WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • A Telling Lie
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • Bent
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Muddy and Me
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • Angel: part VI
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Jury Duty
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Gay Marriage
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • King Arthur, Pelagius and Original Sin
  • The Story of Ricky
  • In the News and on the Web
  • When is a Horse not a Horse
  • Hidden Miami
  • I Hate the 60's: A Personal Rock Odyssey
  • Crocodiles and Alligators in Florida: Monsters in our Backyard
  • The Legend of Robert Pete Williams
  • Saturday Night At Big Tinys
  • The Mad Hatter and the Tea Party
  • The Case Of The Infinite Monkeys
  • The American Heritage Series
  • Here Comes the Sun
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
  • Blue And Green
  • Mundi's, a Love Story

James Brown and the Art of the Indefinite Rhythm 

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A short time after James Brown died, I found myself listening to Public Radio.  It was an interview with a young African American woman, a social activist who said Brown had been meaningful to her parents, but not so much for her.  For her, Brown was a symbol of another time, before she came of age.  It was Brown’s musical descendants that influenced her, although she didn’t really seem to recognize it.  She heard some limited connection, but was essentially indifferent to his impact on the culture.  Too bad, Butane James was every bit as influential as Elvis, even if the culture never fully recognized it. 

The two men were fast friends, singing gospel music in their off hours
--in hotel rooms, or wherever a piano or guitar could be had and their touring schedules would allow.  When Elvis died, James openly wept over his casket saying, “What did they do to you, Elvis…what did they do?”

But this isn’t about Elvis, it’s about a man that was his equal as a performer and musician—maybe more so.

Brown’s influence is so pervasive that it can be heard well beyond the boundaries of R&B.  When a jazz musician lays down a groove on a dominant chord with a heavily syncopated beat in a certain way, you’re hearing James.  “Funk” that peculiar strain of R&B is also “James Brown Music,” which is what we used to call it.  If words failed to adequately describe a musician's meaning, they could invoke Brown's name and everybody instantly knew what to do.  In fact, almost any groove-based music after the late sixties, maybe the early seventies, is similarly indebted.

Without James there would be no funk, not as we generally think of it, at least.  Some talk about Bootsy Collins or George Clinton as co-founders of the music, the three as equals in terms of significance.  Nonsense!  Bootsy got his start in Brown's band.  Both Collins and Clinton were interpreters of the music that Brown created, long before either came on the scene.  


You can also hear Brown's influence in Gospel and rock.  I’m sure there are plenty of country musicians, who, when no one is listening (save their fellow musicians) pay homage as well.

James Brown created his music out of a disparate range of influences; Little Willie John, the R&B pioneer, whose song “Fever” was recorded by everybody from Elvis to Miss Peggy Lee, was an influence.  So were other pre-soul performers like Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Little Richard and Billy Ward and the Dominoes.  They formed the basis of his style in the early years as a performer.

Church music was at the root of it all, as it was for so many Southern performers, especially black artists, who never strayed far from that unique blend of gospel and blues—those twin sons of different fathers—one born in juke joints on Saturday nights and the other in churches on Sunday mornings.  They represented the Africanized rhythms and European melodic and harmonic traditions that became an indelible part of American culture.  A sound that emerged from a hostile world, but still managed to feel like home.

James developed what became his signature sound after hearing Miles’ Davis seminal “Kind of Blue.”  Miles’ new approach lacked traditional harmonic structure and was based on one and two chord vamps.  This inspired James to follow a similar path.  His band would groove on one chord, with a modally derived bass and guitar riff that worked off the drums like a grooving, syncopated machine—sometimes with no bridge, no traditional AABA song-form and no story-based lyric.  The lyrics were created, like the music, for their rhythmic quality.  It was a move towards music that was essentially pure rhythm.  James adaptation of Miles’ innovation was so completely absorbed that its source material was almost unrecognizable. 

Both men were looking for the same thing, freedom.  James used his band like a drum, while Miles was interested in wide-open spaces that enabled him to improvise inside and out of the songs
’ harmonic framework.  He took the traditions that had been established generations earlier by the blues, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and reduced them to an essence.  In his own way, James pushed that concept even further. 
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That Brown heard the possibilities in Miles’ music for his own is a testament to his musical intelligence and curiosity.  He had a studious need to listen to everything and anything for utilitarian ideas.  Ideas that, often, existed well outside the normal boundaries that had been in place since the earliest days of blues and gospel.  Even before R&B became its own unique style. 

