There Was a Time Lib/E: James Brown, the Chitlin' Circuit, and Me

by Alan Leeds

A behind-the-scenes look at the Chitlin' Circuit during America's most vital period of soul music--from the eyes and ears of a young, Jewish kid from Queens who joined the team of the hardest working man in show business and learned the art of the music business at the hand of the performer who mastered it. In the mid-'60s, Alan Leeds was a young DJ looking for his way into the music business. An interview with James Brown to promote a local show in Virginia led to an opportunity to promote one of Brown's concerts, which then led to Brown hiring him to help run his tours. Soon Leeds was wearing many hats and traveling around the country as Brown battled a complicated web of local promoters and managers, all too willing to try to rip him off. In this riveting book--part memoir, part history--Leeds weaves a wholly new and remarkable portrait of Brown as an idiosyncratic iconoclast, determined artist, and forceful businessman. It is a rare look into a world little known to white America immediately following the Civil Rights Movement. Leeds discovers that Brown is a fascinatingly complex man and their experiences, both business and personal, range from emotional to humorous. All the while, they navigate the complicated world of popular black music in America, told by someone who actually lived it.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction

Audio CD

First published February 25, 2020

Reviews

[Jazz Fan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and colorful. I enjoyed his perspective on what it was like on the road with the amazing, and tragic James Brown. Cranking up a Bootsy Collins album right now.

[Karim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Questlove does the foreword on this book and I’m glad I went with the audiobook. Overall this is a curious time to put a book like this out. Mr. Leeds as he’s known is just a hobbyist who loved soul music and fell into managing James Brown and countless other acts after.

The book is a tell-all that delves into how radio promotions back then (and still) play a huge part in the music industry. Leeds has really seen it all in his career and the story about Miles Davis leaving a voicemail for Prince is a must.

Sadly this book also does a deep dive into women being physically abused by Brown while his entire band and staff carried on about their business. Leeds claims ‘there was nothing he could’ve done to stop it’. That kind of thinking was commonplace then as it is now. In Leeds’ 60+ years managing black artists it’s a shame that not much has changed when it comes to race or even how we treat women as victims in this nation.

[Scot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting out on the chitlin' circuit, which the nickname for the small market show tours, mainly in the South, that hustling musicians grinded out to keep doing what they loved, is where Alan Leeds got his start. He took a hard-fought for meeting with James Brown and turned it into a career promoting musicians and the music he loved.

Started out with James Brown in his early days with Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley and into the Bootsy Collins days, and all the way through the beginning of his decline in popularity in the mid-70's, Leeds does an amazing job detailing the ins and outs of James Brown, touring, and the music business in the glory years before the massive corporate takeover of the music industry and touring.

Everything you thought you knew about James Brown is probably true, he really was the Godfather of Soul in so many different ways. And getting the perspective from someone behind the scenes, who witnessed all of the beauty and joy and the pain and heartache, makes for quite a good read.

This is one of those books, that will not really take off until the right time, when the world needs James Brown again, or pines for LoFi, truly creative views on music, industry, and life.

For any that are interested, I created a Spotify playlist of all of the songs that Leeds referenced throughout the book and you can find it here... I hope

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of James Brown stories and a lot of insight into the business end of the music business.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting info.

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and extremely interesting

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never heard the name Alan Leeds before picking this book up, but was looking for something to read in the world of books about bands/musical artists (a genre I go back to frequently) and had recently just finished listening to LOVE, POWER, PEACE (the live James Brown album that is better than LIVE AT THE APOLLO, don't @ me) for the three-thousandth time, so I took a gamble on it. It paid off. This is not a James Brown bio. What it is, is a couple of snapshots of America, via the employ of James Brown. Alan Leeds, a white Jew who grew up in NYC and Minneapolis, found his way to Richmond, VA as a teenager, and through his love of R&B, found his way to James Brown...and later Prince, Raphael Saadiq, and D'Angelo (among others.) This is his story, and a pretty great look at the record industry, the touring industry, and the industry of being tied to a paranoid, egotistical, tyrannical, likely mentally-ill, genius. Good stuff.