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James Brown Month: Wall of Browned pt. 2 - Hank Ballard

James Brown was never afraid to give his King/Federal forefathers some - producing singles for the "5" Royales, recording a tribute album to Little Willie John and an album for Bill Doggett. But even if you were a major influence on JB, it doesn't seem like you got to ride for free.

None of his fellow Federales entered JB's circle more deeply than Hank Ballard. According to RJ Smith's Brown biography The One, seeing Ballard and the Midnighters' act was a major influence on the Famous Flames, and Ballard claimed that he repeatedly told Syd Nathan to sign the Famous Flames. So when the man who wrote "the Twist" saw his fortunes failing, Brown stepped in to help him out.

The first record Brown produced for Ballard was a 1963 recut of a Midnighter's classic, "It's Love Baby (24 Hours a Day)". The new version adds a vamped up intro and coda to the familiar parts of the song, and Ballard sounds clearly jazzed on the recording - shouting a Joe Tex/Jerry Lee style "THIS IS A HIT!" at the outset and commenting on the general quality of the track 2/3 of the way through.

1n 1968 Hank was put on the JB consciousness train, recording a couple of James's "black power" numbers, including his biggest post-Midnighters hit, "How You Gonna Get Respect (When You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet)". This musically and thematically direct sequel to "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)", laden with some of the heavy didactics of "Don't Be a Dropout", except this time it was all about straight v. curly hair. Ballard delivers the message well, and the Dapps, who backed JB on "I Can't Stand Myself", rock out.

According to RJ Smith, Ballard that tells the story of this song. Apparently Hank and James suddenly found themselves surrounded by Black Panthers, who pulled guns on the two and demanded that Brown stop wearing his hair processed. So in some ways, "How You Gonna Get Respect" was James and Hank buying a little "protection" from the Panthers!

The two modes of James' handling of Ballard established by these two tracks, specifically either updating Ballard's classic sound or turning him into a kind of Brown spokesman, play back and forth across the records they'd make together. 

Ballard released the Brown-produced You Can't Keep a Good Man Down in 1969, and it mainly sticks to updating the Ballard sound. The Dapps are the principal backing band, and their slighly-less-slick-than-the-JBs sound meshes well with Hank's voice. There's a version of "Unwind Yourself", which came out in its definitive version by Marva Whitney, and a remake of the Midnighters' "Teardrops on Your Letter" and a "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" rip, "Thrill on the Hill".  There's also a modernized reinvention of "Sexy Ways" called "You're So Sexy", a snazzy cover of "Slip Away", and a fine addition to the canon of songs about trains that have soul, "Funky Soul Train".

Ballard's next couple of singles, "Butter Your Popcorn" and "Blackenized" were far more Brown-centric, and I'm not sure either Ballard or I feel them very much.  Both are catchy and fun enough, and "Blackenized" has some great lines, but I don't know that either have that leering joy that makes the best Ballard records get up and strut. "Blackenized" in particular sounds like Brown making further political gestures to the Panthers through Ballard.

Mr. Ballard, may I help you with something?

Note JB does the intro his own bad self

Hank's next major appearance in the James Brown universe is without a doubt his weirdest - his two numbers on Get on the Good Foot.  Now, this may hardly be the post to say it in, but I'm going to say it here and say it loud - with one or two exceptions, James Brown's studio long players are chaotic and make little sense. I know he claimed that "Papa Don't Make No Mess", but he was obviously not talking about his studio LPs. It didn't matter whether it was Syd Nathan putting them together haphazardly or James Brown putting them together with total artistic control - they're almost all messes.  JB was a singles artist, even if most of his best post '65 singles should have been 12" 45s, rather than seven inch two-siders.  

Even by his messy standards Get on the Good Foot is outright weird and full of filler.  And even a 13 minute "Please, Please, Please" is not quite as weird as "Funky Side of Town" or "Recitation by Hank Ballard". 

"Funky Side" is as loose and one-take as it gets - James Brown, Bobby Byrd, and Hank Ballard namecheck everybody from themselves, to Bob Dylan, to the Honeycombs, to Isaac Hayes, to, grudgingly, Joe Tex - and the results are just peculiar. First off, no one sounds quite together - the harmonies are random at best, everyone keeps cracking up, none of the psychic connection that exists between Brown and Byrd on, say, "Sex Machine", is present, and Ballard seems incapable of working ahead of the beat - his own signature vocal style was to lay back. 

