Difficult to imagine the past half century of music without him.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6672335
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6672335
James Brown, RIP
- Thread starter tate
- Start date
I REALLLLY apologise for this but.... I might as well get this out of the way.
Deepest respect for this man though. Probably up there with Kraftwerk and the Beatles as far as influence goes. RIP.
Deepest respect for this man though. Probably up there with Kraftwerk and the Beatles as far as influence goes. RIP.
what i just posted on another board:
hi
can every one stop saying shit like "oh shit, i'm glad i saw him" or "man, i wished i saw him"
shit is mad shallow.
look, you saw him live or you didn't, it should go withoout saying if you are on soulstrut, JB has touched you down to the bottom of your heart.
dude was a revolutionary genius. end of story. he had mad magic in his figertips. like fred wesley said, dude could not REALLY play any instrument, yet you give him a guitar and you;d go, damn dude can play guitar.
anyone who claims to have affection whatsoever for funky music should bow 5X a day and pray towards Augusta GA. you chart his career and from the late 50's to the mid 70's, he WAS the game. basically 15 years on top. the reigning champ. and 10 solid years of being THE MAN.
when MLK was shot, the only reason boston did not have riots (and was the only major american city not to have them) was because JB played there and the show was broadcast for free on public TV and he told people to stay home, chill out, and watch him. i can't think of another music figure in the last 50 years with that kind of socio-political power.
ok, i am drunk and am going to listen to "The BElls" and cry with J.B.
RIP. the true master of 20th century american music
the only thing i can add is i am now listening to side 4 of LIve at the apollo vol 2 ("it's a man's world") and the shit is so beautiful and transcendental....
hi
can every one stop saying shit like "oh shit, i'm glad i saw him" or "man, i wished i saw him"
shit is mad shallow.
look, you saw him live or you didn't, it should go withoout saying if you are on soulstrut, JB has touched you down to the bottom of your heart.
dude was a revolutionary genius. end of story. he had mad magic in his figertips. like fred wesley said, dude could not REALLY play any instrument, yet you give him a guitar and you;d go, damn dude can play guitar.
anyone who claims to have affection whatsoever for funky music should bow 5X a day and pray towards Augusta GA. you chart his career and from the late 50's to the mid 70's, he WAS the game. basically 15 years on top. the reigning champ. and 10 solid years of being THE MAN.
when MLK was shot, the only reason boston did not have riots (and was the only major american city not to have them) was because JB played there and the show was broadcast for free on public TV and he told people to stay home, chill out, and watch him. i can't think of another music figure in the last 50 years with that kind of socio-political power.
ok, i am drunk and am going to listen to "The BElls" and cry with J.B.
RIP. the true master of 20th century american music
the only thing i can add is i am now listening to side 4 of LIve at the apollo vol 2 ("it's a man's world") and the shit is so beautiful and transcendental....
One of the oddest experiences of my life was seeing James Brown play the Chichester Real Ale & Jazz Festival in 2000.
I suspect he would have played my nan's living room for a few quid (he think he had bills to pay).
This was a seminal moment for my mates as we had been JB fans since puberty. We all had copies of the Star Time box set that we caned mercilessly.
There is some research (see DK Simonton) that indicates that scientific and artistic achievers do not have a higher strike rate than the mediocre - they just produce more. And JB was living proof of this. The amount of second-rate tat he produced was phenomenal.
But he & the musicians he inspired/bullied into greatness also made tracks like "Superbad", "Sex Machine" and (personal fave) "Cold Sweat".
And I don't think you can forget that (unlike Dylan say) Brown's genius was fundamentally collaborative. He had Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, Jabo Starks at various points in his band.
Good God!
I suspect he would have played my nan's living room for a few quid (he think he had bills to pay).
This was a seminal moment for my mates as we had been JB fans since puberty. We all had copies of the Star Time box set that we caned mercilessly.
