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Are You Ready Star Time
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James Brown
 Star Time Box Set
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Are You Ready For Star Time?

James Brown was born to lose. He refused to accept that fate. By the time he was in his 30s, James Brown was more than a dominant musical voice: he was an outstanding African-American personality, period. Important enough to be drawn into the murky waters of national politics as an inspiration and role model, he was also feared and sometimes ridiculed. But he would not be denied. And on the 35th anniversary of "Please Please Please," his first professional recording, James Brown remains one of the world's most influential musical personalities, of any creed or color. Ever.

Stillborn in a country shack in the piney woods outside Barnwell, South Carolina, on May 3, 1933, Brown was determined to be Somebody. He called himself "Mr. Dynamite" before his first Pop hit, and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" before the business ever knew his name. His was a fantasy, a sweet dream. But James Brown had singular talent, and the vision to hire the very baddest. In his own time, he became "Soul Brother Number ONE": JAMES BROWN, a larger-than-life Godfather of Soul.

"JAMES BROWN is a concept, a vibration, a dance," he told us recently. "It's not me, the man. JAMES BROWN is a freedom I created for humanity."

Some say it was a freedom too bold. Night after night, on stage and in the studio, his blood swirled, his legs split and his body shook. But talking to a crowd stretched at his feet in the late 1960s, James Brown reassured them: "If you ain't got enough soul, let me know. I'll loan you some! Huh! I got enough soul to burn."

Which begs the ultimate question: Ladies and Gentlemen, Are YOU ready for Star Time?
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I: DRIVING WHEEL

Music was an emotional charge for the young James Brown. Raised in a whorehouse in Augusta, Georgia, Brown never knew his parents' love or guidance. His main concern was hustling, his main outlet was sports. He liked music: gospel when he attended church; big band-swing and early rhythm & blues that he heard on the radio and on jukeboxes. Louis Jordan with his Tympany Five, so successful that he was regularly featured in "soundies" (early music videos) at the local movie house, was a special inspiration.

In 1946, all of 13 years old, Brown first tried his musical luck with his Cremona Trio, a penny-making sideline. His career halted temporarily when he was imprisoned for petty theft in 1949.

Paroled and turned loose in Toccoa, Georgia, in 1952, Brown started to make music his principal motive via the towns's Byrd family. Initially, he sang gospel with Sarah Byrd and the church club, then joined her brother Bobby Byrd's locally established group, known as the Gospel Starlighters, or The Avons, depending on what or where they performed.

There was no cohesive plan. Transporting illegal hootch across the state lines was a bigger money-maker than their day jobs and night gigs. Gradually, though, singing rhythm & blues seemed to make the most sense.

"When we saw all the girls screaming for groups like Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, we thought, 'Oh, so this is what we want to do!'" Bobby Byrd has said. "We were versatile. I would do Joe Turner, Fred Pulliam did Lowell Fulson, Sylvester Keels would do Clyde McPhatter, and James would do Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown."

Recalling when they were too poor to afford a horn, Byrd said, "For the horn parts, either James or I would whistle or we'd scat sing it together. Our voices always did go well together."

The Avons did pop ballads, too, for the afternoon tea parties and such. But in clubs and high schools, Brown, having emerged as the group leader, was a bit more reckless.

"The dancing y'all seen later on ain't nothing to what he used to do back then," Byrd said. "James could stand flat-footed and flip over into a split. He'd tumble, too, over and over like in gymnastics. We'd say, 'What's wrong with you? When it's time to record, you'll be done killed yourself.'"

They did record during this early 1950s period, but for whom and under what name is unclear, and no dubs have turned up. Managed by Toccoa's Barry Trimier, the group would gig in any convenient combination with assorted aliases. Events accelerated after they took over the stage, unannounced, at a local show by Macon's Little Richard.

Richard's manager Clint Brantley was impressed enough to assume the group's bookings. When Richard hit with "Tutti Fruitti" in 1955 and left the city, the group, by now realigned and calling themselves The Flames, fulfilled his performing dates. James Brown saw his moment.

"I've never seen a man work so hard in my whole life," Byrd recalled. "He'd go from what we rehearsed and leap off into something else. It was hard to keep up. He was all the time driving, driving, driving.

"This is when he really started hollering and screaming, and dancing fit to burst. He just had to outdo Richard. The fans started out screaming, 'We want Richard!' By the end they were always screaming for James Brown."
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II: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

By the fall of 1955 The Flames had worked up a furious, gospelized tune called "Please Please Please," inspired by "Baby Please Don't Go," a blues standard that had been a substantial hit for The Orioles in 1952. Emboldened by the response to their shows - which featured not only the JB flip on' split but Brown crawling on his stomach from table to table - the group recorded a spare version of the song in the basement of Macon radio station WIEB.

