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The James Brown Reader: Fifty Years of Writing About the Godfather of Soul
Nelson George and Alan Leeds have assembled the first comprehensive collection of writings about the late, great Godfather of Soul, creating a fascinating mosaic of the man and the musician. Known as the hardest-working man in show business, James Brown embodied rhythm and blues, funk and soul, and sensuality. His musical innovations in such indelible grooves as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “I Got You (I Feel Good),” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” transformed American music. To appreciate Brown’s immeasurable influence, to chronicle his professional and personal triumphs and struggles, and to capture his essence, writers from four decades weigh in on the legendary Soul Brother Number One. What emerges is a tribute to a trailblazer—one that no dedicated fan or music history buff will want to be without.
360 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2008
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About the author
Nelson George
75 books117 followersNelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture.
Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.
He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1's Hip Hop Honors. George is the executive producer of the Chris Rock hosted feature documentary, Good Hair, a look at hair weaves, relaxers and the international black hair economy that's premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Nelson George serves as host of Soul Cities, a travel show that debuted in November 2008. on VH1 Soul. Nelson visited Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Memphis, New Orleans and the Bay Area. He eats food, visits historic sites, and hears lots of music. LaBelle, Robin Thicke, Babyface, Rafael Saadiq, Angie Stone and Jazmine Sullivan are among the many artists who talked with Nelson and perform. The second season starts shooting in Spring 2009.
Throughout the '80s and '90s George was an columnist for Billboard magazine and the Village Voice newspaper, work that led him to write a series of award winning black music histories: 'Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound'; 'The Death of Rythm & Blues'; and 'Hip Hop America'. He won a Grammy for his contribution to the linear notes package on the James Brown 'Star Time' boxed set. George co-wrote 'Life and Def', the autobiography of his old friend Russell Simmons. He's also had a career writing fiction, including the bestselling 'One Woman Short', and the story, 'It's Never Too Late in New York', which has been in several anthologies of erotica.
As a screenwriter George co-wrote 'Strictly Business', which starred Halle Berry, and 'CB4', a vehicle for Chris Rock. His work with Rock led to his involvement with 'The Chris Rock Show', an Emmy award winning HBO late night series. He was an executive producer of Jim McKay's film, 'Everyday People', which premiered at the Sundance festival, and Todd Williams' Peabody award winning documentary 'The N Word'. In 2009 Viking will publish his memoir, 'City Kid', a look at the connections between childhood in Brooklyn and his adult career in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Detroit.
Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.
He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1's Hip Hop Honors. George is the executive producer of the Chris Rock hosted feature documentary, Good Hair, a look at hair weaves, relaxers and the international black hair economy that's premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Nelson George serves as host of Soul Cities, a travel show that debuted in November 2008. on VH1 Soul. Nelson visited Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Memphis, New Orleans and the Bay Area. He eats food, visits historic sites, and hears lots of music. LaBelle, Robin Thicke, Babyface, Rafael Saadiq, Angie Stone and Jazmine Sullivan are among the many artists who talked with Nelson and perform. The second season starts shooting in Spring 2009.
Throughout the '80s and '90s George was an columnist for Billboard magazine and the Village Voice newspaper, work that led him to write a series of award winning black music histories: 'Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound'; 'The Death of Rythm & Blues'; and 'Hip Hop America'. He won a Grammy for his contribution to the linear notes package on the James Brown 'Star Time' boxed set. George co-wrote 'Life and Def', the autobiography of his old friend Russell Simmons. He's also had a career writing fiction, including the bestselling 'One Woman Short', and the story, 'It's Never Too Late in New York', which has been in several anthologies of erotica.
As a screenwriter George co-wrote 'Strictly Business', which starred Halle Berry, and 'CB4', a vehicle for Chris Rock. His work with Rock led to his involvement with 'The Chris Rock Show', an Emmy award winning HBO late night series. He was an executive producer of Jim McKay's film, 'Everyday People', which premiered at the Sundance festival, and Todd Williams' Peabody award winning documentary 'The N Word'. In 2009 Viking will publish his memoir, 'City Kid', a look at the connections between childhood in Brooklyn and his adult career in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Detroit.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 20, 2013
I bought this in search of interviews that could be illuminating on James Brown, but I really got a biography. This is a collection of articles, essays and interviews that were written on James Brown, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man In Showbusiness, The Godfather of Soul (also abuser, tyrant and one of the most influential people ever, in popular music), ranging from the 1960s to the 2000s, displaying James Brown as the crooked, self-righteous, brilliant, crazy and very intelligent man that he was.
While James Brown is often described as a power-monger who controlled his bands with an iron fist, it's a double-edged sword. Take, for instance, the incredibly important song named "Cold Sweat". That syncopated rhythm paired with the horns, Brown's way of singing and the fact that your ass won't be able to stay still as you're digesting it... Brown actually wrote all of that. And used musicians like Clyde Stubblefield to do it.
