It feels strange to wake up in a world without James Brown in it. The man had such a mammoth impact that it's safe to say had he never been born, music would sound very different today and not in a good way.

If you've ever bought a rap album or danced at a party where soul music was featured or craved some beats that were funky, syncopated, and danceable you either listened to or heard music that was either created, imitated, sampled, ripped-off or inspired by James Brown.

"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.

Choosing a favorite James Brown song is like choosing the world's most beautiful baby. There's a LOT to choose from. But The Hardest Working Man in Show Business was no slouch when it came to creating a body of work that remains popular to this day.

If you're too young to appreciate Soul Brother Number One, I refer you to BlackAmericaWeb.com, or
All Music Guideand his Wikipedia entry.

I'm old enough to recall when James dropped "Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud." Man, were the brothers and sisters feeling the love for THAT one. That's why even though James came out for Richard Nixon at one time, nobody really criticized him. Nobody doubted his commitment to helping Black people make progress.

My son recently had to write a biography for a high school class and he chose a book by James Brown about his life. He was surprised to find out that even now artists like Kanye West has sampled James Brown's music for use on their own albums. Nothing strange about that. James Brown beats can be found on artists such as Madonna, Beck, Public Enemy, Sinead O' Connor, Queen, David Bowie and more than can be listed here. The odd thing is James never made a great album. He made great singles in a time when radio stations could still break a slamming song.

One of my biggest regrets is I never saw James do his thang live on stage. My loss. But he's left a body of work and a undeniable influence that will live on long past him.

Heaven is a lot more funky today. Get on up James.

James Brown has always been a step removed from my world. I am a little too young to have caught on to him while it was happening except in later releases (like Tony Bennet, Johnny Cash, or Tom Jones who had older coolness to them and got hip for periods of time for the "kids") As an eighties creature I think I know him more for Eddie Murphy's "Hot Tub" then for his own music.

But James Brown was a genuine artist (like Johnny Cash) who is given a type of music more because we must put things in boxes than because James Brown belongs in any box.

He has indelibly imprinted out culture and in that way is one of the lucky few who will live on beyond his life. His scattish funk never seemed to make sense (nor did his concert between song talks (hmmn aba dot hAAAAy!) but it also always seems to make perfect sense when you watch it.

RIP James Brown, or at least get funky in another place.

James Brown, born May 3, 1928, died Christmas Day, 2006.

Seventy-eight years of making love with life. It was a tough life, and he made love with it.

It was a long life, by most reckoning. It could have been longer, could have been very much shorter.

I don't care about his politics. I don't care about his faults, as if I in his shadow could ever find any.

Thanks for the funk, the soul, the golden stuff of the street.

Thanks for the rage that hardly anyone can match or approach. You were aflame from early on.

It wasn't the words, it was the heart. The words said nothing.

You helped, and continue, and will continue forever, to help. That's how it works.

It wasn't, and isn't, the words.

Papa's got a brand new bag, spin and fall. Get it on up, spin and fall. It's the scream, not the words.

I feeeeeeel good.

He was the incarnation of lightning, sent to illuminate the world with his energy. His light lives on.

I can imagine the people in Heaven watching James Brown do his dance through the pearly gates, cheering and applauding as St. Peter makes sure all the papers are in order for the funky new addition to the heavenly choir.

Rest in peace, James Brown!

My sentiments exactly. My favorite was always "I Got You," but being a n00b, I clicked the "null vote" by accident. I play James Brown early in the morning to help me wake up. His songs are auditory caffeine; gets the blood pumping and the feet thumping. A true entertainer.

There is some irony in the fact that we lost both mother and father figures of R&B this year - Ruth Brown, November 17 and James Brown Christmas Day.

Not only did James Brown have a powerful voice, but through the years provided some fine instrumentals. A 36 track edition of these - Soul Pride is out of print, but still available used. One of the more popular instrumentals "The Popcorn" is available as a download from I-Tunes. In fact, I just downloaded it.

