{"id":939,"date":"2017-04-17T21:07:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T21:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=939"},"modified":"2017-04-17T21:10:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T21:10:24","slug":"ftv-jb-and-the-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=939","title":{"rendered":"FTV: JB and The One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cThe hardest working man in show business.\u201d \u00a0James Brown couldn\u2019t even escape this title when he died in December of 2006. \u00a0His family memorial service was squeezed between bookend engagements at The Apollo Theater in New York City and the James Brown Arena in Augusta, Georgia. \u00a0In holding true with his life on the road, Brown\u2019s body made the overnight trip to NYC and back again in a drafty van. \u00a0His family had finally decided to lay him to rest in a solid gold casket that weighed 500 pounds. \u00a0His Lear Jet couldn\u2019t handle the load and when all other transportation avenues failed, Brown was literally on the road again to the Apollo. \u00a0Everyone knows that he would never be late for an engagement at the most iconic venue of them all and the people who were always there to take care of Brown\u2019s details took care of this one, also. \u00a0To keep up appearances to the end, they met up with a hearse in New York City to make the final delivery to the Apollo. \u00a0James Brown does not show up in a van.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In his book <\/span>The One – The Life and Music of James Brown<\/span><\/i> (2012 – Gotham Books), author RJ Smith does a masterful job of piecing together the puzzling life of James Brown. \u00a0An entire volume could be written about the legal entanglements that are still taking place regarding his estate. \u00a0Even with a will in place at the time of his death, Brown\u2019s multiple wives, children, girl friends, grandchildren, and assorted business partners are engulfed in a tangled web of legal issues that may never be untangled. \u00a0For his part, Smith spends only five pages in the book\u2019s afterword section on this sad part of the story. \u00a0As my lawyer friend Jim has said time and again, \u201cMoney makes people funny\u201d and it is apparent that this statement is magnified many times over in the case of a larger than life artist like James Brown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Band members and fans say his final shows in 2006 were great. \u00a0Long time trumpeter Hollie Farris claimed, \u201cI am telling you, they were some of the best shows I have ever done with him.\u201d \u00a0Brown was obviously ill and still managed to pull off 81 full one and one half hour long shows in his final year. \u00a0His final European swing found him doing ten shows in nine different countries in ten days. \u00a0Singer Amy Christian said, \u201c The last tour was completely ridiculous . . . we went from Scotland to Moscow to London to Thessaloniki to Helsinki to Latvia.\u201d \u00a0The show was all that ever mattered to James Brown. \u00a0If it was a crowded arena or a crowd of fifty people, he did the same show. \u00a0He may have needed to be wheeled up to the side of the stage in a wheelchair for some of the last shows, but when the lights came up, JB was on the good foot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What would drive a man with a legacy like JB\u2019s to essentially work himself until death? \u00a0He told childhood friend Leon Austin, \u201cI\u2019m tired. \u00a0I\u2019d like to retire, but I can\u2019t. \u00a0I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever be able to retire, because I\u2019m making money, and people are needing me to work.\u201d \u00a0It was December 21, 2006 and he had only recently returned from the grueling ten day European tour. \u00a0He had his annual toy giveaway scheduled in Augusta on December 22 and a New Year\u2019s Eve gig scheduled for New York City. \u00a0Long time aide-de-camp, the Rev. Al Sharpton, did not know that Brown was already in the hospital when he talked to him that night. \u00a0Sharpton thought that he was sick from the tone of his voice, but he was still shocked when his phone rang later that night with the news that the invincible James Brown had passed on. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0James Brown was indeed a complex man. \u00a0\u00a0He grew up dirt poor in Barnwell, South Carolina where his father Joe labored in the brutal turpentine camps of the pine country. \u00a0\u00a0This is the area where the term \u201ccracker\u201d originated in 1763. \u00a0A proclamation issued in that year banned settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains so the pioneers already moving west turned to the south instead. \u00a0The sound of their whips cracking as they drove their livestock gave rise to the term still in use today to describe certain mannerisms of folk who settled the area sometimes referred to as \u201cGeorgialina\u201d. \u00a0You could make money in the turpentine industry, but it took a lot out of you. \u00a0Around 1938, Joe, Joe\u2019s aunt Minnie Walker, \u00a0and his boy hiked the forty miles from Barnwell to Augusta in search of different employment. \u00a0The die was now cast for Brown to become a product of \u201cGeorgialina\u201d. \u00a0Senator Strom Thurmond read the following definition of Georgialina into the Congressional Record: \u00a0\u201ca region of the Savannah River Valley which includes a number of cities and towns on both sides of the South Carolina and Georgia state line.