Friends and musicians are gathering in Mobile to remember the late John “Jab’o” Starks, who played drums with funk singer James Brown.

A tribute is planned Friday night at the Cedar Street Social Club, followed by a funeral on Saturday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Mobile.

And in the Florida Panhandle, the Red Bar at Grayton Beach will be closed on Saturday in Starks’ honor. Starks led the Red Bar Jazz Band for more than two decades and played his last set there two weeks before he died on May 1.

Starks and fellow drummer Clyde Stubblefield were the backbone of Brown’s rhythm section in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Starks was born in Jackson, located in rural southwest Alabama north of Mobile.

(Associated Press, copyright 2018)