Excerpts from the Rick James Online Biography
See this link for the complete biography; I'm only printing excerpts.

Born James Johnson Jr., the third oldest child in a family of eight in Buffalo, N.Y., on February 1, 1948, Rick James is credited with establishing the "punk-funk" style. "It was my mother who raised us," he said. "She was a small elegant woman of great dignity and strength. She always had two jobs. Sometimes she worked as a maid, but her main income came from running numbers for the Italian mob. She raised us as strict Catholics."

An early 80s icon of rebelling against the establishment, Rick James started early by joining the navy at age fifteen and going AWOL soon after. He fled to Canada, and it was there, in Toronto, that he founded his first group, the Mynah Birds. Other members of the group included Neil Young and Bruce Palmer (who later formed Buffalo Springfield), and Goldie McJohn (who later joined Steppenwolf). It was at this point that he became known as Rick James.

Being the nephew of the Temptations' Melvin Franklin, Rick James was no stranger to Motown, and he and his band were signed to the label in the mid-sixties. Although the group recorded a couple of tracks, nothing was ever released....

Not easily deterred, Rick went to London where he formed the blues band "The Main Line." He commuted between London and North America (where he was a staff songwriter for Motown in the late sixties) for the next seven years. In 1977 he finally returned to the US completely, forming a band (the Stone City Band) with which he experimented at mixing rock and funk....

Bustin' Out Of L Seven...sent him out on his first US tour. Other artists that accompanied him on his "Fire It Up" tour were the Mary Jane Girls (a group that he created), and a young singer named Prince. It was a big break for Prince and the two artists continued to be compared for a long time (something that both got sick of rapidly)....

Probably Rick James' definitive album, Street Songs achieved double-platinum status, stayed in the Top 100 Album chart for 54 weeks, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Rick James also received a Grammy Nomination for the song "Super Freak."...

But Rick James' legacy doesn't only live on through his songs. He created and nurtured young artists and bands some of which have included the Mary Jane Girls, Teena Marie, and Eddie Murphy....

James's flamboyant lifestyle took its toll on his health and he was hospitalized several times between 1979 and 1984....