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James Brown - "I feel nice, like sugar and spice"
James Brown, vocals,
James
Brown's
most popular CDs and DVDs: 20
Greatest Hits, Live at THe Apollo, Sex Machine, 50th Anniversary Collection,
Star Time
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Set list:
I
Feel Good
Papa's Got A Brand New Bag*
Sex Machine
Soul Music
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20 Greatest Hits |
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50th Anniversary Collection |
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James Brown at Live 8
James Joseph Brown (born May 3, 1933 in Barnwell,
South Carolina) is an African American entertainer, having worked as a
singer, songwriter, and record producer during his career. James Brown,
recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century music,
was a prime influence in the evolution of gospel and rhythm and blues
into soul and funk, a genre he is associated with as its primary founder.
Brown's quick ascent to iconic status can be attributed to his rejection
of traditional music formulas, and becoming a symbol of self-motivation
and achievement in the face of racism against African Americans.
Beginning his professional music career in 1953, James Brown scored hits
from the 1950s to the 1980s. In spite of various personal problems and
setbacks, he has significantly influenced music and culture as a singer,
dancer and bandleader since the 1960s. Brown has also left his mark on
musicians across many outside genres, including rock, jazz, reggae, disco,
dance and electronic music, and, most notably, hip-hop music.
Recognized by a plethora of (mostly self-bestowed) titles, including "Soul
Brother Number One", "Mr. Dynamite", "the Hardest-working
Man in Show Business", and the most familiar, " the Godfather
of Soul", James Brown is noted for his improvisional music style,
shouting vocals, and energetic live performances.
Early life
Born in the small town of Barnwell in Depression-era South Carolina, James
Brown's family eventually moved to nearby Augusta, Georgia. During his
childhood, Brown helped support his family by picking cotton in the nearby
fields and shining shoes downtown. In his spare time, Brown variously
spent time either practicing his performing skills in Augusta-area dance
halls, or committing petty crimes. At the age of 16, he was convicted
of armed robbery and sentenced to a juvenile detention center upstate
in Toccoa, Georgia.
While in prison, Brown later made the acquaintance of Bobby Byrd, whose
family helped Brown secure an early release after serving only three years
of his sentence, under the condition that he not return to Augusta or
Richmond County and that he would try to get a job. After a brief stint
as a boxer, then as a baseball pitcher (a career move ended by leg injury)
Brown turned his energy toward music.
James Brown during the early years.
Brown and Bobby Bird's sister Sarah performed in a gospel group called
"The Gospel Starlighters" during the early and mid 1950s. Eventually,
Brown joined Bobby Byrd's group the Avons, and Byrd turned the group's
sound towards secular rhythm and blues. Now called The Famous Flames,
Brown and Byrd's band toured the Southern "chitlin' circuit",
and eventually signed a deal with the Cincinnati, Ohio-based King Records,
presided over by Syd Nathan.
The group's first recording and single, credited to "James Brown
with the Famous Flames", was "Please, Please, Please" (1956),
which failed to crack the U.S. pop top 100, but was a #5 R&B hit and
a million-selling single. However, their subsequent records failed to
live up to the success of "Please, Please, Please". After nine
failed singles, King was ready to drop Brown and the Flames until the
1958 single "Try Me" became a #1 R&B hit, and a #50 pop
hit. Nearly all of the group's releases were written or co-written by
Brown, who assumed primary control of the band from Byrd and eventually
began billing himself as a solo act with The Famous Flames as his backup.
James Brown's early recordings, also including "I'll Go Crazy"
(1959) and "Bewildered" (1960), were fairly straightforward
gospel-inspired R&B compositions, heavily inspired by the work of
contemporary musicians such as Little Richard and Ray Charles. Yet, these
songs were marked by a rhythmic acuity and vocal attack that would later
become even more pronounced, leading to the style called "funk".
In addition, the initially standardized arrangements and instrumentation
began to give way to more improvisational and rhythm-heavy tracks, such
as that of 1961's #5 R&B hit "Night Train", the first single
to showcase the beginnings of what today is considered the "James
Brown sound". "Night Train" completely eschews singing
of any sort, and excepting ad-libs by Brown, is completely instrumental,
featuring prominent horn instrumentation and a fast, highly accented rhythm
track.
