James Brown

I'm really tired of that hazy look that always gets used for films about Respectable Black Folk In The 40s/50s

― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Wednesday, June 25, 2014 11:58 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea seems hollywood refuses to make films w/ primarily african-american casts that are both 1) in a contemporary setting and 2) marketed not just to black folk

He's Maceo!

haha sorry I couldn't tell what era that particular bit was supposed to be from

I've never understood why "I've Got Money" never makes into the "James Brown invents funk" mythos

That track might be the single rawest thing he did. Not just the supercharged drums, but those ugly blues chords just hanging there.

It is noted as such in "The One" iirc

everyone should read The One, it is a great bio.

^ this.

Love the part where he's on a plane making a shaky emergency landing. An associate next to him is shaking, sweating, praying, crying, and James says to them, "Hey, don't worry; as long as I'm on this plane, it can't crash."

everything post-80s is such a major bummer

James Brown in Frankie Avalaon movie Ski Party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_xBT_xavzM

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/movies/james-brown-is-celebrated-in-get-on-up.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Nelson George re new James Brown movie, upcoming James Brown doc, and James himself

x-post--That's James in 1965...Awesome

everything post-80s is such a major bummer

"Too Funky in Here" was great though

Search and Destroy: James Brown

If you wanna jump back and forth between most recently updated James Brown threads

Let Robert Christgau come in and do the popcorn.

Wait, curmudgeon is Syd Nathan?

Ha, Christgau thinks so but I am not acknowledging it

Mick Jagger is responsible for a lot of horrible shit but I gotta hand it to him, he really did this HBO JB doc right

+1

That thing is a treasure trove of footage and insights.

yeah I am so so so glad to see something like this where the emphasis is all on actual footage/interviews w the musicians and people involved plus detailed breakdowns of the music itself (as opposed to generic "I remember the first time I heard Sex Machine, I fell out of my chair" reminiscences)

was a little bummed that it basically stopped in 1970, but so many great stories - Melvin pulling a gun on JB, Clyde talking about how he hates Funky Drummer

i didn't even know this was a thing! looking forward to seeing it.

interesting that he helped bankroll both the biopic (which was balls) and a documentary

also, surely mick jagger is responsible for at least as much awesome shit as horrible shit

i mean, when he gets to the pearly gates who knows how it'll all tally up but...

he was always the worst thing about the Rolling Stones and has been incomprehensibly awful for 30 years

but, y'know, take it to the Mick Jagger thread

i'll agree to disagree about the 1st part

re the 2nd part: "incomprehensibly"?

fwiw there's that documentary about their early 80s era and jagger has some actually insightful observations about the stones's music--like, thoughts on how they wrote songs vs. how they arranged them in different eras--but about 60 seconds into it you can see this look flash across his face, it's a combination of "i'm sure this is boring to everyone else" and "i'm using too many brain cells explaining this when i could just smile and say stupid shit" and then sure enough he smiles and says stupid shit.

in other words there is a really intelligent person somewhere in there that just doesn't have to show himself very often.

xpost

ok, sry

I really want to see this, and I was hoping it was available through an avenue other than HBO at the moment, but it doesn't appear to be.

what is the title?

"incomprehensibly"?

as in "I cannot even wrap my brain around how bad it is, it is so bad"

it's called MR. DYNAMITE

oh, they got alex gibney to direct. i wish i could see this. :(

that "night james brown saved boston" doc is incredible, i recommend that to everybody

^^^ that one is tremendous.

one of the clips from that night that shows up in the doc is so perfect - JB talking about how he used to shine shoes outside a radio station, first for a nickel, then for 6 cents, then for a dime, and then "now I own that radio station. THAT'S black power". It's like you can trace all of hip hop's aspirational wealth obsession to that one moment.

doesn't he say that in that "soul power" doc? maybe he just liked to repeat that tale.

I don't recall seeing that in the Soul Power doc but JB did have a penchant for repetition

the bit at Boston where he gets the kids off the stage is also 0_0

it's a good story, it bears repeating

"soul power" is so fucking great, i oughta get the blu-ray of that

fave moment is when bill withers quietly eats his breakfast as muhammad ali and don king have some argument over the meaning of black power

'The One' by RJ Smith was a really good read, one of the better music bios I've read in a while.

last few chapters are such a bummer

Would be interested to know exactly how Brown went from leader in the black community to being a PCP-addicted wife beater. Seems like something happened in the 70s but I've never really heard the story.

Don't some folks trace his abusive qualities back to incidents in his childhood?

Seems like something happened in the 70s

Hit became fewer and further between, his band was no longer the standard-bearer it had been (many having defected to P-Funk), and the IRS came down hard on him in a way they wouldn't have for a similarly business-minded white entertainer.

*Hits

Figured that must have played a part – his records in that decade suggest not only creative bankruptcy but financial as well.

Even so, it's still a bit hard to reconcile how this successful, often pious anti-drug crusader that was the paragon of black power and independence could become such a pathetic, addled character inside of, like, 7 or 8 years. Not a certainty but you have to wonder if there's a catalytic event or two in there somewhere.

There was: his son Teddy was killed in a car crash in 1973.

He had nowhere to but down, basically. So he went there.

Nowhere to go

Also, he had such an intense and near-religious devotion to the idea of The American Dream that when the US Government took the money he'd worked so hard to earn -- he played by the rules, and he encouraged others to do so -- it must have thrown his entire belief system into a tailspin.