From the throat of Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, one of Brown's former band leaders:
"To be in the audience when James Brown commences the James Brown Show is to have felt oneself engulfed in a kind of feast of adoration and astonishment, a ritual invocation, one comparable, I'd imagine, to certain ceremonies known to the Mayan people, wherein a human person is radiantly costumed and then beheld in lieu of the appearence of a Sun God upon the Earth. For to see James Brown dance and sing, to see him lead his mighty band with the merest of glances and tiny flickers of signals from his hands; to see him offer himself to his audience to be adored and enraptured and ravished; to watch him tremble and suffer as he tears his screams and moans of lust, glory and regret from his sweat-drenched body -- and is, thereupon, in the act of seeming mercy, draped in the cape of his infirmity; to see him recover and thrive -- shrugging free of the cape -- as he basks in the healing regard of an audience now melded into a single passionate body by the stroking and thrumming of his ceaseless cavalcade of impossibly danceable smash Number One hits, is not to see: It is to behold."
And Brown wasn't only a self-proclaimed sex machine, but a quotation machine, throwing off stuff all the time. For example:
The later is a quote from a statement made on national TV during the 1968 riots in Washington, DC, after the Martin Luther King assassination. Brown is often single-handedly credited for stopping the riots in Boston by delivering a broadcast concert and speaking out to people.
Another thing on freedom from the book:
As Brown's empire grew - e.g. he bought the house that he once was shining shoes in front of, a restaurant and three radio stations - he made larger and more boastful claims by the minute. Those claims often rang true, but towards the end of his life he was seen more and more as a weird man, which often was a correct assumption. For instance:
And he made songs like "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" at a time where there was nothing like it.
In the radiant article named "Papa Takes Some Mess" by Pat Kelly, written in 1975, it's obvious what a tyrant Brown is, and how little he is revered by his musicians, who follow his every single move and were fined by Brown for things, like missing one of Brown's signals during a show, or showing up late.
The highly personal essay named "James Brown Meets the Nine Nobles" by Ron Courtney, written in 1986, is one of the best pieces in this anthology, describing how Ron's life was changed by hearing James Brown.
Heading into the 1980s, the articles turn more into the weird, from the incident where Brown reportedly threatened an entire company with a shotgun while accusing them of using his private bathroom to his troubles with the IRS and his conviction of abuse against several of his wives.
The article where Fred Daviss, Brown's business manager for 16 years, recalls Brown's visit to Graceland a day following the death of Elvis Presley and how Brown told Daviss to touch Elvis' corpse because "then it won't bother you no more", and how Daviss saw Brown touch Elvis' dead body and said "Elvis, you rat. You rat." - Later, Davis was the one touching Brown's corpse, saying a similar thing.
Alan Leeds' finishing essay on the death of James Brown, including his legacy and a few final words is quite beautiful, summarising most of what people have prior said about Brown.
All in all, this book is definitely one of the best anthologies based on interview articles that I have read, and it goes to show Brown as a human being, an exceptional one at that, in a variety of fields. His legacy goes on and on, as Brown's accomplishments will forever enthrall and amaze.
While James Brown is often described as a power-monger who controlled his bands with an iron fist, it's a double-edged sword. Take, for instance, the incredibly important song named "Cold Sweat". That syncopated rhythm paired with the horns, Brown's way of singing and the fact that your ass won't be able to stay still as you're digesting it... Brown actually wrote all of that. And used musicians like Clyde Stubblefield to do it.
From the throat of Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, one of Brown's former band leaders:
"James called me in his dressing room after a gig, said we were going to record soon and for me to have the band ready" [...] "He grunted the rhythm, a bass line, to me. I wrote the rhythm down on a piece of paper. There were no notes. I had to translate it.
James gave us a lot to go by. You got a musical palette from hearing him, from seeing his body movement and facial expression, seeing him dance and from being up there with the band, seeing the audience. So you get a picture of that, and you write it."
"To be in the audience when James Brown commences the James Brown Show is to have felt oneself engulfed in a kind of feast of adoration and astonishment, a ritual invocation, one comparable, I'd imagine, to certain ceremonies known to the Mayan people, wherein a human person is radiantly costumed and then beheld in lieu of the appearence of a Sun God upon the Earth. For to see James Brown dance and sing, to see him lead his mighty band with the merest of glances and tiny flickers of signals from his hands; to see him offer himself to his audience to be adored and enraptured and ravished; to watch him tremble and suffer as he tears his screams and moans of lust, glory and regret from his sweat-drenched body -- and is, thereupon, in the act of seeming mercy, draped in the cape of his infirmity; to see him recover and thrive -- shrugging free of the cape -- as he basks in the healing regard of an audience now melded into a single passionate body by the stroking and thrumming of his ceaseless cavalcade of impossibly danceable smash Number One hits, is not to see: It is to behold."
