King James Brown

James Brown Month: James Brown Says It Loud pt. 3 - Tell Me That You Love Me

Wrapping up our series on the loudest, craziest, least-in-control James Brown numbers ever (which, as you may recall, I have designated a subgenre all its own, "Free James Brown"), we arrive at the top of the heap, the apex of insane, the single wildest track JB ever laid down on wax. It's the B-Side of "Don't Be a Drop Out", "Tell Me That You Love Me".

It's a live cut, and if you lop off the 10 second intro, it's about a minute and a half long. A wild two guitar duel opens the show, and then the band and James come in, playing as fast and screaming as loud as they can possibly muster. There is no structure, a sudden stop in the middle eats up another couple of seconds, and the track fades out on just about the craziest scream JB or anyone ever screamt, which I believe might just be a loop of the crazy scream he screams right before the stop.  All in all, crazy. 

Apparently cobbled together from some live tapes by Bud Hobgood, Teo Macero style, this track is guaranteed to clear the floor of all but your bravest dancers while everyone else runs away holding their ears in pain.  SO GREAT.

Play it three times in a row one time for me!

Tassel Twirler Tuesday!

Who_Stole_My_Bird_Dog?

James Brown Month: Can I Get Some Help? - Give It Up or Turnit Loose

Here's a (to me) previously unknown, "Funky Drummer"-ish, instrumental version of "Give It Up Or Turnit Loose". I found it on an Iranian three song EP on the Top 4 label, and it's credited to the James Brown Band. The EP also has the standard versions of Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You Falettin' Me Be Mice Elf Again" and Bill Moss's "Sock It to Me Soul Brother", so I assume that it was a fairly standard licensing deal, if there was any deal at all, that resulted in this record's release.  I have been unable to find any reference to it elsewhere. I don't, however, have absolute knowledge of every obscure Brown-involved cut ever recorded, and as far as I know this might just be tucked away on the corner of some obscure or not-so-obscure album or 45 I have overlooked, maybe under a different name.  The sound on this is slightly dim, typical for a 45 with about six minutes on a side. Would love to find a fuller sounding version. Anyone out there know of this version's appearance on a record other than this one?

Summer Boogaloo

Ichiban New Bin

Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys - Summer Boogaloo

Of course, Summer doesn't really start until June 24th, when the Summer Soul-stice airs!

James Brown Month: RJ Smith Interview Part III

The final installment of our interview with The One author RJ Smith.


ICHIBAN: How in the world did James Brown have time to do everything that he did for himself AND produce the number of records he produced for other people? Do you have any insights on how involved he was in productions, or was it more of a brand name thing?

RJ SMITH: My sense is those numerous productions happened every way possible – some were cut without him being anywhere NEAR the studio. Some were built on ideas he had talked out with the musicians, or with JB stopping by the studio without being much invested in the moment. And some happened with JB at the center of the action. Then again, as Jim Dickinson once told me, sometimes the guy who brings the coffee is the one who really produces the session – you never know what is going to be the catalyst. It’s a mystery.

"Needs more . . ."

ICHIBAN: You posit in the Dancer chapter of The One that Brown was a dancer first and had to make up music to go suit his movements. Do you think that this was a conscious or unconscious process? Also, are you aware of how much Brown was exposed to African music in the 50s and 60s? Was his piling of polyrhythms something he picked up from somewhere or was it kind of instinctively sui generis?

I think Brown got the attention he craved, and the sustenance he needed to survive, first from dancing, and a little later from singing. He learned he had a mastery over audiences first by moving to a rhythm.

An amazing thing – and maybe in the end, the most amazing thing – about Brown was how he carried the lore of the African diaspora as fully as anybody ever did. I think he was listening to everything, and was influenced by all kinds of things (I’m struck for instance by how every time he was coming to LA in the late 50s/early 60s, he seemed to get paired with a mambo band. Wonder what he took from that!) I suspect he heard a lot more African sounds coming through the Cuban and Puerto Rican music – boogaloo! – around him in the streets while he was living in NYC in the ‘60s than from whatever Afro pop itself he might have heard. I think his piling of poly-rhythms has everything to do with being a profoundly responsive African-American from the South – and not just any part of the South, but South Carolina, with a very particular role in the slave trade, and a very specific and rich slave culture. The mystery of the guy is how he became this clear channel signal for the culture of the slave south – it was fragmented and outlawed during and after slavery, yet James Brown put it all together and made America feel it. I bet he didn’t even totally know how it happened – I’m sure he never would have talked about it, because his most comfortable line on Africa’s influence on him was that while, sure, he heard some overlaps, he wasn’t playing African music, he was playing James Brown music! He wasn’t going to acknowledge anything beyond his own innate genius.

JB working a postage stamp

In this age where everything is recycled from the past, how in the world is it that JB's amazing TV show Future Shock is not available as a DVD box set?