There is some research (see DK Simonton) that indicates that scientific and artistic achievers do not have a higher strike rate than the mediocre - they just produce more. And JB was living proof of this. The amount of second-rate tat he produced was phenomenal.
But he & the musicians he inspired/bullied into greatness also made tracks like "Superbad", "Sex Machine" and (personal fave) "Cold Sweat".
And I don't think you can forget that (unlike Dylan say) Brown's genius was fundamentally collaborative. He had Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, Jabo Starks at various points in his band.
Good God!
nomos
Administrator
FALL BACK!
yes, some of his disco era stuff is a little spotty and he has a few filler tracks on LP's here and there, but in general i really disagree with this. i mean, i love his 50's R&b stuff as much as i love The Payback. name some of this 2nd rate stuff so i can see what page you're on here...
again, that' s silly.
Dylan is a TERRIBLE example, as he has the cream of NYC and Nashville session guys on his records, and had much less of a direct hand in what they played on his records than JB did for his.
yes, JB had a great band. but, anytime the band changed members he STILL sounded great.
when his entire band quit on him, he grabbed Bootsy and Phelps Collins, who were unknown 17 year old kids and made the best records of his career (soul power, sex machine, superbad)
he could also adapt to the strengths of his band... a song like Good Foot, the bass and guitar are incredibly simple, b/c the bass player wasn't as agile as Bootsy, but the horn lines are complex and carry the song.
James even has funky records with the Dapps, a white cinncinati garage band...
at a certain point, one needs to stop making excuses and realize he was a musical genius who made a phenonenal amount of amazing records.
Poisonous Dart
Lone Swordsman
Without James Brown
Without James Brown....
There would be no Funk, Hip Hop, R & B would suck and pretty much so would music in general.
I write for a living and I couldn't properly describe how important HE was, his music was and his influence was to not only music but history/culture. If it weren't for him my city (Boston) would've burned down after Martin Luther King was assassinated....he threw a concert that kept the people from rioting.
To the hardest working man in show business, Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Please Please Please, Soul Brother Number 1, and the man that made it so I could hold my head high and say I'm proud to be Black....James Brown! Rest In Eternal Peace.
*God throws the cape over his shoulder and leads him into Heaven to thunderous applause*
One
Without James Brown....
There would be no Funk, Hip Hop, R & B would suck and pretty much so would music in general.
I write for a living and I couldn't properly describe how important HE was, his music was and his influence was to not only music but history/culture. If it weren't for him my city (Boston) would've burned down after Martin Luther King was assassinated....he threw a concert that kept the people from rioting.
To the hardest working man in show business, Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Please Please Please, Soul Brother Number 1, and the man that made it so I could hold my head high and say I'm proud to be Black....James Brown! Rest In Eternal Peace.
*God throws the cape over his shoulder and leads him into Heaven to thunderous applause*
One
The death of one of the most important musicians of the last 100 years.
Also, what is it with xmas? Derek Bailey last year, James Brown this year... fuck.
petergunn>
1. The point about the high volumes of output is that it's not just James Brown - it's most of the really influential musicians of the past 50 years have been powerhouses of the sublime and the ridiculous - The Beatles, Dylan, Prince.
And you could make the same point from a scenius rather than auteur perspective. Most jungle/2step/grime records are pretty ordinary but the sheer productivity of the scene is one reason why we have stone classics from these genres (tho not the only one).
Do you realise exactly how much music JB produced during his lifetime? Most discographies I gave seen list over 80 albums bearing the JB imprint. Now, I have not listened to all of those albums - but my guess is that not everyone of those songs is a killer tune.
But that does not lessen the sheer power of his greatest moments.
2. I wasn't dissing JB with the "collaborative" label (altho I can see how it would appear that way). You are absolutely correct in that he remade his band on several occasions, developing the talents of his musicians in a virtual "school of soul".
