Having paid his dues as a saxophonist in James Brown’s band, architect of funk Maceo Parker picked up on all of the legendary performer’s memorable sayings.

One comes to mind Tuesday night as Parker is enjoying a day off at his North Carolina home.

“One time, when one of James’ friends got out of prison, we did a thing with him and M.C. Hammer,” the 55-year-old Parker recalls in a Grandpa’s war story kind of way. “He was a drummer from Iowa, Bill Stewart. And I remember James asking him, ‘Where you from?’ And Bill said, ‘Iowa.’ And James came right back with, ‘There ain’t no funk in Iowa.'”

Ten years have gone by, Parker says, and the quote still gets laughs from the original funksters from the J.B. days.

Brown’s sayings, as much as his style and his talents, provide the blueprint from which Parker has built his own career.

Living up to Brown’s reputation as the hardest working man in show business, Parker has spent most of the past six years on the road, grounding a fanbase without the help of radio or national press.

“I tend to do a lot of things like James Brown,” Parker says of his close friend. “But I don’t be as dynamic as James, with all the hits and turns. I don’t want to be a carbon copy of someone.”

After he established himself as one of the best in the business with unforgettable solos on Brown classics “Cold Sweat” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” Parker was recruited to play with Bootsy Collins and, eventually, George Clinton.

But life on the P-Funk Mothership was a bit too much to handle for the family man, so Parker jumped ship and gathered his own crew.

“From working with James Brown, who was really into uniformity and all this stuff, and being watchful and respectful about what you’re saying, with your uniform pressed and shoes shined, to somebody who may say anything — I mean a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g — on stage, and wear a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g, from the concept of full Indian headdresses to nothin’,” Parker says. “It was strange. It’s clearly one end, a whole lotta space, and then the other end.”

Clinton’s “nothin’ but a party” concept also threw Parker for a loop.

“It took me a minute, a long minute, to get used to it,” he laughs. “Lots of things he’d do, I’d just go stand on the side. I always thought you gotta have a show you can invite your parents to.”

Parker, a proud parent himself, has a hard time going a few minutes without mentioning his son, who wrote and recorded the raps on Parker’s latest release, “Funk Overload.”

While Corey Parker grew up on another horn, the trumpet, he recently realized he could not reach the talent it took to join his father’s band.

“But he felt like he could do something on the stage,” Parker says.

“So he said, ‘Maybe I’ll try to write some raps.’ It was something he didn’t know he could do, and he set out to write some stuff, and it turned out to be really, really good. And now he’s part of the group.”

Parker’s voice rises as he tells how he and his son recently recorded a video together in Paris for “Maceo’s Groove,” the first single from “Funk Overload.”

“Having Corey in the group is real cool,” Parker says. “It closes the gap between my lifestyle at home and my lifestyle on the road. We have fun just clowning around.”

Parker’s lifestyle is a simple one, but one he treasures dearly. His daily routine — wake up, catch breakfast, walk four miles, play cards or watch a movie on the tour bus, soundcheck, perform — keeps him as happy as it does busy.

“This lifestyle that I’m living now is something that I choose to do,” he says. “That’s what makes it easy, because I choose to do it, rather than someone saying, ‘You gotta do this, you gotta do that.'”

Not a big fan of recording studios, Parker took an unusual six-year recording hiatus after 1992’s “Life On Planet Groove.” The record has since sold more copies per year than each prior year since its release.

Meanwhile, in between gigging with Fishbone and Five Fingers of Funk, Parker has been persuaded to lay down tracks with Clinton, De La Soul and Jane’s Addiction.

“Funk Overload,” which includes covers of classics by Marvin Gaye, Rufus and Sly and the Family Stone, along with Parker tunes of recent years, marks Parker’s return to recording his jazz-influenced funk.

“This whole entertainment genre is almost like a buffet of stuff,” Parker says. “Whatever the audience kind of feels like, you do that. Thank goodness that funky stuff is right in there.”

That funky stuff, as Parker calls it, has and always will be what motivates him to pick up his alto sax every day of the year.

“I just know that funky music sort of fits the mode for partying and having a good time,” he says. “I like it when the audience is a little bit more involved with singing and clapping their hands and all that stuff. We, as human beings, need something to release some tension.

“From the perspective of being on the stage, I enjoy checking on the audience, seeing what they’re doing,” he continues. “It’s kind of a reverse of roles. It’s like, ‘Check out this guy, he’s not going quite as fast as everyone else.'”

Beginning next week, Parker will get the chance to watch crowds much bigger than what he is used to, as the opening act for eight of Dave Matthews Band’s Midwest performances.

“Somebody from his camp suggested it,” Parker says about the gig. “We thought it was a good idea because there’s gotta be somebody out there that may not know anything about Maceo Parker. And we always like to open new ground, so to speak.”

However, Parker is a bit concerned about scaling his usual three-hour show down to 45 minutes.

“I have no idea how I’m going to do it,” he says. “My thing is based on signals anyway, and I’m the quarterback, the signal caller. So it all falls on me. It’ll probably be a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and then kind of hang onto one or two. That way, it won’t seem like we did three tunes and had to say good night.”

It has been written about Parker that he approaches every performance with the same intensity of a rookie. And although he is approaching the age when many musicians retire, the thought has not crossed Parker’s mind.

“I just enjoy bringing smiles to the people through the music, and as long as I have fun doing it, I’ll be here,” he says. “I’ve said, don’t have me on the stage when I’m 80 years old, but who knows? If it’s OK, cool. I won’t play anything, I’ll just wave my hand and say, ‘Hi, I’m still here.'”

James Brown may say there ain’t no funk in Iowa, but Parker will prove him wrong Dec. 17 at Hilton Coliseum at 7 p.m. Tickets are sold out.