"It was simple, just a guitar and the voices around one microphone," said former disc jockey Hamp Swain, who was the first person to play the song on the air, at competitor WBML. "Our audience liked it. At the time, though, we weren't thinking this was the beginning of anything."

It gave Ralph Bass, talent scout and producer for King's Federal label, the shivers. An r&b pioneer who had overseen the recording careers of T-Bone Walker, Little Esther Phillips, Hank Ballard, The "5" Royales and The Dominoes, among many others, Bass heard the tune while visiting King's Atlanta sales branch.

"I didn't know who the group was, or the lead singer," Bass said. "But I knew 1 had to have that song."

While a violent rainstorm grounded Leonard Chess, head of Chess Records in Chicago, Bass drove all night to Macon to sign the group. A jock at the local r&b radio station hipped him to Mr. Brantley, a black man whose business dealings with local whites necessitated a clandestine meeting.

"Brantley didn't want anyone else to know he was dealing with an out-of-town white cat, so I got instructions over the phone to go to the train station and watch the blinds of the barbershop across the street," Bass said, recalling his disbelief. "He told me that at eight o'clock, when the blinds go up and down, that would be the signal to go in. Sure enough, eight o'clock on the button, there went the blinds, and in I went."

Bass got The Flames' signatures on a King/Federal contract for $200. He still didn't know who the lead singer was until that night at a club outside of town. There, the screaming girls tipped him off.

King Records of Cincinnati, Ohio was led by the irascible Syd Nathan. It was one of the U.S.'s leading independent labels, strong both in country and r&b. Many of The Flames' idols, including Bill Doggett, Roy Brown, Little Willie John, The "5" Royales, Hank Ballard, and others, recorded there. To the group - poor, Southern, twenty-something - signing with King carried a lot of hope.

On Saturday, February 4, 1956, The Flames were in Cincinnati for a session with the King house band, recording in three hours "Please Please Please," "I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On," "I Don't Know" and "Why Do You Do Me," which sounded more like Charles Brown than James Brown.

Bass got what he wanted. But Nathan hated "Please Please Please." He tried to fire Bass and refused to release the record. Bass talked him out of doing both.


"I had a dub of the tune on the road with me," Bass said. "Every chick I played it for went crazy. I told the old man to release it in Atlanta, test the waters, you know. He said, to prove what a piece of shit it was, he'd put it out nationwide."

Bolstered by a strong live show and massive sales throughout the South, "Please Please Please" eventually reached the national R&B Chart Top Five. James Brown and The Flames were becoming Famous.

Or so they thought.

Although "Please Please Please" was a million-seller, it was actually out of step with the times. Rhythm & blues was just then being reborn as rock 'n' roll; certainly with the rise of Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, Bo Diddley and a young Elvis Presley, Syd Nathan's dislike for the song had some commercial validity. And while in the long run James Brown would lead the revolution, at the time he and The Flames were a regional flicker.

For the next two-and-a-half years, every follow-up single - nine in all - failed. The other Flames, already distressed by Brown's top billing, went home. Nathan wanted to send Brown with them. But the fiery singer soldiered on in Southern obscurity, backed by keyboardist Lucas "Fats" Gonder from Little Richard's band and whomever they could rustle up.
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III. THE FIRE THIS TIME

In the summer of 1958 Brown either originated, adapted or was given a pop-gospel ballad that became his salvation. "Try Me" - a literal plea for acceptance – was recorded in New York on September 18, with a studio band that featured future jazz great Kenny Burrell on guitar. By January 1959, the record sat on top of the national R&B chart and snuck into the Pop Top 50.

That, and its eventual million-seller status, sparked the interest of a professional manager, Universal Attractions' founding father Ben Bart, and the recruitment of a regular backing band led by tenor saxophonist J.C. Davis. Ex-Famous Flame Bobby Byrd, who had been supervising Brown's quality control at the King pressing plant and was also rewriting songs from Nathan's publishing concerns, A returned, left again, then returned nearly for good.

King, suddenly interested in its rough-hewn "hollerer," released two full-length James Brown albums. It was countdown to Star Time.

Two decent-selling singles followed, "I Want You So Bad" and "Good Good Lovin'," Brown and band debuted at New York's legendary Apollo Theater. But even with the news, Brown's next big hit had to come on the sly.

With the band firmly established as a healthy unit, Brown suggested to Nathan that they be given their own record releases. They were doing particularly well in featured spots on the road with numbers to which the kids could dance a new thing called the "Mashed Potatoes." But after the flop of one instrumental on Federal ("Doodle Bug," credited to "James Davis"), Nathan clamped down. Brown turned to Henry Stone, an old Miami friend and independent record distributor who also ran his own small label, Dade.

"James was so upset with Syd Nathan," Stone said, instantly recalling the December 1959 session. "He and the band were doing 'Mashed Potatoes' on stage, and getting over, but nobody at King would listen. He came in, angry, he was gonna do the shouts himself. I kept telling him, 'James, you can't do this. You're signed to another label and I do business with Nathan.'"

