually invited Shider to join P-Funk, a combination of two bands, Parliament and Funkadelic.
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