And Brown wasn't only a self-proclaimed sex machine, but a quotation machine, throwing off stuff all the time. For example:
"Soul is when a man do everything he can and come up second. Soul is when a man make a hundred dollars a week and it cost him a hundred and ten to live. Soul is when a man got to bear other people's burdens. Soul is when a man is nothin' because he's black."
"Don't terrorize. Organize. Don't burn. Give kids a chance to learn ... The real answer to race problems in this country is education. Not burning and killing. Be ready. Be qualified. Own something. Be somebody. That's Black Power."
"I'm not hung up just on black, I'm hung up on right. There's a lot of white kids out there that are really together. It's tradition that we are fighting. We're not fighting white, we are fighting tradition."
The later is a quote from a statement made on national TV during the 1968 riots in Washington, DC, after the Martin Luther King assassination. Brown is often single-handedly credited for stopping the riots in Boston by delivering a broadcast concert and speaking out to people.
Another thing on freedom from the book:
He walked over and put an arm around a chubby white chick deejay. She, being emotional, started to blubber.
"We got to free up people until she and I have a chance. The man has the white woman and the black man uptight. She's trapped in the home and I'm trapped in the field. We're going to break loose. Until a black man and a white girl can walk in here and nobody thinks about it, we're in trouble."
As Brown's empire grew - e.g. he bought the house that he once was shining shoes in front of, a restaurant and three radio stations - he made larger and more boastful claims by the minute. Those claims often rang true, but towards the end of his life he was seen more and more as a weird man, which often was a correct assumption. For instance:
Brown rates his work with the greatest American musical innovations of the 20th century. He maintains that his music has been so far ahead of its time that he had no choice but to restrict the complexity of the compositions and arrangements. Otherwise, James says, we never could have understood it.
And he made songs like "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" at a time where there was nothing like it.
In the radiant article named "Papa Takes Some Mess" by Pat Kelly, written in 1975, it's obvious what a tyrant Brown is, and how little he is revered by his musicians, who follow his every single move and were fined by Brown for things, like missing one of Brown's signals during a show, or showing up late.
The highly personal essay named "James Brown Meets the Nine Nobles" by Ron Courtney, written in 1986, is one of the best pieces in this anthology, describing how Ron's life was changed by hearing James Brown.
King Records released the "James Brown Live At The Apollo" LP and our lives suddenly acquired purpose and meaning!
Heading into the 1980s, the articles turn more into the weird, from the incident where Brown reportedly threatened an entire company with a shotgun while accusing them of using his private bathroom to his troubles with the IRS and his conviction of abuse against several of his wives.
"Havin' that IRS problem kept me from having other problems. Because if they see you owe money, other people don't sue you."
"He scoffed at allogations that he was high on PCP at the time of his arrest--"Not in my life," he said of hard drugs in general--but then he added, "Well, I wouldn't say as I did buy PCP. It might've been in the marijuana. And, if it was, I sure wish I had some more."
There are no computers in the offices of James Brown Enterprises. "He's got this strange notion that they can see back at you," Maria Moon, one of his staffers, explained." [...] Mr. Brown put it slightly differently: "I don't want computers coming feeding direct off of me, 'cause I know what I got to tell a computer that it ain't got in there, and I don't want to. If the government would want me to be heading up the computer people, I would give 'em a basic idea what we should put in a computer -- not just basic things, you know, but things that will be helpful in the future. We don't have that, but I could tell 'em a lot of things." He didn't elaborate, but he told me that on several occasions, while watching television news, he had foreseen the deaths of people on the screen.
The article where Fred Daviss, Brown's business manager for 16 years, recalls Brown's visit to Graceland a day following the death of Elvis Presley and how Brown told Daviss to touch Elvis' corpse because "then it won't bother you no more", and how Daviss saw Brown touch Elvis' dead body and said "Elvis, you rat. You rat." - Later, Davis was the one touching Brown's corpse, saying a similar thing.
Alan Leeds' finishing essay on the death of James Brown, including his legacy and a few final words is quite beautiful, summarising most of what people have prior said about Brown.
All in all, this book is definitely one of the best anthologies based on interview articles that I have read, and it goes to show Brown as a human being, an exceptional one at that, in a variety of fields. His legacy goes on and on, as Brown's accomplishments will forever enthrall and amaze.
July 9, 2012
Nice little scrapbook of old articles on James Brown. A fantastic memento for superfans, maybe not so much of a treat for more casual fans. I probably fall somewhere in between, so I enjoyed skimming through the articles but didn't find myself as engrossed as I would by a proper biography. This would certainly be a nice little companion book, though.
April 9, 2025
A compilation of articles written about James Brown throughout his career; a little redundant, but it is interesting to see his life trajectory in this way.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews