James Brown
Star Time Box Set
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“Right On” to “Word Up”
The ride uptown on the A train seemed to take forever. We usually got off at 42nd Street to go to the movies or at 59th Street to see some exhibition at the Coliseum. However, on this humid late summer Saturday, my mother, sister and I weren't stopping in mid-town, but staying on the express past 59th Street. Next stop: Harlem. As a child I'd always get Harlem mixed up with Holland. I recall asking my mother if we'd be seeing any windmills. She said, "No." We were going to see something better. We were going to see James Brown.
Harlem circa 1967 was, to my young eyes, a bustling, larger-than-life landscape of brothers in wraparound shades, girls in bell-bottomed pants and the motion of hundreds of swaying, bopping, strutting black bodies. Deep rich soul music - Sam & Dave, The Impressions, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Shorty Long, Aretha Franklin - flowed from cars, transistor radios and sidewalk speakers of crowded record shops. At 125th Street and what is now Frederick Douglas Boulevard we joined a long line of couples and families. In the distance was a marquee and a long horizontal sign that spelled out "APOLLO" in lights. Before long the line moved and the words "JAMES BROWN REVUE" was written out in big black block letters.
As I recall the Apollo was no palace. It seemed dark and a little dingy. Compared to Radio City, where I'd seen "Mary Poppins," the Apollo was a letdown. The wall of fame was up, but it didn't make any impression on me. We were swiftly ushered through the lobby and into the orchestra. We sat in the center section well in the back, with sister, then four, in my mother's lap. Pigmeat Markham did his famous "Here Comes the Judge" routine with a crew of other comedians. It was nice but I was impatient, as little boys are prone to get. Finally Danny Ray, the slim, slick M.C. who served as Flavor Flav to James Brown's Chuck D, came out and did the legendary spiel of hits - "Cold Sweat," "Please Please Please," "Night Train," etc. The band grew louder. People began to cheer and shout. Then suddenly there he was.
Black slacks and shirt, red vest and his - I believe - recently minted Afro adorned his body. For moments he seemed motionless at center stage. Then Brown was moving. He cruised across the Apollo stage on a cushion of air, his black shoes skating rapidly. When he fell to his knees, microphone cradled in his hands, I was frightened. Was he sick? Did he have a headache? I turned to ask my mother what was bothering James Brown, but she was too busy smiling and bopping to the music to notice me. Some twenty years and countless concerts later the sight of James Brown, moving on stage in agony and ecstasy, with his band churning soulfully behind him, stays with me.
The A train ride, the feeling of the street, the Apollo and Brown's performance (one of several he'd give that day) all remind me of a world 1 was too young to fully participate in, yet that still profoundly shaped me. It was the heyday of soul, when a great blossoming of African-American culture was underway and an heretofore unknown injection of racial pride was stimulating the masses. So much from that time has been lost or sidetracked. One-two-five Street is a shell of its former vibrancy and the Apollo, once the centerpiece of a busy social center, now stands alone in a blighted community. After rough times in Ronald Reagan's 1980s black pride is rising again, though the forces that oppose it, white racism and black crack-induced self-destruction, are formidable. Brown himself has seen his fortunes take a tumble.
Yet we still have this music to remind us of the best of soulful '60s and the optimism that was that era's great strength. Most pop artists are products of their time; great pop artists embody their time. From the mid-'60s to early '70s James Brown was so innovative, so defiantly African in America, that you can't even begin to recall that time without referring to his vast catalog. Just as "Say It Loud-I'm Black And I'm Proud" championed the new black pride, his friendship with President Richard Nixon suggested the limitations of integration that would confound black aspirations in the '70s. Looking back, it's not a matter of whether Brown was right or wrong, trendy or reactionary, in his political judgements. The point is what Brown did mattered. In the black community during the civil rights era Brown's magnetism earned a respect and attention few leaders, be they preachers or Panthers, could command.
James Brown, not coincidentally, began not to matter when the values he epitomized - funk, passion, idealism, realism became diluted within the black community. Parliament Funkadelic aside, '70s soul music devolved into a less urgent, more complacent, crossover mode. Disco, which was initially inspired by Brown's work, actually became his nemesis. Its softer sound dominated during a time the quality of Brown's bands and self-confidence sagged. Corporate rhythm & blues was in, and Brown, rugged individualist to his core, was out. Flagging sales and poor organization of his thriving empire left him in debt. Comics regularly cracked on Soul Brother No.1 and imitators turned his artistry into self-parody. For a man with his enormous ego it was a very trying time.
But the '80s, despite Brown's infamous arrest, were good for his legend. From the mean streets of Harlem and the Bronx, a polyrhythmic musical attitude called hip hop emerged. Using Brown's grooves as the motherlode and Brown's staccato lyrics as a starting point, hip hop embraced his legacy. With the introduction of the sampling machine in the mid-'80s, Brown's actual recordings became the heart of this sound. At first the Godfather cried thievery. But even more than his own comeback recordings, the ubiquity of "Funky Drummer" and "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose" and "Sex Machine" and on and on (to da break of dawn) on rap records testified to Brown's continued artistic potency. Like any good idea Brown's time had come once. Like any great idea Brown's impact had surged, ebbed and then risen again.
As we move through the last decade of the 20th century, James Brown, perhaps the ultimate example of African Americana, is the catalyst for another generation of black and proud musicians and thinkers. I'm an adult now and have traveled on the A train more times than I'd like to. Yet of all the music of my childhood nothing resonates with as much power as Brown's intense recordings. The music in this package stretches from the years of "Right on!" to the time of "Word up!," a long time for any performer's music to maintain its relevance. But listening to these jams again, hit after soulful hit, it's clear once more that James Brown is the root and everybody else just a branch from his tree.
Nelson George
January 1991
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Nelson George, author of The Death of Rhythm & Blues, writes a regular column for the Village Voice. 