Stone overdubbed Miami DJ "King" Coleman on the lead vocal, although Brown's yelps are audible throughout. The group was billed as Nat Kendrick & The Swans, after the drummer. "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes," on Dade, became a R&B Chart Top Ten and sparked a national craze.

It even outran Brown's own "I'll Go Crazy," an exciting track despite the group's apparent lethargy in the studio. Between takes, a frustrated Brown said to the band, "Well, it's a feelin', you know. You got to have the feelin'."

They tried to get the feelin' seven times. Like most of James Brown's best records, the first take became the 45 single master.

As both songs were charting in February 1960, Brown revamped the "5" Royales' "Think," a 1950s harmony classic he dearly loved. The session was hurried, and the update, now recognized as a turning point in popular music, was arranged on the spot. Surprisingly, on one take Brown forgot the words.

While James Brown eventually had the confidence to direct his studio sessions, on the early recordings he listened carefully to advice from King engineers and producers. Through several awkward takes of "Baby You're Right," Brown was apologetic for slowing down the session. Soothed and encouraged by studio personnel, JB soon belted the song's dramatic opening rise and fall with precision. It evoked an exclamatory "That's the way!" from the engineer.

Over the next two years, Brown's biggest hits - "Bewildered," "I Don't Mind," "Baby You're Right," "Lost Someone" - were mostly ballads, less orchestrated than the smooth pop dominating the charts. He extended them into knock-down, drag-out performances in his stage revue, flourishing wildly colored capes while backed by the longest-running Famous Flames lineup: Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett and "Baby Lloyd" Stallworth. The show also included frenetic performances of the uptempo material he'd cut, like "Night Train."

Legend has it that James Brown sang and played the drums on "Night Train" when regular drummer Nat Kendrick went to the john. Perhaps. It is known from the recently discovered session reel that Brown was behind the kit for all four takes, struggling with the rhythms until the unidentified producer offered advice. "James, don't rush your drumbeats so much," he said. "Just give 'em a fraction mo' space.”

Brown did just that. In the spring of 1962, he rode the "Night Train" into the Pop Top 40.

Behind or in front, JB had earned the title "Mr. Dynamite." His vastly improved live shows, helmed by trumpeter Lewis Hamlin, a Baltimore school teacher by trade, were kicking tail. A vice president of BMI, Charlie Feldman, recalled a dramatic summer afternoon seeing such a show at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, home of the city's minor league Barons baseball team.

"Everyone had on their best clothes, because JAMES BROWN had come to town, in a three-quarter-ton truck right on the field," Feldman said slowly, savoring the memory. "I remember one woman in particular in the first row of seats, wearing a new outfit, all her attention on James.

"When he went into 'Please Please Please,' she was hysterical. When they pulled out a cape - goodness! James would disappear into the truck, come back out with a different cape, three or four times. When it was obvious he wasn't coming back out again, that lady lost it. She went right over the wall. When she hit the grass her brand-new shoes fell off. She froze - took one look at the shoes, then one look at the truck and James. It was no contest. She ran after that truck, barefoot."

James Brown was firmly convinced that that kind of fan, several thousand times over, would pay to have the JB experience on a record. But a live album seemed ludicrous to Syd Nathan. After all, he wasn't in the album business, nor would a live album produce any singles. Brown paid him no mind - after all, Ray Charles had done it, twice - and booked the Apollo Theater from October 19-25, 1962.

Sufficiently warmed up by Wednesday, the 24th, JB, The Famous Flames and band distilled their brilliantly executed live show onto tape. Nathan didn't care. If it was coming out at all, he would overdub extra screams and applause to insure the buying public got the point. The live album was shelved.

As JB danced on the rougher edges of African-American music, most commercially successful black artists had "gone pop." Again, it was Ray Charles who'd led the way, scoring several heavily orchestrated hits in 1962. At Ben Bart's urging, Brown attempted to duplicate his success.

JB entered New York's Bell Sound Studios on December 17, 1962, with master jazz and pop arranger Sammy Lowe to record several well-known ballads: "These Foolish Things," "Again," "So Long," and "Prisoner Of Love." It was Brown's first multi-track session, and his first recording with strings and a full chorus. Jazz drummer David "Panama" Francis doubled on drums and tympani.

It was an unusually long session. "Prisoner Of Love" took 15 takes, all live. But the final version had its desired effect. By the following spring, James Brown had his first Top 20 Pop hit.
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IV: KING WITHOUT A CASTLE

The planets were in volatile alignment in 1963. America's civil rights movement, bubbling since the mid-1950s, burst into focus with the August 28 march on Washington, D.C., one month after Joan Baez and Bob Dylan echoed the voice of the college protesters at the Newport Folk Festival. And JFK's assassination in November startled even the non-political.

