I knew that I would, the first time I saw James
Brown I was just a kid ten or eleven. Flipping through the
channels I see James Brown but it wasn’t his voice that first
caught my attention it was his dancing. Jackie Wilson on speed
he made Elvis look like he was standing still. I didn’t know
men could do the splits until I saw him do it and then to come
right back up just as fast and smooth as an elevator. Then he
went into Please, Please, Please with the cape and being
helped off the stage only to throw it off and come back and do
it some more, I was bowled over.
The voice rough scratchy to silky smooth his voice
like a jet fighter roamed the vocal stratosphere but always
under perfect control. Staccato punctuations to his trade mark
shrieks and screams, James stripped rhythm and blues down to
rhythm and pure emotion and in the process not only became the
God father of soul but the father of funk and the Moses of hip
hop. When James Brown sang a song you knew how he felt about
it and you had no doubts that he believed it, from his
pleadings in Please, Please, Please to Poppa’s Got A Brand
New Bag the emotion was always right out in front, He
understood that there are thousands of singers and millions of
catchy tunes but to attract an audience he had to give them
more so he did, he gave more and he did more and it showed as
he poured himself into every line.
Born into this world so poor he would have to save his
money just to work his way up to just poor. Sent home from
school for not having adequate clothing he worked every kind
of menial activity to earn money including stealing. To learn
music he volunteered to sweep out the church so he could
practice the piano when no one was around. His mother left
home when he was four his father working to try and support
them through tough times burned self reliance into the young
child. Ambition and self-reliance with out guidance led to
prison; jailed at sixteen his jailhouse name was music box.
Inside the walls of the prison He formed a gospel group and
upon his release joins the group The Four Flames.
But with that much talent it soon becomes The Four
Flames with James Brown then James Brown and the Four Flames
and finally James Brown and his Four Flames. As his career
takes off James controls every aspect of it, he starts his own
publishing company his own record label and even his own radio
stations. Growing up in segregated Augusta Georgia he
described a street in town where blacks lived on one side and
whites on the other side.
James was ambitious for his own success but from the
very beginning he was interested in raising the black
community as well. Founding a chain of restaurants with black
management catering to black customers at a time when blacks
weren’t made welcome in many restaurants. He gave away
millions in scholarships and up until his death food drives
and toy drives at Christmas. He once told a reporter “Civil
rights are great but that doesn’t mean you respect me, but if
I’ve got money you’ll respect me whether I’ve got civil rights
or not.”
His songs were positive messages Stay In School and Say
It Loud (I’m black and I’m proud) was an anthem to black
America although many whites felt threatened by it I was never
bothered by it. What ethnic group doesn’t have their own
anthem? These were polarized times he could have said get a
brick or get a gun. But he wasn’t about that, he forgave his
mother for leaving him and when Doctor King was murdered the
Mayor of Boston suggested James cancel his concert that night.
James countered instead that they should televise the concert
live. While American cities burned crime reports from Boston
were actually below normal.
Ebony magazine asked the question “Was James Brown the
most influential black man in America?” He toured Vietnam he
met with Nixon not that he thought Dick Nixon was a great guy
but because he thought it was better to talk then not talk and
how many conflicts could be averted with that mature attitude
today? He toured Vietnam not because he supported the war but
because he saw thousands of black troops and no black
entertainment acts on the USO tours.
The eighties and nineties were tough times the scourge
of disco the bubonic plague of the music business made life
difficult for him. Imagine being that popular for that long
and then to have your phone to stop ringing for six months or
a year. Then coupled with the death of his son a divorce and
tax problems James went back to prison. But he was a survivor
and he again bounced back with hit songs and sold out tours
with the ironic tune “Living in America” having seen the top
and the bottom of America it is indeed an affirmation of his
character.
His hit songs began to appear in hit films and a new
generation began to discover him that is the mark of greatness
to transcend your own generation. To have your music create
it’s own genre and to spawn the next direction in soul music.
He is an icon like Elvis or the Beatles and though he had some
troubles and bad days it doesn’t diminish the brightness of
his star, his burning talent his grasp of life on his own
terms and his efforts to give back to it as much as he
received. I feel good, I knew that I would, I got you
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