Papa gets a brand new bag
While James Brown's early singles were major hits in the southern United
States, and regularly became R&B Top Ten hits, he and the Flames was
not nationally successful until his self-financed live show was captured
and released on record as Live at the Apollo in 1963. Brown followed this
success with a string of singles that, along with the work of Allen Toussaint
in New Orleans, essentially defined funk music. 1964's "Out of Sight"
was, even more so than "Night Train" had been, a harbinger of
the new James Brown sound. Its arrangement was raw and unornamented, the
horns and the drums took center stage in the mix, and Brown's singing
had taken on an even more rhythmic feel.
"Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good),"
both from 1965, were major #1 R&B hits, remaining the top-selling
single in black venues for over a month apiece, and becoming Brown's first
pop Top 10 hits. Both of these songs today are considered the most important
of his works from this second stage of his career, and are also two of
his signature tunes.
James Brown would often make creative adjustments to his songs for greater
appeal. For instance Brown sped up the released version of "Papa's
Got a Brand New Bag" to make it even more intense and commercial.
"Cold Sweat" (1967) was considered a departure lyrically, and
even harder hitting. Critics have come to see this recording as a high
mark in the music of the 1960s. Mixed in with his more famous rhythmic
essays of the era were ballads such as "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's
World" (1965), and even Broadway show tunes.
The late 1960s: "Ain't It Funky Now"
James Brown employed musicians and arrangers who had come up through the
jazz tradition. He was noted for his ability as a bandleader and songwriter
to blend the simplicity and drive of R&B with the rhythmic complexity
and precision of jazz. Trumpeter Lewis Hamlin and saxophonist/keyboardist
Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis (the successor to previous bandleader
Nat Jones) led the band, with guitarist Jimmy Nolen provided deceptively
simple riffs for each song heavily tied to the dominating rhythm, and
Maceo Parker's prominent saxophone solos. Other members of Brown's band
included stalwart singer and sideman Bobby Byrd, drummers John "Jobo"
Starks, Clyde Stubblefield, Maceo Parker's brother Melvin; saxophonist
St. Clair Pinckney, trombonist Fred Wesley, and guitarist Alphonso Kellum.
As the 1960s came to a close, James Brown refined his style even further
with "I Got the Feelin'" and "Licking Stick-Licking Stick"
(both recorded in 1968), and "Funky Drummer" (recorded in 1969).
By this time, the vocals that graced his songs were no longer sung traditionally,
but instead delivered in a rhythmic pattern that only periodically featured
melodical embellishment. Brown's vocals, not quite sung but not quite
spoken, would be a major influence on the technique of rapping, which
would come to maturity along with hip hop culture and hip hop music during
the following decade. Supporting his vocals were instrumental arrangements
which featured a more refined and developed version of Brown's mid-1960s
style. The horn section, guitars, bass, and drums all locked in strong
rhythms based around various repeating riffs, usually at least one prominent
breaks.
Brown's recordings influenced musicians across the industry, most notably
Sly and his Family Stone, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street
Rhythm Band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and soul shouters like Edwin
Starr , Temptations David Ruffin and Dennis Edwards, and a then-preadolescent
Michael Jackson, who took Brown's shouts and dancing into the pop mainstream
as the lead singer of Motown's The Jackson 5. Those same tracks would
later be resurrected by countless hip-hop musicians from the 1970s on;
in fact, James Brown remains the world's most sampled recording artist,
and "Funky Drummer" is itself the most sampled individual piece
of music.
The content of James Brown's songs was now developing along with their
delivery. Socio-political commentary on the black person's position in
society, and lyrics praising motivation and ambition filled songs like
"Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" (1968) and "I Don't
Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I'll Get It Myself)"
1970).
The 1970s: The JB's
By 1970, most of the members of James Brown's classic 1960s band had quit
his act for other opportunities. He and Bobby Byrd employed a new band
that included future funk greats such as bassist Bootsy Collins, Collins'
guitarist brother Phelps "Catfish" Collins, and trombonist/musical
director Fred Wesley. This new backing band was dubbed "The JB's",
and made their debut on Brown's 1970 single "(Get Up I Fell Like
Being a) Sex Machine". Although it would go through several lineup
changes (the first in 1971), The JB's remain remembered as Brown's most
familiar backing band.
