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Published: Jun 26, 2009
Category: Soul
It takes nothing away from Michael Jackson to say that James Brown set the stage for him.
Look here, and you can see Michael say it himself.
And look here. James Brown doing "Good Foot" --- aptly named, I'd say.
“The hardest-working man in show business”? Oh, yes. In his early 70s, he was still playing as many as 300 concert dates a year --- and he wouldn't have missed the Christmas toy giveaway he sponsored in Augusta, Georgia. The following day, he saw a dentist, who sent him to a doctor, who sent him to the hospital. Whatever ailed him didn't seem life-threatening; after canceling a few mid-week performances, his doctor said it was fine for him to fly north for a show in New Jersey and another, at B.B. King's nightclub in New York, on New Year's Eve.
Instead, James Brown died.
The music business lives on hype; even a flash-in-the-pan gets called an “artist.” For James Brown, hype was understatement. He was, simply, the Shakespeare of American pop music of the last half century. Without him, there would be no Mick Jagger, no Michael Jackson, no Prince. There would be no funk, no disco, no Afro-Pop. And, for sure, there would have been much less fun.
He came onstage in tight pants, eye make-up and pomped hair. (He had two hairdressers, 150 suits, 80 pairs of shoes.) He wrote the songs. He was the choreographer. And he was a drill sergeant of a bandleader, who never hesitated to belittle --- and fine --- a musician who violated the dress code or blew an off-beat.
The band was legendary, but the spotlight was on Brown. Not his lyrics. Many of his songs were gibberish; their message was sex, and how better did you communicate that than grunting and shouting? His intent was to make you crazy --- he didn't care to prove he was all man if he could demonstrate that he was all showman.
So he would do splits. He'd shimmy. He'd shove the microphone away and catch it on the rebound. He'd fall to the ground and crawl. And when his handlers would come out to wrap him in a robe and lead him off-stage, he'd fling it off and fight his way back to center stage to deliver, sobbing, several more choruses.
He was never off-duty. In prison --- he got a six-year jail sentence in 1988 when, shotgun in hand, he ran into a business meeting, enraged, and then led police on a hundred mile-an-hour car chase --- he was the lead singer and director of the choir. Attendance zoomed. “I had the gospel group doing routines!” he bragged. “I had them so sharp that the inmates wanted to get their autographs."
“Sharp” is the word I'd use to describe James Brown's music. It was completely original and totally polished --- what you heard had been worked on until it gleamed. From “Please, Please, Please” in 1966 right to the end, his career is a steady accretion of milestones: “Papa's Got a Brand New Bag,” “Sex Machine,” "I Got You (I Feel Good)," “Cold Sweat,” “It's a Man's Man's Man's World” and the song that did as much to end the use of the word “Negro” as any legislation, “Say It Loud --- I'm Black and I'm Proud.” Add them all up, and you get perhaps a hundred million records sold. And that was mostly before videos and the Internet.
What to buy? Amazon is selling his “20 All-Time Greatest Hits” for a mere $9.99. The classic live album is said to be “Live at the Apollo, Vol. 1,” but contrarians favor “Love Power Peace,” recorded at The Olympia in Paris in 1971, with his best back-up band, the JBs. No matter what you choose, you can't lose. “The hardest-working man in show business” always went all out.
To buy James Brown's “All-Time Greatest Hits” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy James Brown's “Live at the Apollo, Vol. 1” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy James Brown's “Love Power Peace” from Amazon.com, click here.