Across the tracks, in Oakland, California, Huey P. Newton and others were formulating the Black Panther party. In Detroit, Berry Gordy's Motown operation was bidding to be "The Sound of Young America." Across the Atlantic, groups of post World War Two baby boomers, spearheaded by The Beatles, were making headlines as creators of the U.K.'s newest sound and image.

James Brown was beginning his ascent into the international consciousness. Simultaneous with "Prisoner of Love,” Nathan had finally agreed to release Brown's live album. Remarkably, the no-bullshit Live At The Apollo quickly became the nation's second best-selling album.

But Brown was getting restless. Syd Nathan was ailing, out of touch with the contemporary music scene but still stubbornly calling the shots. Yet Nathan was flexible enough to let Brown form his own label, Try Me, and song publishing company, Jim Jam Music, under the King umbrella.

However, the rebellious JB recorded only three times in 1963: the original version of "Devil's Den," his live show theme and the group's initial foray into the Blue Note/Prestige school of bluesy funk-jazz; a gospel rewrite, "Oh Baby Don't You Weep," his first of many two-part singles; and a full-length concert of older material at Baltimore's Royal Theater. King, in need of James Brown product, released a live album from the show, but spliced in newer studio material overdubbed with fake
applause.

Brown and Bart had broader horizons, they formed the independent Fair Deal Records Production company in the fall of 1963, placing JB productions by Anna King and Bobby Byrd with the Smash division of Mercury Records. About the same time, Brown and the band headlined a Motown package tour.

By April 1964 Brown himself appeared on Smash, despite his existing contract with King. During the year he recorded prolifically under the Fair Deal umbrella, producing members of his revue as well as his own big-band revivals of r&b classics: orchestrated arrangements of MOR standards: a gospel-harmony throwback, "Maybe The Last Time" and an untypical "teen-beat" performance, "Out Of The Blue."

Referencing once again the advent of commercial jazz, JB recorded several funky instrumentals, including the bluelight special, "Grits." More profoundly, he cut original compositions that pointed to a new direction: prototype versions of "I Got You" and "It's A Man's World," and a pulsating, jerk-dance declaration, "Out Of Sight."

Brown's rhythmic core was jump-started by a succession of fresh, inventive players. Joining in 1964 were musical director Nat Jones, and Melvin and Maceo Parker, two cocky teenagers from Greensboro, North Carolina.

"James had wanted me to join the year before, but 1 was still in school," Melvin recalled. "The next time he came through town 1 was ready, and I had Maceo with me. 1 mean, our bags were packed.

"Somehow, 1 had the nerve to tell James 1 wouldn't go without Maceo. Maceo played tenor, but James needed a baritone and Maceo carried one of those, too. We were in."

The Parkers figured they'd stay for a year, then go back to school. Twelve months later, the draft came calling, not school. But they'd both be back, with considerable success.

"Out Of Sight" hit the charts just as James Brown's recording career hit the legal fan. King had sued Smash, preventing them from issuing Brown's vocal recordings.

Smash had to be content with instrumentals and JB productions of other artists. King re-released older albums with new covers.

Mercury tried to buy King to get James Brown, but Nathan wouldn't sell. He wanted his contracted singer back on existing terms. Brown refused to return without a vastly improved deal.

JB simply got on with business. On October 24, 1964 - two years to the day after the recording of Live At The Apollo - JB and his crew electrified a gaggle of California teenyboppers during the filming of Steve Binder's "T.A.M.I. Show," upstaging the headlining Rolling Stones. Around the same time, Brown, with the Famous Flames, made an extraordinary cameo appearance in the Frankie Avalon movie, "Ski Party."

For a moment, anyway, the lack of new product was no problem. James Brown, like his boyhood idol Louis Jordan, was now in movie houses nationwide. More people than ever before could see for themselves that he looked and sounded like no one else in the immediate universe.

Brown, meanwhile, returned to King with a brand new deal - and something from the outer limits in his tape box.
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V: A BRAND NEW BAG

By early 1965, there was a new addition to the JB songbook:

"Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." Brown based it on a show adlib, but in its final form the song not only signalled his new status at King, it articulated a new musical and cultural direction.

In typical JB fashion, "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" was recorded in less than an hour on the way to a gig, in February 1965. The band, which included a new member, blues guitarist Jimmy Nolen, was weary from a long bus ride; their exhaustion shows on the original source tape. But fired by pride and their optimistic leader ("This is a Hit!"), they refused to lose the groove.

It was Brown's first new song for King in more than a year. In a brilliant post-production decision, the intro was spliced off and the entire performance was sped up for release. "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" went through the roof. Star Time had arrived.

Even the normally self-assured James Brown was astounded at his creation.