I was on vacation, but luckily had the iPod and enjoyed this fine tribute to the man, the myth, the legend. Packed my suitcase while listening to "Say it Loud: Live in Dallas" from 1968. The energy in that show is just fantastic. The JB's were the tightest band in the history of pop music, only the big-band jazz bands like Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson can compare. Plus the thought of a mixed-race Dallas audience hearing James in 1968 and singing along to "I'm Black and I'm Proud" reminds me of my own attendance at early rap shows, where we would be like 3 white guys out of 1000. Reminds me of a funny quote from "The Commitments" movie...

Take a listen to the intro to that tune

A great, flawed and amazingly talented man, musician and pioneer. He will truly be missed. I was lucky enough to see his act twice and came away both times believing that I had seen greatness.

Since we had to pick one, I voted for "Super Bad." Honorable mention to "Lickin' Stick," "Cold Sweat" and "I got the Feelin'"

I'd like to a cast a vote for a song not listed... I would argue that "Say it Loud" is the most important song ever recorded. For evidence I take you back to the mid-1960s: Martin Luther King Jr. used the word "negro." Malcolm X preferred the word "afro-american" (as opposed to african-american). James Brown used the word "black."


So much of what the civil rights movement was implicitly saying was made explicit on "Say it Loud," ideas about class, minimum wage labor, white condescension, afro-pessimism... "some say we got a lot of malice, some say its a lot of nerve/but I say we won't quit moving till we get what we deserve." Moreover, lyrically, if Brown wanted to talk about race in the 60s, he could have brought up discrimination, police brutality, firehoses, the klan-- but most of the song is about working a crummy job. amazing. Man just wanted a decent paycheck-- or better yet, a fur-lined cape. Gripe about how materialistic that may have been, still, its not hard to see how JB was far ahead of his time in that regard.

Then there's the music. This song is the first and most significant moment when JB dropped singing altogether. He doesn't croon a note on this record. The back-up group doesn't sing a note. We're accustomed to that now, but the kind of confidence and cool it must have took for a Black man to accomplish that in 1968 is monumental. No one ever accused JB of lacking nerve.

If I could post MP3's on AD, I'd give you guys a version of a young Bob Marley covering "Say it Loud." Its incredible to hear Marley, one of the most self-assured, greatest singers in modern history, desperately belting out a James Brown impression. Marley was a JB devotee long before he was a Rastafarian or a Reggae star. To take it a step further, Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti's whole career borrowed from "Say it Loud." Kuti played genteel, happy-go-lucky Highlife music before he came to America, hooked up with the Black Panthers and began playing militant, socially conscious material that regularly inspired riots in Lagos. It'd take a whole 'nother post to explain how a song as explicit as "Say it Loud" affected post-colonial West Africa, back when the governments were turning repressive and protest music was traditionally coded into obtuse illusions and metaphors about the weather, nature, etc. Suffice it to say, In Ghana and Nigeria, in the 70s, there was a whole generation of young men possessed with the spirit of James Brown.


Reggae, Afrobeat, Rap, Funk owe more this song than any other song. Outside of America those are four of the world's most influential genres. Walk down the streets of Paris, Jo'Burg, Dakar, or even Brooklyn and try to avoid the din of Peter Tosh songs blaring from the windows. There'd be no Peter Tosh with "Say it Loud." There'd be no Gil Scott-Heron, no Public Enemy, no Bob Marley, without this song. Hard for me to imagine what there would have been instead.

You can make a case for this, yet I think Otis Redding's Respect, as recorded by Aretha Franklin, is a close second, if not Say it Loud's equal, as a civil rights anthem.

BTW: Although the James Brown 2 CD, Soul Pride set of Instrumentals is out of print, I was able to find it on cassette tape yesterday. Used the CD version sells for about $79.00. The tapes were only $19.95. I am in the process of digitizing the 36 songs and will be putting them on CD within a couple of weeks.



I tend to agree with carlito. I am at that age where I was able to hear Count Basie (my favorite of the big bands), Duke Ellington, Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson.

I also like the Bar-Kays. Unfortunately, most of the original members went down in the same plane crash that took Otis redding.