James Brown

he was always the worst thing about the Rolling Stones and has been incomprehensibly awful for 30 years

but, y'know, take it to the Mick Jagger thread

i'll agree to disagree about the 1st part

re the 2nd part: "incomprehensibly"?

fwiw there's that documentary about their early 80s era and jagger has some actually insightful observations about the stones's music--like, thoughts on how they wrote songs vs. how they arranged them in different eras--but about 60 seconds into it you can see this look flash across his face, it's a combination of "i'm sure this is boring to everyone else" and "i'm using too many brain cells explaining this when i could just smile and say stupid shit" and then sure enough he smiles and says stupid shit.

in other words there is a really intelligent person somewhere in there that just doesn't have to show himself very often.

xpost

ok, sry

I really want to see this, and I was hoping it was available through an avenue other than HBO at the moment, but it doesn't appear to be.

what is the title?

"incomprehensibly"?

as in "I cannot even wrap my brain around how bad it is, it is so bad"

it's called MR. DYNAMITE

oh, they got alex gibney to direct. i wish i could see this. :(

that "night james brown saved boston" doc is incredible, i recommend that to everybody

^^^ that one is tremendous.

one of the clips from that night that shows up in the doc is so perfect - JB talking about how he used to shine shoes outside a radio station, first for a nickel, then for 6 cents, then for a dime, and then "now I own that radio station. THAT'S black power". It's like you can trace all of hip hop's aspirational wealth obsession to that one moment.

doesn't he say that in that "soul power" doc? maybe he just liked to repeat that tale.

I don't recall seeing that in the Soul Power doc but JB did have a penchant for repetition

the bit at Boston where he gets the kids off the stage is also 0_0

it's a good story, it bears repeating

"soul power" is so fucking great, i oughta get the blu-ray of that

fave moment is when bill withers quietly eats his breakfast as muhammad ali and don king have some argument over the meaning of black power

'The One' by RJ Smith was a really good read, one of the better music bios I've read in a while.

last few chapters are such a bummer

Would be interested to know exactly how Brown went from leader in the black community to being a PCP-addicted wife beater. Seems like something happened in the 70s but I've never really heard the story.

Don't some folks trace his abusive qualities back to incidents in his childhood?

Seems like something happened in the 70s

Hit became fewer and further between, his band was no longer the standard-bearer it had been (many having defected to P-Funk), and the IRS came down hard on him in a way they wouldn't have for a similarly business-minded white entertainer.

*Hits

Figured that must have played a part – his records in that decade suggest not only creative bankruptcy but financial as well.

Even so, it's still a bit hard to reconcile how this successful, often pious anti-drug crusader that was the paragon of black power and independence could become such a pathetic, addled character inside of, like, 7 or 8 years. Not a certainty but you have to wonder if there's a catalytic event or two in there somewhere.

There was: his son Teddy was killed in a car crash in 1973.

He had nowhere to but down, basically. So he went there.

Nowhere to go

Also, he had such an intense and near-religious devotion to the idea of The American Dream that when the US Government took the money he'd worked so hard to earn -- he played by the rules, and he encouraged others to do so -- it must have thrown his entire belief system into a tailspin.

Cf i'm payin taxes (what am i buyin)

He grew that terrible mustache.

I forget how disgustingly funky "The Payback" is

must be that five alarm chili

I dunno karate... but I know KA-RAZAY

news to me: The song and the album of the same name were originally recorded by Brown as the accompanying soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem (1973), but was rejected by the movie's producers as "the same old James Brown stuff.

talk about ka-razay

there's a great anecdote in Fred Wesley's memoir about that. He was in the studio playing back the tracks for Larry Cohen, who produced the movie. Cohen was unimpressed and said it wasn't funky enough, to which Wesley replied, "but Mr. Cohen, this is EXTREMELY funky music."

Wesley's book is great

love that book

This is atypical, but my favourite JB jam nonetheless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxROl4p8HE

why?

that's an odd one. Seems to think he's singing "What's Going On" at the beginning.

8 years after it came out, I finally read RJ Smith’s bio The One . Last few chapters while he’s on pcp both before and after a jail stint are depressing. The various musical peaks throughout are much more inspiring of course, from his childhood years and on through the Flames and the time with Bootsy Collins.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-james-browns-star-time-revolutionized-the-box-set-game-and-cemented-his-legacy/

Probably the greatest box set ever, and the rare box set that's the definitive album for the artist it's covering. (Maybe the only box set...not counting comprehensive all-album collections, what other box set is like that?)

Pearl?

by which I meant Janis, of course.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-james-browns-star-time-revolutionized-the-box-set-game-and-cemented-his-legacy🕸/

i almost sold my copy of star time when selling my records last year but thank god i didnt. i couldnt part with it in the end. it really is a brilliant box set. that p4k piece is very good too, though it needs to be longer. the comment that JB, live albums aside, doesnt have a good album is a bit harsh i thought but prob fair.

Get On Up is on Netflix right now. That's a weird fuckin' movie. Sometimes it gets a little Walk Hard-ish, but Chadwick Bozeman as Brown talking directly to the camera never feels wrong, just unexpected. And if you're gonna pick only 2-3 concerts to recreate, 1962 at the Apollo, 1968 in Boston the night of King's assassination, and Paris 1971 are absolutely the ones to pick.

i started to watch that once on tv, but dont think i can take anyone acting as JB seriously.

That's my favorite Boseman performance. Robert Christgau really dug it, and that convinced me to check it out. It's fun, but with any performance of someone this iconic, it can only be so great when you have plenty footage of the real thing.

Here’s James at the Grand Ole Opry: https://digi.countrymusichalloffame.org/digital/collection/musicaudio/id/7384/rec/38

drummer on I've Got Money is out of this world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLUmCV6I-HA

Hell yeah. I'm not familiar enough of his pre-Clyde recordings, aside from the big ones.