James Brown and I go back quite a way, to about Cold Sweat probably, around 1967 or ‘68. There are a few records that you can pinpoint as pivotal, records that have “that” sound, the sound that was so totally different that it spun your head around and jerked you out of the complacency of a lower class suburban residential existence. Sounds like Albert King’s Crosscut Saw [I think that I’d only heard Mambo on an old United B.B. King release], Wilson Pickett’s Funky Broadway, Eddie Floyd’s Knock on Wood and of course, Cold Sweat. That was some exotic assed jive of a polyphonic mix down for me let me tell you! I didn’t have to travel to get the gutbucket feeling way down low. It literally jumped out of the grooves. You could smell it. I didn’t have much money, in fact I had no money at all, but I managed to get tickets to go see the Say it Loud I’m Black and I’m Proud! Tour. It was my very first LIVE concert. That was a lot of new stuff for me. I remember that James Brown “designed” his own clothes [the dude was artistic] and the band had TWO drummers! Two drummers! That was a first. My girlfriend K. got a big smooch from Maceo Parker right from the stage. It was really dynamic. She later went blind from diabetes and died but I don’t think it was related. I saw him several times after that. It's alway struck me how much I learned about the world from James Brown records. Nearly everything I know about sexual relations is derived somehow from JB. Communicating with the ladies and other "interpersonal" expressions, JB! Unfortunately, I realized this so late in my life that I was not spared the grim reality behind the muse.
James died the other morning from CHF [Congestive Heart Failure]. Christmas morning. My father died one year ago this week of CHF too. I hope pop gets to meet James Brown in heaven. Maybe he’ll get a brand new bag.
