I should preface this post by saying that I have never owned a James Brown album. Apart from a few select tracks on a couple of compilations I own, my music collection does not nominally acknowlege The Godfather of Soul's recorded output in the slightest (although his influence is rampant throughout). While I like a lot of his stuff, I was never someone you'd call a James Brown fan. That said, I still know what a genuine innovator he was.
It's true that whenever a musician -- or any public figure, really -- dies, the horseshit cannons start firing uncontrollably. Flowery, revisionist hyperbole becomes the order of the day. In this particular case, though, it's all true. James Brown may have been a legitimately crazy, drug-imbibing ex-felon with a series of dubious blights to his record (there was a hilarious article in SPIN in 1988 detailing one of James' more fabled bouts with the law -- also encapsulated in song in "Not Now James" by Pop Will Eat Itself and "Free James Brown [So He Can Run Me Down]" by Foetus), but his contributions to contemporary music simply cannot be overstated. The veritable blueprint for countless acts to follow, James Brown was an innovator, perfectionist and consummate performer. The man didn't earn the title, "Hardest Working Man in Show Business" for nothing. Simply put, without James Brown, funk would not have existed. Without James Brown, there would be no Hip Hop. But it doesn't end there. James Brown practically invented stage presence. Mick Jagger, Prince, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Sly Stone, Michael Jackson, Robert Plant, David Lee Roth, Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer -- none of these names can top -- let alone touch -- what James Brown was capable of. He was as crucial a performer as can be named. Full fucking stop.
On some of the music discussion boards and mailing lists I'm a member of, there have been some depressingly myopic and dismissive comments made about the man's passing that I just find depressing. Judging James Brown by his fleeting cameos in "The Blues Brothers" or "Rocky IV" or from his numerous run-ins with Johnny Law is like judging Orson Welles' career solely via his frozen food commercials. I may have figuratively shook my fist at his name yesterday when news broke of his dying (the nerve of him…dying on Christmas like that!), but James Brown was a damn genius.
Knowing I was going to have to further wrestle with the developing story today at The Job, I selected the lone James Brown track on my iPod during my walk to work this morning, specifically a vibrant live recording of "Sex Machine" (taped at Studio 54 sometime in the 70's). While James was arguably already into his decline at the point of this recording, the performance is still a hyperkinetic workout that indescribably pulses and struts and stops on a dime. As Chuck D of Public Enemy said, may James' funky soul rest in peace.
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