But nothing is odder than "Recitation by Hank Ballard", which is, essentially a testimonial/advertisement for a record that you presumably have already bought and brought home and are listening to.  For six minutes. The first half is just Hank kind of reading through the song titles, but the second has him ruminating on his career, how he got caught "wandering around the graveyard of losers" and how James Brown was the only one who believed that his talent was still relevant. 

The variety of scenarios about how/why this track was laid down and/or included on the record beggar the imagination, especially since Ballard's voice carries with it equal parts ambivalence and gratitude. Did Hank hear the album, pull up some prerecorded vamp and testify? If so, JB's bottomless ego certainly would not pass up the chance to have one of his heroes say so many nice things about him. Did they need six more minutes for the double LP so James sent Hank in the studio to fill out the space? If so, is there some kind of passive/aggressive sarcasm in some of the lines, or is Hank just so laid back it just sort of sounds that way?  There is a major story in these two's relationship that has yet to be fully unpacked.

Ballard recorded several more singles for People Records in the 70s, and even had a =hit with "From the Love Side" (he even calls himself "Love Side" Ballard in his recitation) in 1972.  Let's wrap this up with a cool live version from Soul Train.

Tassel Twirler Tuesday!

Where's_My_Pussycat?

James Brown Month: Godfather in the Garage - The Sonics

While what they really do is make me pine for a full-on Etiquette-fi version of a James Brown number, Norton's meltdown of early Sonics tapes, The Savage Young Sonics, features takes on JB's versions of "Night Train", "Hold It" and "Think".

James Brown Month: You Got to Have a Mother for Me

Happy Mother's Day!

JAMES BROWN'S future shock Pt. 2

James Brown had a television show in the '70s called Future Shock.  Here is episode 14 taken from the original master tapes from the video library at WTBS in Atlanta, Georgia.  Includes a history lesson, dance contests and special guest Lee "The Burner" Austin singing his heart out!

Part 1

Dark Shadows

The First Theremin Era - The Barnabas Theme from "Dark Shadows" (1969)

Posters via WRONG SIDE OF THE ART

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY OWENS

James Brown says it LOUD part 2: More KING ragers

This is the second post in our series spotlighting the the most manic, crazy James Brown sides out there, the ones that sacrifice either traditional rhythm and blues structures OR the repetitive patterns that became funk for sheer rhythmic excitement and agitation. We're calling them James Brown's Rock and Roll for now, but I can't shake the feeling that's not quite right.

First up is another Roy Brown cut - "Love Don't Love Nobody", the b-side to "I Don't Mind" (which, let's just take a moment to note, is further proof that James Brown 45s are the best 45s of all the 45s). On the Messin' with the Blues double CD there's a fascinating false start where you can actually hear King owner Syd Nathan crabbing to the engineer about JB's performance. "Needs more melody" he grumps, and "Don't sing so HARD", he mutters. Aside from being a hilarious example of Brown and Nathan's contentious relationship, it's interesting that the things Brown was going for in this and later recordings (de-emphasized melody, the hardest of all singing) are exactly the things Nathan discourages here.

sorry about the ridiculous graphics on this youtube

The hard singing, lack of melody, and tendency towards rhythmic chaos is also present on 1960's "And I Do Just Want I Want".  Like "Love Don't Love", the primary instrument up top is a wandering guitar riff, but this time Les Buie plays it on the lower strings, giving it a bassier drive. It's an even more spare arrangement, too - a single sax wails a weird atonal figure around a shuffling drumbeat while Brown parties it up philosophic like.  

MOTHER

In 1962, JB released "I've Got Money (Now I Need Love)". He'd produced a more traditional version of this song for Baby Lloyd in 1960, but his own version is much farther out there, with what's been called the first funk drum beat and a manic horn chart that gives him the chance to sing as hard as he could possibly want. 

Tell the truth, Snaggle Tooth!

With their virtual abandonment of melody and a typical song structure, this stuff is as wild and raw as music gets.  In fact, I think the only one term we can use to commodify these tracks:  let's call it Free James Brown.  

Roger Miller Month Hangover Special!

Attention all "Whovians!" Check out this contestant on Britain's Got Talent and his... er... different approach to "King of the Road!" All I can say is that these limeys are amateurs! Jaye P. Morgan and Jamie Farr would know how to deal with this sort of thing.

James Brown Month: James Brown, Bobby Byrd and the JB's

Live on Italian TV, ca. 1971 - same tour as the Love, Power, Peace live album.

JB Shills Pepsi

James Brown Pepsi Ad from 1973