"It's a little beyond me right now," he told disc jockey Alan Leeds, when the song was new on the charts. "I'm actually fightin' the future. It's - it's - it's just out there. If you're thinking, 'well, maybe this guy is crazy,' take any record off your stack and put it on your box, even a James Brown record, and you won't find one that sounds like this one. It's a new bag, just like I sang."

"Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" was soon followed by a freshly minted version of "I Got You," now subtitled "(I Feel Good)." JB went on a roll, appearing on pop TV programs that had previously shunned him. He built up his "Orchestra," a combination of jazz and blues players that included new recruits Waymond Reed, Levi Rasbury, Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, Clyde Stubblefield, and John "Jabo" Starks. He was also winning awards - and striding into a suddenly open-ended future.

In March 1966, the James Brown caravan crossed the Atlantic for appearances in London and Paris for the first time. On the 11th, "Ready, Steady, Go," then Britain's hippest TV pop show, gave him an entire program. It was broadcast live.

The British "in·crowd" couldn't cope: presenter Cathy McGowan and her mod acolytes deemed JB to be "simply dreadful." At the theatre gigs, pandemonium proved otherwise. Since then, although he's only enjoyed intermittent pop chart success in Europe, Brown has always been able to claim a second home across the water.

Back in the U.S., he was welcomed at Kennedy Airport by hundreds of fans. Within days he headlined a multi-racial bill at Madison Square Garden, and in May debuted in prime time on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Brown also hosted a mammoth civil rights rally in Mississippi, and he opened a nodding acquaintance with the Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin/Sammy Davis Jr., rat-pack.

In August 1966, Brown again did what no African-American performer could do: he awarded himself a Lear Jet, with which he flew to the White House to discuss the "Don't Be A Dropout" campaign with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. These were heady times.

Brown’s biggest international hit that year was the impassioned ballad, “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” Arranged by Sammy Lowe at moment's notice - working from an acetate of the then unreleased original version - the session featured Lowe's usual New York players, a string section, some Brown Orchestra members, and a female chorus (edited out of the final master). Recording went quickly, so quickly that it is rarely noted in Lowe's extensive personal diaries.

After the first take, James said, 'That's it, I like it, I like it,'" Lowe said. "He didn't like to do them Over. But I had them like one more, just for safety. Who knows which one they used."

“It's A Man's Man's Man's World" was an exception to the general trend of JB's music. His Orchestra was now at its best, and as Nat Jones helped to interpret Brown's instructions, there was a distinct shift in its rhythmic mood. Sometimes a swing-like ("Bring It Up," "Ain't That A Groove"), sometimes simple, hard-driving energy ("Money Won't Change You "), it wasn't yet full-blown funk. But it was JAMES BROWN: utterly different from Motown, Atlantic and the other vital musical sources of the era.
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VI. SAY IT LOUD

Brown kicked off 1967 like all the proceding years: back on the road. He added a three-piece string section to the Orchestra, which was absolutely unheard of for any working artist at the time, black or white. Several shows were recorded during a weekend engagement at the Latin Casino nightclub in mid-January, tapes of which were doctored with echo and later released as Live At The Garden.

Despite the strides taken by the entourage, there was momentary lapse of trouble. The flambouyant Nat Jones quit the first night of the Casino gig, suffering from mental health problems. Moved up the ranks into his slot was Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis who had been handling arrangements for Jones on the side. Ellis was a skilled jazz tenor saxophone player out of Rochester, New York, who had paid little attention to Brown’s career before joining the troupe in February, 1966. He caught up fast, however, his first week on the job, at the Howard Theatre in Washingon, D.C.

“I was flabbergasted,” said Ellis. “Blown away. I stood there in the wings and I thought, I should have bought a ticket. It was that much of a privilege to be that close to James Brown and that band.”

By the second night of the Latin Casino engagement, he and Brown had worked up “Let Yourself Go,” a song that musically signaled changes taking place. Brown still called the shots – after a few takes he replaced drummer Stubblefield with Starks, then stopped the recording to suggest a last-minute ad-lib – but the band was developing into an unrivaled powerhouse.

No one really noticed the new brew until the summer, when the mind-blowing single “Cold Sweat” blasted through the hot air.

It was just rhythm – barely any chord changes – with jazz intervals in the horn section, dreamed up by Ellis while he was shopping in a music store in downtown Cincinnati. It contained another first – a “give the drummer some” solo by Clyde Stubblefield. And it was shaped in the studio by Brown in only two takes.

“’Cold Sweat’ deeply affected the musicians I knew,” said Jerry Wexler, who was then producing Aretha Franklin and other soul stars for Atlantic Records. “It just freaked them out. For a time, no one could get a handle on what to do next.”

James Brown simply kept going. He made his “Tonight Show” debut and recorded a set at the Apollo Theatre for future release. The next single would be “Get It Together,” a quickly recorded, monstrous two-parter, in which JB gave each band member “some.” And Brown’s sign-off at the end wasn’t just an ad-libbed cue for the engineer. He really had to “open the door and leave”: immediately ahead lay advance promotion for the next night’s gig in Richmond, Virginia.

“So many things that were done weren’t written, because you just couldn’t,” “Jabo” Starks has said. “You couldn’t write that feel. Many, many times we’d just play off each other, until James would say. ‘That’s it!’”

Throughout this transitional year, James Brown had more than just a unique sound and road show. While there were further recordings with Sammy Lowe, and, for the first time, with the Dapps, a white group from Cincinnati, Brown was also emerging as a spokesman and role-model.

But JB struggled with his role. Patriotically, he accepted an appointment to co-chair a Youth Opportunity Program with heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali. It was swiftly cancelled when Ali refused the military draft.

Modern soul music, embodied by Aretha and the Stax Records label, had strutted into the mainstream. Stax’s Otis Redding – whose earliest performances had music charts generously provided by the James Brown Band – had exploded into the laps of the acid-rock generation at the Monterey Pop Festival. James Brown moved to embrace the Las Vegas market, performing such supper-club standards as “That’s Life” and “I Wanna Be Around,” even as “Cold Sweat” was turning heads.

Then, in 1969, Brown lost his dream-weavers: Syd Nathan, a respected adversary; singer Little Willie John, a very deep and personal inspiration; Ben Bart, his business mentor and father figure; and the whole of King Records, sold twice in two months.

But JB’s personal troubles dimmed beside other tragedies. Assassin’s bullets felled Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, adding heat and rage to an already-smoldering African-American nation. Vietnam was exploding.

Brown stepped to the fore. The day after King’s assassination, he was televised in concert at the Boston Garden to calm the rioting. He was flown to Washington, D.C., to speak on the radio and urge brotherhood. Brown and his wife were also invited to the White House dinner with President Johnson.

During the same year Brown bought his first two radio stations, WJBE in Knoxville, Tennessee, and WRDW in Augusta, Georgia. He entertained on the African Ivory Coast and for the U.S. Troops in Vietnam; collected innumerable citations; and wound up the year touring with the Count Basie Orchestra as his support act.

These were events that proved him to be a man of considerable influence. But the gestures to government didn’t endear him to black militants. To them, Soul Brother No. 1 was siding with “The Man.” James Brown felt he was doing no such thing. He was reacting to individual situations with no sophisticated philosophy except advancement for himself – and, by example, the African-American nation.

After all, he could reason, wasn’t the presence of a seventh-grade dropout from South Carolina at the White House dinner table enough of a message?

Brown instead focused his musical message. The new tunes were powerful, if lyrically ambiguous: "I Got The Feelin'" and "Licking Stick- Licking Stick" (recorded just a few days after King's death). But by the summer of riots, JB recorded his most profound anthem, "Say It Loud- I'm Black And I'm Proud."

It's not clear whether Brown bowed to militant pressures to record it, or whether he simply thought it was time. Whatever the source, JB listened. In fact, between takes, Brown whispered to everyone present, "About 50 million people waitin' to hear this one."

From that summer and throughout the rest of the '60s, a sense of urgency gripped the entourage. Led by Ellis; the band sharpened under constant rehearsals; the final touches engineered by a supremely confident JB. "Hit me!" he cried, and they did, like no one else.

"Man, we used to cut, like Sherman tanks coming down the aisles," said drummer Clyde Stubblefield, remembering what it was like to be in the eye of the hurricane. "One time, at Soldier's Field in Chicago, we were on the grass with little Vox PA systems - no monitors. I looked way up at the top and I tried to figure out, 'How are they going to hear us?' But they were up there rockin'!"
Of course, with such a punishing schedule the band wasn't always tight like that. They literally paid for their mistakes, as Brown would fine them for bum notes or a dull finish on their shoes. However, JB, through subtle gestures or an ad-libbed phrase, could make even the worst mistakes work on the fly.

One example: The bass player made a mistake in "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose," walking up to the bridge of the tune a bit early. Brown didn't stop the song, he intercepted the error with a rhythmic cascade of "no·no-no's." Other times, Maceo was called to blow when JB himself ran out of rhymes. And every drummer trained their eyes on the back of the boss' head and shoulders, ready for a body cue to pop the snare.

It was why Fred Wesley would say later, "The first rule when you went to work for James Brown: watch James Brown."

Brown began 1969 on a furious roll. The funk and the message got heavier: "I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing," a personal anthem, preceded a slew of "Popcorn" records. They pumped up the stage show, while Brown continued to court the mainstream. He recorded cocktail instrumentals with Cincinnati's Dee Felice Trio, and appeared for an entire week on the "Mike Douglas Show" in June, performing with Felice as well as his regular ensemble.

