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`Godfather of Soul' focuses on the present
Originally published 04/26/95
By Rich Copley
A neatly trimmed lawn spreads out before the muted brick structure with a sign of mysteriously modest proportions.
A check-in at a receptionist's window is enough to make one want to list an ailment as the reason for visiting.
And then you see the name in flashing neon, ``James Brown,'' at the back of the otherwise sterile room.
Also, few doctors have Billboard magazine and Variety as featured fare in their waiting rooms.
Of course, this James Brown isn't a dreaded dentist preparing for root canal work. He's the Godfather of Soul, now in his 40th year of show business. With the ruby anniversary of his first recording quickly approaching and an allstar birthday bash scheduled for Wednesday at the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center, he's in the mood to reflect on his achievements and to look forward to what he still hopes to accomplish.
He's sitting in a bustling office with the luxuries that 40 years as the hardest working man in show business can bring.
A large screen television sits at one end, and an imposing solid wood desk occupies the other. Beneath pictures of Mr. Brown with presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter and beside a coat rack laden with colorful garments, the desk is deluged with haphazard stacks of papers and piles of CDs - evidence of several hours of work. As if there was any question about who occupies the large seat, a carved plate reading ``James Brown'' sits front and center.
But he's the sort of man one expects to find on a bench in the heart of a small town, or at the counter in a friendly diner, spinning yarns about the old days when electric lights and indoor plumbing were luxuries.
Though his energy hasn't waned, he sometimes comes across as an encouraging grandparent. Upon meeting new people he's as interested in finding out about their education, job and ambitions as they are in finding out about him. And he's happy to talk, reflecting on the struggles of his career, which he insists is not over.
He's not content to be thought of as an elder statesman of music and says in a raspy chuckle, ``America's two oldest teen-agers are Dick Clark and James Brown.''
Baseball, football and fighting
For those who need evidence that a person can grow up in Augusta and become a notable entry in Who's Who, James Brown is only too happy to be exhibit A, a celebrity able to celebrate a birthday in style, with notable performers including country star Aaron Tippin, MTV personality Bill Bellamy, and R&B hit-makers Changing Faces, Brandy and Soul For Real. At this time 40 years ago, however, Mr. Brown was anxious for anyone to hear him and his band, the Famous Flames.
``I was going to excel, because my mother stopped in the fourth grade and my father stopped in the second,'' Mr. Brown says, enveloping the room with his trademark growl. ``He was a filling station operator. He didn't do much farming, but he was a turpentine worker in the turpentine days of South Carolina and south Georgia.
``I've done all the work. I did farming when I was a little boy, and I shined shoes and made a little money. I always wanted to work to make something.''
Mr. Brown started out playing baseball and football before he turned to boxing for a few semipro fights.
``Six of us could have been real big in the fight game, but I'm glad I didn't take it,'' Mr. Brown says. ``Finally, when I started singing and went on these talent shows, I guess something went off in my head that said, `This is what you're going to be the rest of your life.'''
He began singing in downtown Augusta theaters such as the Harlem and the Lennox, perfecting his dance steps and whipping girls into a frenzy.
The music making was interrupted in 1949 by a three-year prison sentence for petty theft - breaking into cars on Broad Street. He continued singing while serving his sentence in Rome, Ga. and then Toccoa, Ga., earning the nickname Music Box.
He was released from prison in Toccoa in 1952, where he lived and formed the Flames.
The Famous Flames
By Mr. Brown's account in his autobiography, James Brown: Godfather of Soul, the vocals didn't work well in the original band. His commanding voice didn't seem to work with the six other singers' mellow tones. Over time, they added a singer and Mr. Brown started stepping to the front of the stage with his impressive pipes and command of dances such as the camel walk and the slop. But the instrumentation was thin, primarily consisting of an upright piano and the group's rhythmic stomping. After some time, they added a guitar player.
After a couple of years, the band acquired additional instruments and began to travel. Mr. Brown also maintained a job as a high school janitor to stay on the right side of his parole officer. The Flames' repertoire consisted of R&B covers, though the singer would often experiment.
The Flames soon caught the attention of Georgia's reigning black musician, the flamboyant Little Richard.