What interests me is that discussions of musical genius tend to focus on individual talents whereas JB's was not only about his showmanship and vision but also about his abilities to get the best from others.
Doin' it to the death.
1. The point about the high volumes of output is that it's not just James Brown - it's most of the really influential musicians of the past 50 years have been powerhouses of the sublime and the ridiculous - The Beatles, Dylan, Prince.
And you could make the same point from a scenius rather than auteur perspective. Most jungle/2step/grime records are pretty ordinary but the sheer productivity of the scene is one reason why we have stone classics from these genres (tho not the only one).
Do you realise exactly how much music JB produced during his lifetime? Most discographies I gave seen list over 80 albums bearing the JB imprint. Now, I have not listened to all of those albums - but my guess is that not everyone of those songs is a killer tune.
But that does not lessen the sheer power of his greatest moments.
2. I wasn't dissing JB with the "collaborative" label (altho I can see how it would appear that way). You are absolutely correct in that he remade his band on several occasions, developing the talents of his musicians in a virtual "school of soul".
What interests me is that discussions of musical genius tend to focus on individual talents whereas JB's was not only about his showmanship and vision but also about his abilities to get the best from others.
Doin' it to the death.
...was just watching that Boston show on youtube.
Boston 04/05/68
The way he handles it when the fans are rushing the stage brought tears to my eyes... the respect he shows them. Fucking beautiful.
Is it just me or does the music almost sound like breakbeat hardcore/jungle at about 9:31? The breaks are extra fast and the sax is making this siren effect!
Boston 04/05/68
The way he handles it when the fans are rushing the stage brought tears to my eyes... the respect he shows them. Fucking beautiful.
Is it just me or does the music almost sound like breakbeat hardcore/jungle at about 9:31? The breaks are extra fast and the sax is making this siren effect!
i own about 20-30 james brown albums and i think they are all pretty good. again, there are filler tunes here and there, but they are certainly not bad songs. if anything, I would LOVE to own a complete discog of his King era stuff as the oddities, obscurities, and b-sides are where some real gems lie.
the other thing to keep in mind is much of King material is repeat stuff. IE you will see the same version of the same song on multiple LP's (and annoyingly, some singles are not on any LP's!), so it's not really 80 LP's worth of stuff.
again, i am talking about from Please, Please, Please up to the mid 70's, so a period of 20 years.
dubble-u-c
Dorkus Maximus
♪
N
nomadologist
Guest
i should be astonished but i must have heard this somewhere and processed it unconsciously or something. because i spent all christmas thinking about him and listening to mystikal because i don't have any james brown on my ipod. it really was a shoddy substitute.
fuck. this bothers me.
first syd barrett and now james brown, it's been a shitty year for amazing fucking musicians and humanity.
fuck. this bothers me.
first syd barrett and now james brown, it's been a shitty year for amazing fucking musicians and humanity.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Capper--completism is a rock and roll hang up, don't try to hang that trip on James Brown or soul. I find dogmatic completism pretty lame because it's based on the idea non-musicians have that music is the product of "inspiration," which comes from some sort of wellspring of genius that is divine and is somehow channeled from "on high" in a cheesy way. Music is work, and musicians sometimes flag in energy and during those periods their work reflects that. Being open to having ideas, having the courage to get it a little wrong sometimes, is more a testament to a "great" musician's greatness than anything that detracts from it.
Musicians, even James Brown, may have songs that aren't on par with their absolute best stuff. But I would say even JB's less standout work sets a standard that was and is a musical highwater mark. I don't even think it's for the past 100 years, I think we'll be hard pressed to find someone with that kind of explosive energy who can resonate as far and wide for quite a while.
Musicians, even James Brown, may have songs that aren't on par with their absolute best stuff. But I would say even JB's less standout work sets a standard that was and is a musical highwater mark. I don't even think it's for the past 100 years, I think we'll be hard pressed to find someone with that kind of explosive energy who can resonate as far and wide for quite a while.
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