The fence-straddling put Brown in danger of being upstaged. There was serious competition from funk-rock bands, among them Sly & The Family Stone, the revamped Isley Brothers and Motown's Norman Whitfield productions. To top it off, throughout the year some key players in the JB Orchestra had left.

In March 1970, Brown suffered another blow: the guts of the '60s band, including Maceo and Melvin Parker, Jimmy Nolen, "Country" Kellum and three others, walked out. Only Byrd, who had recently returned with vocalist Vicki Anderson from an 18-month stab at independence, and Starks, an old-school loyalist, stayed on.
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VII: SOUL POWER

Enter The Pacesetters, a band of eight Cincinnati teenagers who leaped suddenly from King studio fill-ins to Soul Brother No. l's bad-ass front-liners. Prominent among them were the Collins brothers, William - "Bootsy" - on bass, and Phelps "Catfish" - on rhythm guitar.

"James Brown and his band were our heroes," said "Bootsy". "We knew all the tunes, but we couldn't imagine actually playing with them. I mean, one night with a guy like "Jabo" would have been it. To tell the truth, I don't think I ever got used to the fact that I was there."

Brown's "New Breed" - their name before he settled on The JB's - had a profound effect on his sound, stance and future. As Alan Leeds described in his essay, Brown shifted emphasis from the horns to guitar, taking the whole of African-American music with him. The JB's got JB back to basics.

Their catalog, in less than a year: "Sex Machine," "Super Bad," classic remakes of "Sex Machine" and "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose," "Talkin' Loud & Sayin' Nothing," "Get Up, Get Into It and Get Involved," and "Soul Power." Staggering. It did no less than define a new order.

Brown kept his momentum, but he was also in a tenuous position. Another desertion would have left him with no support whatsoever. In response, Brown lightened his discipline to give the JB's room to grow. He also truly respected their budding talent.

"James never went off on us," "Catfish" said. "He never fined us, like he did with Maceo and those guys. We just got the job done."

The original session tape of "Super Bad" revealed Brown acting the encouraging teacher as well the exacting leader.

"That's a hell of a groove, fellas," Brown exclaimed after the song's first run-through. But he grew testy with questions about the song's intro.

"Do anything you wanna, man," he snapped. "Don't bug me. OK? Just play what you play. Don't be a drag."

By the next attempt, however, Brown was thoroughly pleased, and he was careful to reassure his new crew: "Play as hard as you want, I don't care, 'cause you know where you're going now. Just go for yourself. You're doing fine."

But Brown also undermined the group's spirit. The horn players, whom he discovered were less talented than the Collins brothers, were substituted on the road by local musicians. And once some veterans, such as St. Clair Pinckney, Clyde Stubblefield and Fred Wesley, returned to the fold, the younger band looked elsewhere. After a European tour in March 1971, "Bootsy" and Phelps said "See Ya!" - and hitched a ride on George Clinton's Mothership.
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VIII: ON THE GOODFOOT

James Brown grooved on with new JB's, directed by Alabama - born trombone player Fred Wesley.

"They were totally green," said Wesley. "Cheese Martin was so used to playing rhythm, just scratching behind James, that I had to teach him to play lead guitar. And at first Fred Thomas wasn't much of a bass player. We rehearsed for two weeks in the basement of the Apollo Theater just to get the show together."

Within two months they had recorded the hits "Escape-ism," Bobby Byrd's "I Know You Got Soul" and "Hot Pants." Brown placed each with his new label, People. It was his last fling with King Records, now owned by Lin Broadcasting, and soon to be purchased by the Tennessee Recording and Publishing Co.

On July 1, 1971, Brown, along with his back catalog, signed to Polydor Records, which had been distributing him internationally since January 1968.

Polydor was a firmly established international corporation which at that time had a relatively low profile in the U.S. They got their first major shot of street credibility via the main man. Brown received a lot more money, artistic freedom, and stronger international representation. He also retained his own office and promotion team.

To kick off his signing, Brown cancelled the already-mastered King album, Love, Power, Peace, a triple-LP set recorded live in Paris during "Bootsy"'s and Phelp's final days. To substitute, in July alone he recorded a new version of "Hot Pants," "Make It Funky" and a brand-new live album at the Apollo Theater.

Polydor also picked up the People label. It became an important outlet for releases from The JB's, Lyn Collins, a returning Maceo Parker, and other JB productions. It was a prolific time.

From the summer of 1971 through the winter of '72, Brown scored 10 Top Ten hits in a row, against a backdrop of new music from Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Isley Brothers, Philadelphia International, Al Green and a new generation of funk groups. He transformed from "Soul Brother No.1" into "The Godfather of Soul" - a stunning achievement for a man nearly 40.

Brown faltered briefly in 1973, crushed by grief. His oldest son, Teddy, had died in a car accident in June. But JB pressed on. He scored two films, "Black Caesar" and "Slaughter's Big Rip-Off," and recorded the stinging "Payback," with significant input from Fred Wesley.