You speak wisdom. I thought the film and whatever documentation of it were in the posession of Ted Turner, who apparently would sometimes come in from a night of Atlanta partying and hang out with Brown on the set. But someone recently suggested that CNN now owns the recordings as part of the deal that Turner signed over. It kills me that this stuff is not on DVD, accompanied by a deluxe booklet with notes by Pete Relic and Questlove. Not right.

somebody hook a doctor up

What, to your mind, is the last great James Brown recording/single?

One day when I was sitting in court in Aiken, SC listening to lawyers and family members arguing about who should get what, they started complaining about the alleged disappearance of a number of masters found in Brown’s pool house. Among them was a master recording of Johnny Paycheck! How the heck could that be? Since then I’ve wondered if JB and JP did some kind of thing together. Maybe THAT’s the last great Brown recording. 

Mind. Blown. GET READY YOU MOTHERS, FOR THE BIG PAYCHECK!

One of the great JB divas who does not make an appearance in The One is Lyn Collins. Did you hear any good stories about her?


Regarding Lyn Collins, I recall her complaining in an interview in a British magazine that Brown had installed a telephone, like a hotline, in his house so that he could be in constant communication with her and know her every movement. She said dating him was like being in prison.


I've also seen lots of claims, which may have some accuracy, that Brown would paradoxically put out those records by proteges like Lyn and Marva [Whitney] and Bobby [Byrd], but should they start to take off, he'd start calling radio stations and tell them NOT to play the records. In other words, he was pretty okay with these folks feeling indebted to him, by putting out their records, throwing them some money. But if their records started stealing attention from him, he would have to intervene/knock them down - and being the producer, distributor and erstwhile check payer for various folks, he had lots of means at his disposal . . . But I have heard claims specifically about Lyn's version of "Think About It", that when it started heading for the top ten (r&b, I guess), JB began working the phones, calling his DJ connections and telling them to cool their action. How you prove that I don't know, but it seems somewhat plausible.

"I don't care how good it's doin'! I've got
money - now I need love! Shut it down!"

And, lastly, is there a particular song that you wanted to fit into The One that for one reason or another didn't make the cut, and what do you want to say about it?


I wrote out several thousand words on "The Grunt" [a 1970 JB produced instrumental by the Collins kids' version of the JB's], particularly its relationship to 18th and 19th century Cincinnati and how that town was known as Porkopolis. The abundant slaughterhouses used to dump trucks full of spare ribs into the river because they didn't know they tasted good. Wild dogs used to own downtown Cincinnati at night, wild dogs with pieces of meat in their maws scaring the shit out of visiting European ladies and forever shaping their impressions of Ohio and America. I couldn't find the right place for it in the book, but anyway "The Grunt" launched that particular jag. Something about "The Grunt" just leaves a man to thinking about pig flesh and wild dogs. It's that good. 

Special thanks to Mr. Smith for taking the time to chat with us about Soul Brother #1. The One can be found at the usual retail and online outlets, for instance here.  

James Brown Month: Honky Tonk . . . POPCORN! Bill Doggett

This slammin' floorfiller bears the distinction of being the first James Brown production to feature Bootsy & Catfish Collins, Frankie "Kash" Waddy, Philippé Wynne, Robert McCullough, Clayton Gunnels and Darryl Jamison - they were called the Pacesetters at the time, but one night in Columbus, Georgia, on zero notice, after James had fired his entire band for wanting more money, they became the core of the JB's.

Way Out Shakers!

Do the ICKY POO...

JAMES BROWN'S future shock Pt. 4

James Brown had a television show in the '70s called Future Shock.  This is the last episode I have.  Legend has it that the master tapes reside in an underground storage facility in Arizona.   Someone did find a box of 100 Future Shock T-Shirts in a storage space outside Atlanta last year.   Get down like James Brown!!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

FOOL'S PARADISE TWIN - GRAND REOPENING

THE FOOL'S PARADISE TWIN

REOPENS THIS WEEKEND!!

THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY !

ROGER CORMAN
DOUBLE BILL !!

 

NOT OF THIS EARTH

(1956)

Vampires in wrap-around shades !

Flying, head-crushing bat creatures !

Matter-transformation machines !

with

Paul Birch & Corman stalwart/good-luck charm, Dick Miller !!

B/W

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

(1957)

Brain-eating atomic mutations !

Giant ventriloquist crabs (with visible human feet) !

with 

Richard Garland & Jonathan Haze !  

THEN...

SPECIAL MEMORIAL DAY DUSK-TO-DAWN PROGRAM !! 
BEGINNING SUNDAY EVENING ! 

MAMM-O-RAMA !!! 

RUSS MEYER SEX-TUPLE FEATURE !! 

 

Full service snack bar featuring: 

Tasty corndogs!  Refreshing beverages! Savory BBQ!

*No Outside Food Or Drink*

 

THE FOOL'S PARADISE TWIN ACCEPTS

JAMES BROWN BLACK & BROWN STAMPS

 

James Brown Month: RJ Smith Part II

Continuing our interview with JB biographer RJ Smith.

ICHIBAN: JB's stints in prison serve as symbolic bookends to his career . . . you hypothesize the first was what gave him a great deal of his discipline and drive. How do you think that his second sentence changed him?

