Lezza Himma Fuzzle HAH!

James Brown was certainly not a good man when he wasn’t on stage. He had more than his share of devils and he lost his wrestling matches with them many, many times. But he was an excellent musician and a consummate showman and that, I believe, will be the legacy forever attached to him.

He was said to be the hardest working man in show business and that’s probably dead-on true. He took that persona on stage with him nightly.

Ace found a great a YouTube clip of Brown that I love because it shows him at his showman best. Not only is he singing the living daylights out of the songs, he also throws in something that’s quintessentially J.B. Check out the move at about the 4:15 mark when Brown drops to his knees and his backup men come over to help him up and escort him off the stage.

No one else could pull that off but James Brown. No one.

Two other things. James Brown’s able sideman for many years was a man called Maceo Parker. Maceo was far more than a simple “Jerome” to Brown’s Morris Day, though. He is an accomplished musician who has fronted his own bands for decades. The clips on his site are well worth your time.

And this. I was listening to a radio report the day they took Brown’s body to the Apollo (and, as a side note, Brown’s family should have been ashamed to have Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Michael Jackson on the stage paying homage to him at the same time. One should not have themselves fondly remembered in public by such criminals). The reporter interviewed a “man on the street” who said something that’s stuck with me since I heard it. he said that James Brown “taught me how to be black”.

At first I sort of dismissed what he said, but the more I thought about it, the more profound I think that sentence was. Brown, for all his great music and supreme stage presence, really did teach all of us who listened, how to be black. He gave us all soul and for that I’m immensely grateful.

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Category: Music