``Little Richard discovered me in Toccoa and told me to come to Macon, (Ga.),'' Mr. Brown says. ``Then he left, and we ran for
four years and then Otis Redding came along, and we started him.''
It was Clint Brantly, Little Richard's manager, who stuck the ``Famous'' at the beginning of the Flames' name.
Please Please Please
The Famous Flames enjoyed rabid popularity in Macon, but they realized that what they needed was a recording. Please Please Please was an obvious choice, though a demo of the song, recorded at a Macon radio station, was refused by numerous labels.
In January 1956, the Famous Flames were in Florida when they got the call to go to Cincinnati and record Please Please Please.
The session on February 4, 1956, was a nightmare.
Mr. Brown's writing style confused King owner Syd Nathan and music director Gene Redd. Breaking away from a traditional structure, he used seventh chords and a lot of harmonic transitions. The format smoothed out the sound, while also giving it a bit more desperate tone.
``I couldn't go to Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Bach or Tchaikovsky, because you had to be educated,'' Mr. Brown says. ``So I changed the music from two and four to one and three, so you were on the downbeat instead of the upbeat.''
It became an influential writing style, but halfway through laying down tracks for Please Please Please, Mr. Nathan threw a tantrum and walked out. Desperate to save their shot at success, Mr. Brown sat down and explained the song's odd chord changes to Mr. Redd.
After a shouting match between Mr. Nathan and Mr. Redd, the song and three others were recorded. The record was held back for a month, and released March 3, 1956. It wasn't a monster hit, though it did reach No. 6 on Billboard's rhythm and blues chart and sold a million copies.
The rest is on the record.
A towering influence
The early '50s were tough for Mr. Brown - he was away from his family, trying to start his career and avoid prison. But, he says, it could have been worse.
``Those days were a lot more wholesome days,'' Mr. Brown says, lowering his tone. ``In those days, you didn't have a lot of competition. People stayed with simple things to do. Today, you have to be very sophisticated. The criteria for a job is so high that people out of my era never would have made it today.''
But many music pundits point out that Mr. Brown's work was inventive.
In the Rolling Stone Album Guide, music critic J.D. Considine writes, ``James Brown may have never captured the Zeitgeist as Elvis Presley or the Beatles did, nor can he be said to have dominated the charts like Stevie Wonder or the Rolling Stones, but by any real measure of musical greatness - endurance, originality, versatility, breadth of influence - he towers over them all ... And even though none of the 44 singles he put into the Billboard top 40 ever made it to No. 1 - indeed, only two ever cracked the top five - in retrospect, that reflects worse on the pop audience than it does on his music.''
His name is regularly invoked by performers from rap to modern rock.
In a performance by the Tom Tom Club on the Talking Heads' movie, Stop Making Sense, drummer Chris Frantz repeats Mr. Brown's name in a rap and declares, ``He still is the Godfather of Soul y'all, so check it out.'' In the Police song When the World Is Running Down (You Make the Best of What's Still Around), Sting affectionately refers to Mr. Brown's 1964 performance on The T.A.M.I. Show.
The rhythmic structures Mr. Brown introduced are still used by artists across the pop spectrum, including smash performers such as Prince and Michael Jackson. Mr. Brown's influence also can be seen in Mr. Jackson's dance steps.
Former members of Mr. Brown's bands include visionary bassist Bootsy Collins, and saxophonists Maceo Parker and David Sanborn.
Still funky
Mr. Brown is quick to put his career in the present tense. He's working on new recordings and tours extensively with his band.
As the light streaming through his office windows at the New James Brown Enterprises starts to fade, he summons an assistant to show videotape from a Pittsburgh performance. Looking nothing like his 63 years, he leads the band through a set that could show the Chicago Bulls a thing or two about energy.
Relaxed in his office, he's dressed in a silky black turtleneck and burgundy suit. He leans back in his chair and discusses his dreams. They include enhancing Augusta's entertainment scene and making James Brown Boulevard a showplace. He envisions a boulevard flanked by a Walk of Fame, with stars honoring local luminaries such as country singer Terri Gibbs and football star Herschel Walker.
``You see the Masters, you see how much energy we have that week,'' Mr. Brown says. ``We've got to keep that potential and transfer it to something else.''
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