RJ SMITH: The second prison trip made him more of a bluesman than he had ever been in his life. It seemed to make him sadder, older. It was a thoroughly humiliating experience, and one he could never conquer, because he could never engage with the root reason he was in there: his addiction to PCP. He could never admit he had a problem, and in his mind his incarceration was some sort of punishment by God, or crucifixion, ultimately he processed it as a sign of his martyrdom. It’s sad, too, that in his time of need, few seemed to want to visit him. Lee Atwater did, and Strom Thurmond probably kept him out of harm’s way; I think Brown came out of the South Carolina prison with a feeling of gratitude to some extremely conservative SC pols.

ICHI: A couple of months ago I wrote about the James Brown/Joe Tex feud. http://wfmuichiban.blogspot.com/2012/02/amazing-story-of-joe-texjames-brown.html.  Do you have any interesting tidbits about the Joe Tex/James Brown relationship?

RJ: That feud with Joe Tex continued, though possibly without firepower. Brown had a public beef with Joe over “Skinny Legs and All,” which Brown felt was disrespectful to women. And in 1969 Brown wrote an elliptical column in Soul magazine in which he pretty much says that Joe Tex should just shut up and be content with being Number Two, there’s no dishonor in being second best. If only Joe could admit it, Brown says, he could help him! I think Joe’s likeability and his clowning really got under Brown’s skin.

apparently he had no such issues w/
"Ain't Gonna Bump No More w/no Big Fat Woman"

Let's talk about Bobby Byrd.  He was there from before the beginning to after the end, and I don't feel his importance to the entire James Brown story can be overstated.  How do you see Byrd in terms of being one of the major cogs in the wheels of the James Brown machine?

No Bobby Byrd, no James Brown. It’s approximately that simple. I mean, Bobby’s family gave JB a way to get out of prison, by letting him live with them. Then Byrd sort of gave Brown his band, or JB took over Byrd’s crew and Byrd was cool enough with it to stick around afterwards. Byrd knew the show, and knew how James liked things, and was constantly there to help bring James' vision and wishes into reality. I think Bobby Byrd was a very good guy, the kind of nice guy that Brown pushed around until they finally pushed back. For Byrd that would mean leaving, or taking JB to court as he did in later years to get money he felt he was due. But Bobby was always grounded enough to see the big picture; he kept his ego in check, and was there, on and off, for much of the ride. 

I Need Help! (I Can't Do It Alone)*

You spend several pages discussing the long version of "There Was a Time" on Live at the Apollo Volume 2  - it's almost the most wordage spent on any particular performance in the book. What was it about that song/particular version that made you want to delve so deeply into its guts? 

That performance of “There Was a Time” is amazing. The way he name checks dances from the African American tradition, and then introduces the ultimate dance, the one at the end of the line: The James Brown. He makes you see how a whole music, and a variety of traditions, telescope into him. He never sounds as in control of an audience and in charge of the moment as he does there. And there’s something bottomless about the way Clyde and Jabo play off the beat – one a hair in front, the other just behind – and pull time apart. 

"Well I'll be ----!"

As a follow-up to that question, how did you decide which songs and performances to write about, aside from their historical importance? And how big a challenge was it to convey what is actually going on in those songs? 

With music there is so much to talk about, so many ways into a discussion, it’s hard to stop. Sometimes you talk about how a song was written or recorded, sometimes you talk about what it means, or what it meant to the one who made it. And sometimes folks wonder how you could possibly miss “Pass the Peas” or “Funky Drummer” or “Santa Claus go Straight to the Ghetto” – there’s so much to cover. And I have to save some room to talk about “I’ve Got Money”: ALWAYS gotta save room for that. I tried to pick songs and performances that would keep the momentum moving forward – rather than end a thought or line of discussion with a song or show, I hope I used them as often to keep moving us forward in time.

keep moving forward in time!

In the late 60s, JB's opening act was a white instrumental band called the Dapps [they also back James up on "I Can't Stand Myself" and released several singles JB produced]. If there were some issues with certain audience members on there being a white player or two in Brown's band in the late 60s, as you mention in The One, what was the reaction to an all-white opening act? 

It was a core of nationalists and some Islamic groups that had a beef with the whites in Brown’s band, not so much the average ticketholder. They were also incredibly incensed that Brown was still processing his hair and would not go with the Fro.  Of course, any pressure Brown got for having Caucasians onstage just made him double down. Maybe that’s the real reason why he recorded with the Dee Felice Trio: how you like me NOW, Eldridge Cleaver?

JB with the Dapps

Be back on Monday with the thrilling conclusion of this interview, wherein Mr. Smith talks Lynn Collins,  JB's production techniques, "the Grunt", and . . . Future Shock.

*all credit and praise to the original gif animator for that bit of internet wonderment. I found it here.

Syd Nathan Speaks

"God Damn it, listen to what I'm telling you"

A-Side
B-Side

Thanks to Phil Milstein!