James Brown
Star Time Box Set
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From The Inside
I first met James Brown in July 1965. I had eagerly parlayed an obsession with his music and a fledgling radio career into an interview assignment. But my station's senior disc jockeys were quick to warn me of Brown's legendary tyranny - so by the time I knocked on the door of his hotel suite I was practically shaking.
A soft-spoken, exotic-looking woman escorted me into the bedroom, where Brown was sitting up in bed, a single sheet pulled halfway up his bare chest. His enormous process flowed over several pillows. He extended his hand and I barely managed to squeak some sort of greeting as I fumbled with my tape recorder. Brown immediately took control using my first name, asking about my air shift and bragging about his latest hit record, the landmark "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag."
Within an hour I not only had the interview but a series of personalized jingles for my radio show. I was astonished. Unlike other artists I had interviewed, Brown had turned the tables and actually become a fan of mine. In fact, he had me firmly convinced that I was destined to become the biggest deejay in the industry.
Several years later I went to work for James Brown and I was able to reflect on my earlier relationship from another perspective. One of the first things he shared with me was his friend-making philosophy. Befriending deejays, he reasoned, was even more effective than payola. "Friends will play your records forever," he explained. Of course every time they played the records, they were not only selling those records but tickets to the ever-touring James Brown Show. Behind Brown's back, the gag went that if you had a ham radio in your bedroom, he'd do ten minutes with you!
At the time, James Brown Productions was housed in a modest suite of offices adjacent to the King Records plant in an industrial area of Cincinnati. Working there proved to be just short of joining a cult. Non-performers were expected to dress in conservative business suits and ties. Brown insisted that we all refer to each other by surname ("It's a respect thing," he would say), although we often lapsed into the ultra slangy colloquialisms that peppered his song lyrics. And yes, we were liable to be fined for the smallest of "infractions." More than likely, though, if you were docked $100 on Monday, Brown slipped you $200 on Tuesday.
James Brown maintained complete control of his enterprises, despite (or because of) decisions seasoned with ego and emotions. His business approach seldom heeded departmental boundaries and he was surely aware that in deference to his mood swings, problems were sometimes concealed rather than brought to his attention. It didn't take me long to learn that Brown simply didn't want to hear certain things at certain times. Conversely, his rapt attention to detail and penchant for interminable grilling sessions prevented anything from falling between the cracks.
The business side of the James Brown "style" was made vividly clear during my first week working for him. We had learned that the boss would be spending several off days in the office, and suddenly everything in sight was dusted off, swept up or polished. Secretaries and agents quickly reshuffled their desks. Anything that might raise an eyebrow was put away.
An hour later the door ceremoniously exploded open. Brown strolled through the unusually sedate office without anything resembling a greeting and delved directly into tour business with agents Buddy Nolan and Bob Patton. In mid-sentence he bolted toward Patton's secretary and requested a copy of his latest record. Patton jumped up to switch on a stereo system, but Brown waved him off.
"I don't wanna hear it, I know what it sounds like," he said sarcastically. "I wanna look at that mutha!"
After a glance at the disc Brown turned back to the secretary. "Get Bud Hobgood down here," he growled. Then, switching to a sugary drawl, he added, "Pleeeze."
Production manager Hobgood whizzed into the office, looking apprehensive at best. Brown lashed right into him.
"Bud, all these damn records are pressed wrong," he said. "They're crooked, off center. Everywhere I go, the jocks complain. What the hell's the matter up there?"
The records were defective, but quality control wasn't Hobgood's jurisdiction. Brown didn't care. He knew Hobgood wouldn't rest until the problem was corrected.
Records were the core of our existence. Although a 1960s record deal wasn't generous enough to support a star and entourage the size of Brown's, the marquee value of the James Brown Show hinged on the success of his records. Not surprisingly, Brown insisted on daily sales figures of the records and carefully monitored ticket sales for upcoming tour dates. After digesting these reports, he'd call on his nearly photographic memory and compare the ticket counts to previous bookings in the same areas.
James Brown was a walking encyclopedia of cities and venues. When I became tour director, several times a year I'd sit with him and the agents to map out a tentative tour route three to four months in advance. Brown would first select larger, more lucrative cities and then build around them. We were all familiar with most cities and their regular venues, but it wasn't unusual for Brown to throw us a curve.
Stumped for a peripheral town to fill a vacant date, Brown would invariably come up with some obscure hamlet. Frustrated at being outdone, we'd have to listen to him victoriously proclaim, "There's an old theatre there, on the main street. It holds about three thousand people. Look it up."-
He was always right.
Dependent on performance revenues for income, prior to the mid-1970s artists didn't "tour" - they worked. Big stars like James Brown had the "luxury" of working often. Arenas, theatres, stadiums, night clubs - the James Brown Show played them all, fifty-one weeks of the year.
The schedule sounds inhuman by today's standards, but unlike modern tours we didn't have scores of tractor-trailers full of gear. We carried a single truck for uniforms, musical instruments, a modest audio system, and a lone strobe light. Load-in never took more than a couple of hours. Local promoters supplied follow spots and the only microphones were for vocals and horns. None of the rhythm instruments were miked - and yet night after night, the band tore the roof off whatever venue we were in.
