Godfather of Soul Made His Mark on Hub:posted by ericb at 8:29 PM on December 25, 2006"Summing up James Brown’s career is well-nigh impossible, unless you want to consider small achievements like revolutionizing popular music, practically inventing funk, and creating some of the most soulful records ever made. But on that list you’d also have to include giving what may be the most pivotal concert ever held in Boston Garden.
The occasion was April 5, 1968, one night after Martin Luther King’s assassination. The concert was set to be canceled for fear of rioting, but Mayor Kevin White struck a deal: The city would pay Brown’s fee if the show was also broadcast live on WGBH. The oft-bootlegged show brims with intensity, with Brown pleading for calm as fans rush the stage. Only a few thousand attended the show, but many more watched it at home-thus black and white audiences were more together that night than they probably realized.
Brown’s first explicitly political single, ‘Say It Loud - I’m Black & I’m Proud,’ would follow a few months later.
Not every Brown concert was quite that momentous, but even in later years he could deliver the goods. One of his last major Boston shows happened at the cavernous Channel club in 1987. Not always a great timekeeper, he didn’t hit the stage until well after 1 a.m.; but the show went on a good hour past the usual 2 a.m. curfew.
By the ‘80s his screaming and footwork weren’t quite as supple as they’d been, so he relied more on vocal power. Ballads like ‘Georgia on My Mind’ would be the surprise highlights of his late-period shows.
Another favorite personal memory was an artist panel at the New Music Seminar in 1984, when Brown was surrounded by hitmakers like Hall & Oates and Madonna. After an hour of longwinded music-biz talk, one fan timidly asked, ‘Could James Brown please do one scream?’ He obliged -- with a spin and a split for good measure -- and it was the most eloquent statement anyone made that day.
Like all music greats, Brown did some less-than-peak work in later years, scoring a hit with the borderline-cheesy ‘Living in America’ -- though even the mid-80’s brought an underground classic in ‘Unity,’ with rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. But it makes an odd coincidence that his last all-new album was a Christmas disc, ‘The Merry Christmas Album,’ released in 2000. With Brown dispensing funky wisdom against oddly arranged synths and drum machines, it’s a holiday sound you’d never mistake for anybody else’s."
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posted by mrbill at 12:13 AM on December 25, 2006