As James Brown's musical empire grew (he bought radio stations in the
late 1960s, including Augusta's WRDW, where he had shined shoes as a boy),
his desire for financial and artistic independence grew as well. In 1971,
he began recording for Polydor Records; among his first Polydor releases
was the #1 R&B hit "Hot Pants (She Got To Use What She Got To
Get What She Wants)". Many of his sidemen and supporting players,
such as Fred Wesley & the JB's, Bobby Byrd, Lyn Collins, Myra Barnes,
and Hank Ballard, released records on Brown's subsidiary label, People,
which was created as part of Brown's Polydor contract. These recordings
are as much a part of Brown's legacy as those released under his own name,
and most are noted examples of what might be termed James Brown's "house"
style. The early 1970s marked the first real awareness, outside the African-American
community, of Brown's achievements. Miles Davis and other jazz musicians
began to cite Brown as a major influence on their styles, and Brown provided
the score for the 1973 blaxploitation film Black Caesar.
The 1974 LP The Big Payback.His 1970s Polydor recordings were a summation
of all the innovation of the last twenty years, and while some critics
maintain that he declined artistically during this period, compositions
like "The Payback" (1973); "Papa Don't Take No Mess"
and "Stoned to the Bone" (1974); "Funky President (People
It's Bad)" (1975); and "Get Up Offa That Thing" (1976)
are still considered among his best.
Into the late-1970s and 1980s
By the mid-70s, Brown's star-status was on the wane, and key musicians
such as Bootsy Collins had begun to depart to form their own groups. The
disco movement, which Brown anticipated, and some say originated, found
relatively little room for Brown; his 1976 albums Get Up Offa That Thing
and Bodyheat were his first flirtations with 'disco-fied' rhythms incorporated
into his funky repertoire. While 1977's Mutha's Nature and 1978's Jam
1980's generated no charted hits, 1979's The Original Disco Man LP is
nonetheless a notable late addition to his oeuvre, containing the song
"It's Too Funky in Here," which was his last top R&B hit
of the decade.
Brown experienced something of a resurgence in the 1980's, effectively
crossing over to a broader, more mainstream audience. Brown made a cameo
appearances in the feature films The Blues Brothers and Rocky IV. He also
released Gravity, a modestly popular crossover album, and the hit 1985
single "Living In America". Acknowledging his influence on modern
hip-hop and R&B music, collaborated with hip-hop artist Afrika Bambaataa
on the single "Unity", and worked the R&B/hip-hop group
Full Force on a #5 R&B hit single, 1988's "Static".
Later years
In spite his return to the limelight, by the late 1980s, Brown met with
a series of legal and financial setbacks. In 1988, he was arrested following
a high-speed car chase down Interstate 20 in Augusta. He was imprisoned
for threatening pedestrians with firearms and abuse of PCP, as well as
for the repercussions of his flight. Although he was sentenced to six
years in prison, he was eventually released in 1991 after having only
served three.
Brown has been married four times. He and his current wife Tommie Raye
Hynie, have been married since 2002 and have one child together; he also
has two children by his first wife, Deidre Jenkins, and three more by
his second,Velma Warren. Adrienne Rodriegues, Brown's wife through most
of the 1980s and 1990s, had him arrested four times on charges of assault,
and also had problems with drug abuse.
During the 1990s and 2000s, arrests for drug possession or domestic abuse
became frequent occurrences for Brown. However, he has continued to occasionally
perform and even record, and often makes appearances in television shows
and in films such as Blues Brothers 2000. He lives in a riverfront home
in Beech Island, South Carolina, directly across the Savannah River from
Augusta. On November 11, 1993, Augusta mayor Charles Delaney held a ceremony
during which Augusta's 9th Street was renamed "James Brown Boulevard"
in the entertainer's honor.
The 1991 four-CD retrospective Star Time spans his four-decade career;
nearly all his earlier LPs have been re-released on CD, often with additional
tracks and enlightened commentary by experts familiar with Brown's music.
This article about James Brown is posted under the GNU Free Documentation
License. It uses material from this Wikipedia
article.
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