Davis, years later, would repay the debt with his electric bands.  Bitches Brew being a good example of his Sly Stone (a Brown acolyte) meets Jimi Hendrix (another debtor) blending of free-jazz and modal-funk, ultimately called “Fusion Music.” 

James was a political activist and coined the phrase “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” at a time when the civil rights movement was still struggling to get a foothold.  It became a slogan of solidarity and identity enabling African Americans to see themselves as something more than Negroes and second-class citizens.  This was before rights had been won, when speaking out could mean the end of your career.  It was, in some ways, easier for Brown because his audience was substantially black and, therefore, less visible to the mainstream.  But, it could have just as easily stalled his career, relegating it for the duration to the chitlin
’-circuit.  
 

His performance on “The T.A.M.I. Show was a watershed moment for black and white fans alike.  I can remember seeing the movie when I was ten years old, in 1964, the year the movie came out.  Brown was almost freakish in his moves and rhythms, at least, that’s the way it seemed to me. I mean that in the best possible way.  It was shocking, almost frightening, probably because I had no way as a kid to contextualize what I was seeing.  By comparison, The Rolling Stones came across like a bunch of well-scrubbed teenage street-junkies.  Not exactly what you’d expect, but close enough.  Their music was an extension of what had already happened with Chuck Berry and American rock & roll a decade earlier.  Berry also happened to be on the show and gave his own galvanizing performance.  Mick Jagger’s dance moves, when contrasted with Browns’, were almost self-consciously spastic.  That might have been a good thing, if for no other reason than that it took the heat off of him to really toe the mark.

There are so many ways in which James influenced the culture, dance being another.  Michael Jackson was a tiny James Brown wanna-be in his early years and never really strayed too far from the master’s methodology.  Prince took the same path.  Succeeding generations of would-be R&B messiahs have never deviated too far from his design.  

Either way, James is there—heard and seen with every syncopated drop of the snare drum.  In every syncopated horn line that accents the beat.  In every move of the dancers
’ shuffle or the perfectly-timed split, you see the former shoeshine boy and boxer working the crowd on some Georgia street corner, just like he did as a tough street kid—taking the various art forms to new levels of athletic and aesthetic accomplishment. 

In the mid-1980s, James had a career resurgence, as did sixties soul music in general.  His song “Living in America” hit it big as a part of one of the endless “Rocky” sequels.  Baby boomers were looking back as they approached midlife, searching for their past.  It was in this context that I had the good fortune to see James paired with another sixties icon, Wilson Pickett at a club on Miami Beach for an audience of maybe a thousand people.  The intimate setting provided an up close and personal concert with good sound.  Wilson opened the show and was still, two decades
after “The Midnight Hour” hit the charts, a potent performer.  His band was tight and what you hope for when hearing a first-rate R&B group.  Every night after the show was over another legend would come down to jam.  Willie Nelson was playing at the Local Flea Market, with a circus as his opening act.  Being an inveterate, any time, any place jammer, Willie went looking for a place to play and found it with Wilson’s band.  Such is the nature of real musicians who couldn't care less about marketable categories once the bills have been paid. 

James Brown, “Mr. Dynamite,” “The Godfather of Soul,” whatever title you choose, closed the show and performed like it was 1962—even if the splits were fewer in number.  The music, the man and the band were a powerhouse, mirroring his relentless drive for perfection without predictability.  Remarkable, considering his journey began more than three decades before.

Years later, after his wife had died and he’d spent time in prison for income tax evasion, after he had become something of a cultural caricature, the great man slowly faded from sight.  He was remembered by some as a musical prophet and a political force, with a potent soundtrack that could mesmerize a crowd.  For others, he was a memory of a memory, a family artifact like an old photograph or album cover.  But for much of the world, especially among musicians, there is only one James Brown.  Just like there is only one Ray Charles, Johnny Cash or Einstein, for that matter.  
Who was James Brown, really?  He was a genius of a type, that's for certain.  But, as is the case with most radical public figures, there is no simple answer.  If you've lived your life on the public stage, those lines inevitably blur and assimilate.  Thinking back to the concert thirty years earlier, I can remember seeing Butane James in a crowded lobby before the show, talking intently to a young white man.  He spoke openly to him, like no one else was around, offering a gospel tract and his personal and very hard-won wisdom about God and life.  The young man seemed to be lost and James, rather than hurrying him along, appeared to actually care.  Brown was short, stocky and still powerfully built, in spite of the fact that he was probably at least fifty and a veteran of a long showbiz life.  In that moment, it wasn't the up-coming concert that seemed important to him, but the kid standing in front of him.  That's how I choose to remember James Brown, as gritty and real as life—just like his music.  


Mark Magula

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