Brown traveled in his own Lear Jet. He sometimes offered rides to favored employees like merit badges. Business manager Charles Bobbit was normally on board and Bob Patton, Buddy Nolen and I frequently joined them to discuss business, but on one occasion Brown invited audio engineer Jerry Shearin to fly with us. Shearin jumped at the chance to swap an all-night bus ride for the opportunity to persuade his boss to upgrade the sound system.
We had cut things closer than usual that afternoon and didn't arrive at the gig until a half-hour before showtime. Shearin rushed to his post, only to be confronted by road manager Fred Holmes and informed that he had been fined for lateness.
Dumbfounded, Shearin asked Holmes if he was joking.
"No man, no joke," Holmes said, laughing anyway. "Mr. Brown says you know you're supposed to be on the job three hours before the show. He says you shoulda thought about that while you were layin' in that hotel last night, plottin' to spend his money on new equipment."
Worlds apart from the private jet was the band bus, an unassuming long-distance coach leased from Trailways. By 1970, with Maceo Parker and most of the "classic" '60s band suddenly gone, the entourage featured a diverse mix of rookies and old timers. Gertrude Saunders, Brown's long time wardrobe mistress, was in charge of the bus and ruled her domain with every ounce of her substantial frame. She refused to tolerate any behavior that compromised what little privacy existed aboard the “J.B. Express."
Everyone was assigned regular seats. Seniority dictated first choice. Most of the veterans, like drummer John Starks and roadie Kenny Hull, sat near the front, playing poker and sipping gin to lull themselves to sleep. Comedian Clay Tyson and emcee Danny Ray, graduates of the Harlem night club scene, appointed themselves the bus narrators. Mile after mile, they hilariously described every billboard, dilapidated building, winter-weary farm animal and downtrodden hitchhiker the bus would pass. Hardly anyone paid their incessant babble any attention. I don't even think they bothered listening to each other.
The younger musicians huddled in the back, sharing reefer and playing Jimi Hendrix tapes. A relatively inexperienced group of Cincinnati teenagers, they had been summoned hurriedly when their more famous predecessors had quit.
It didn't take long to discover what had attracted Brown to his new band. Among them were William "Bootsy" Collins, a gawky bassist with a strangely arresting rhythmic nuance and riveting stage presence, and his equally talented guitarist brother, Phelps. They quickly combined with drummers Starks and Clyde Stubblefield to form a rhythm section with a raw pulse that was fresh for even Soul Brother No. 1.
The transition from old show to new show had more than its share of fascinating offshoots. For example, less than a month after the band upheaval I caught a show in Virginia and discovered a radically new arrangement of "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose." I asked Brown about it afterward.
"Oh, that's my new tune," he said. I didn't understand how a two-year old record could be his "new" tune, but all Brown would offer was, "Wait until we get to Nashville tomorrow. You'll see."
One day and another concert later, we were on our way to Starday-King's newly refurbished studio for the first recording session with Brown's new band. Too nervous to be tired, the fell as anxiously ran through the only tune they'd record that night. Sure enough, there were the licks I'd heard in "Give It Up." Only this time, the song was named "Get Up, I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine."
Brown called for a take, but stopped it when he stumbled over a phrase. On the second take a mysterious metamorphosis took place. We witnessed an instinctive musical genius that magically bypassed the normal thought process, evoking a vocalese from deep inside. When it was over, Brown broke into a wide grin.
He was ecstatic. He had transformed a simple groove into a piece of gold. Furthermore, facing criticism that his songs had become derivative, he had successfully altered his musical "formula." Maceo's soaring sax was replaced by a funky piano solo and Brown had written in a call-and response with sidekick Bobby Byrd. But more significantly, the arrangement focused entirely on the polyrhythms of the Collins brothers and Starks.
Engineer Ron Lenhoff dutifully asked for another take. But take two was the bomb.
Everyone crammed around the monitors for the playback. Thirty seconds into the song the exhausted musicians started dancing in place, slapping fives and laughing. By the end the entire crew was cheering - actually yelling and screaming!
"Sex Machine" helped set the pace for African-American music in the 1970s. It wasn't the first or the last time James Brown would be at the evolutionary helm of his art form, but like the rest of his staff, I was too absorbed in day-to-day business to "think history." Of the five years I worked for Brown, however, those first two were probably the most exciting. He reclaimed his throne amidst an unusually threatening crop of competition that included Isaac Hayes and Sly Stone. The young, exuberant band, a timely new wardrobe and a handful of red-hot national television appearances combined to deflect any backlash from the Maceo mutiny. Meanwhile, smash hits like "Sex Machine," "Super Bad" and "Soul Power" ruled the charts.
The world was watching and listening again. Everyone who was anyone, from Miles Davis to Fela Ransome-Kuti, from a packed Olympia Theatre in Paris to New York's posh Copacabana, was checking out the "new" James Brown. All the critics who had prematurely buried the "hardest working man in show business" had to not only eat their words, but also come up with some pretty decent new ones.
It was a privilege to be there.
Alan M. Leeds
January 1991
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Alan M. Leeds began his career as a disc jockey at radio station WANT in Richmond, Virginia. He joined James Brown Productions as Publicity Director in 1969. From 1970 until 1973 he served as Tour Director for the James Brown Show. Leeds is currently Vice President of Paisley Park Records in Minneapolis, Minnesota and plans to publish a complete James Brown discography based on over twenty years of research. 