\u201d \u00a0This is the same Strom Thurmond who James Brown would befriend later in his career. \u00a0Even during the period when he lived in New York City, Augusta was still his home and as famous as he became, he still identified with the Georgialina lifestyle he had known all his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A small boy left alone for much of the time, he grew up to be a scrapper and a fighter. \u00a0Joe was away much of the time and JB was more or less raised in his Aunt Honey\u2019s place of business. \u00a0It was in a neighborhood called The Terry which was originally founded by Irish immigrant\u2019s and called \u201cVerdery\u2019s Territory\u201d. \u00a0When emancipated slaves were moved into the area, it became the \u201cNegro Territory\u201d which was eventually shortened to just \u201cThe Terry\u201d. \u00a0Aunt Honey\u2019s establishment sold prohibition whiskey called \u201cscrap iron\u201d for the metallic taste it acquired from the drums it was made in. \u00a0She also rented rooms for working girls and their \u201cdates\u201d. \u00a0She loved James and cared for him, but she also beat him when his behavior had a negative impact on her place of business. \u00a0James had a home, but it isn\u2019t hard to understand why he learned so much about life out on the street. \u00a0On the streets, James learned to use his wits and his fists in equal proportions. \u00a0At home, he tried to be invisible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He may have only had a seventh grade education, but he was a keen observer of people and always knew just what to give them and what he would get in return. \u00a0Smith describes JB as \u201cThe Johnny Appleseed of Dance\u201d because dancing for nickels and dimes gave him his sense of rhythm and the rhythm of his music made him a star. \u00a0For James Brown, rhythm was everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Teacher Laura Garvin and principal Yewston Myers took a interest in the young James Brown. \u00a0They knew of him as \u201ca poor waif on the streets of Augusta\u201d who had gotten into some trouble. \u00a0Garvin recalled, \u201cHe was not a scary kid; \u00a0he was respectful, funny\u2026 nothing could make you dislike him.\u201d \u00a0They encouraged him to sing the national anthem before classes began each day and Garvin later let him perform in her classroom for a ten cent admission. \u00a0Even at this early stage of his performing career, Brown could read his audience and give them what they came to hear and see.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Brown learned to make a living in Augusta. \u00a0He shined shoes, boxed in battle royales for the idle rich, and sang with groups mixing gospel music with popular music and the blues. \u00a0As a product of the streets, James Brown was a thief when he need to be but was caught breaking into cars on May 7, 1949. \u00a0Expecting at most a slap on the wrist, he instead found himself a pawn of the local political climate and ended up in jail at age 16 facing hard labor on the dreaded chain gang. \u00a0Luckily for him, he ended up in a juvenile facility called the Industrial Training Institute. \u00a0He happened to land in jail about the time the chain gangs were being done away with and the governor pushing the state to educate and rehabilitate young criminals. \u00a0Had Brown been jailed a couple of years earlier, his story might have had a completely different ending. \u00a0He was many things and one of those things was \u201clucky\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Brown\u2019s penchant for listening to the radio and singing earned him the nickname \u201cMusic Box\u201d at the ITI. \u00a0His voice also helped him secure his release from his incarceration. \u00a0The Institute was located hear Toccoa, GA, were a \u00a0local teen musician named Bobby Byrd first heard about this kid at the ITI who could sing. \u00a0Byrd talked his mother into sponsoring Brown\u2019s release because he saw the possibilities of having Brown join his band. \u00a0With 400 signatures on a petition from the local churches and a stipulation that he stay out of Augusta for ten years, James was sprung from the ITI. \u00a0While working assorted jobs in Tocoa, JB began taking his first steps down the musical road that would make him famous all around the world. \u00a0The trip would be a long one, but it wouldn\u2019t be a straight line. \u00a0Knowing about his rough and tumble early years doesn\u2019t \u00a0explain all of the idiosyncrasies that Brown displayed later in life, but it does give some hints as to why he had to be the man in control. \u00a0\u00a0In Part 2. we will examine some of the zigs and zags that James Brown would take over the next sixty years while influencing a host younger musicians, inventing new musical genres, \u00a0and earning a new title: \u00a0\u201cThe Godfather of Soul\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video – The big band, big show version of\u00a0I feel good<\/em> from 1995