Wesley had tutored mightily under the baton of Dave Matthews, an ex-symphony player from Cincinnati. As Brown's semi-regular arranger, Matthews had picked up where Sammy Lowe left off. His core of New York session players included the cream of the new fusion stars, among them David Sanborn, Joe Farrell, Billy Cobham and Hugh McCracken. "King Heroin" (its rap written by ex-con Manny Rosen, who waited tables at Brown's favorite New York deli hangout), "Public Enemy #l" and "I Got A Bag Of My Own" were the most potent examples of his craft.

Significantly, at this time James Brown became an album seller. The LPs Hot Pants, the live Revolution Of The Mind, There It Is, Get On The Good Foot, the above mentioned film soundtracks, and 1974's two-record sets, The Payback and Hell, proved JB was still in the vanguard.

But even with eight best-selling albums in two-and-a-half years, there were no guarantees. In 1975, after "Funky President" had run its course, James Brown's commercial streak ended.
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IX: I REFUSE TO LOSE

JB was caught between two musical trends. He was considered too raw for disco, and yet not heavy or freaky enough for the Parliament-Funkadelic crowd.

Brown himself was for the first time showing signs of weariness and insecurity. He'd been breaking his back for 20 years, running the whole show. Most men attempting half as much would have dropped dead years past. He was the most successful African-American musician of the 20th Century, an internationally renowned superstar – but he hadn't yet been given establishment respect at home.

Brown witnessed acts that he'd inspired break through with more publicity, bigger advances and far greater opportunities than he'd ever enjoyed. His relationship with Polydor soured. Troubles with the IRS began.

His personal problems were reflected in his recordings; Brown started following trends instead of leading them. Despite his troubles, Brown could serve up such hard-hitters as "Get Up Offa That Thing" and "Body Heat," both international hits in 1976-77.

In 1979, after years of producing his own records, JB reluctantly agreed to work with an outside producer. Brad Shapiro - producer of several best-sellers for Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Millie Jackson, and a fan since seeing Brown perform in 1961 - jumped at the chance.

Shapiro, who had been tutored in the studio by Henry Stone, was fully aware of his idol's temperamental ego. But while Shapiro maintained complete control of the sessions - a monumental concession for James Brown - he remained awe inspired.

"When we cut 'It's Too Funky In Here' I was mesmerized by his raw sense of rhythm," Shapiro said. "I mean, he just grabbed the microphone, whirled around and hit that line, 'I need a little air freshener under the drums' - and man, I just got out of his way!"

"It's Too Funky In Here" became a favorite of Brown's occasional live shows. He toured Great Britain and Europe more frequently than the States, and in December 1979 played to adoring crowds in Tokyo, Japan. The Tokyo shows were released as a double-live album, one of his last for Polydor.

In 1980, Brown recorded "Rapp Payback (Where Iz Moses)," a dynamic update of his classic trance-like single. Ironically, it was released on TK Records, a disco-oriented label which had successfully challenged JB's chart authority in the mid - 70s. TK was run by Henry Stone.
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X: LIKE IT IS, LIKE IT WAS

The 1980s were both the rebirth and nemesis of Mr. James Brown. It was a comeback of significant clout on two levels. Following a brief fling with the new wave clubs that had rediscovered him, Brown was introduced to a broader pop audience via films: "The Blues Brothers," in which he portrayed a rousing preacher opposite John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd; "Doctor Detroit," also with Aykroyd; and "Rocky IV," which featured JB in a mythic cameo performing "Living In America," his biggest Pop hit since 1968's "Say It Loud-I'm Black And I'm Proud."

The night "Living In America" reached the U.S. Top Five, James Brown was inducted as a charter member into the music industry's Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame. He had gained the establishment recognition he craved.

At street level, a fundamentally more important appreciation of James Brown was taking place. An entire new generation was discovering his music and recycling, through sampling, his legacy as the soundtrack for their own aspirations. His recordings with Afrika Bambaataa and Brooklyn's Full Force were homages paid by respectful disciples.

Elsewhere he was being plundered by every new kid on the block. It wasn't long before the modern pop-rock elite, including Fine Young Cannibals, Sinead O'Connor and George Michael, found "Funky Drummer" an irresistible foundation for material. Aficionados estimate that between two and three thousand recorded raps of the late 1980s featured a James Brown sample in some form.

In December 1988, James Brown was handed two concurrent six-year prison sentences, on traffic violations charges and resisting arrest. As part of his sentence, the Godfather of Soul dutifully counseled local poor and preached against drugs. At the time of this writing, his freedom is imminent.

We haven't yet heard the last of James Brown. With enough soul to burn, this man's gonna do it to death.

Cliff White & Harry Weinger
February 1991
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