One : The Life and Music of James Brown (9781101561102) (57 page)

Brown builds a staff at King: Charles Spurling, Leeds, Patton interviews; Jim Deak interview.

Bud Hobgood: David Matthews, Patton, Spurling interviews.

The El Dorados: Leeds, Patton interviews.

Kansas City riot: “Sexy Dance Triggers Wild Riot,”
Philadelphia Tribune
, Oct. 1, 1966; “James Brown Dance Broken Up as 8,000 Riot,”
Jet
, Dec. 8, 1966.

Rockefeller, Javits and Hampton visit the Apollo: Theatricals Column, “Campaign Sidelights,”
New York Amsterdam News
, Nov. 12, 1966; Brown interview, Tucker files.

Chapter Twelve:
GHOST NOTES

John “Jabo” Starks: Payne,
Give the Drummers Some!
; Ken Micallef, “Stubblefield & Starks: The Funkiest Men Alive,”
Modern Drummer
, September 1999; “Funk Equation = Starks + Stubblefield no. 2,”
Wax Poetics
5, Summer 2003; “Red Bar Drummer Plays With the Best of Them,”
Walton Sun
, Sept. 3, 2009; Susan Kepecs, “Cue Up the Funk,”
Isthmus
, July 13, 2007;
Soul of the Funky Drummers
DVD (Rittor Music, 2004).

“
Mardi Gras started in Mobile. I used to watch the marching band.” Starks,
Wax Poetics
, Summer 2003.

“In the holiness churches they didn’t have sets of drums.” Payne,
Give the Drummers Some!

The shuffle and what followed: Alexander Stewart, “‘Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown and the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music,”
Popular Music
, vol. 19, no. 3 (October 2000); Home of the Groove blog, May 10, 2007 (“Funky to a Fault”); Geoff Brown, “Slave to the Rhythm: Earl Palmer Invented Rock Drumming,”
Independent
, London, June 18, 1999; John Broven, “Charles ‘Hungry’ Williams – An Appreciation,”
Juke Blues
7, Winter 1986-87.

Clyde Stubblefield: Payne,
Give the Drummers Some!
; “Funkiest Men Alive,”
Modern Drummer
, Sept. 1999; “Funky Drummer is Home to Stay,”
Wisconsin State Journal
, April 16, 1995; “Funk Equation = Stubblefield + Starks,”
Wax Poetics
4, Spring 2003; Ben Sisario interviews Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson, Crimes Against Music blog, charmi
carmicat.blogspot.com/2011/03/questlove-on-clyde-stubblefield.html
, March 29, 2011.

“Cold Sweat” and the story of its making: Aaron Cohen, “James Brown’s Musicians Reflect on His Legacy,”
Down Beat
, February 15, 2007; Stanton Moore interview.

The second Apollo recording:
Live at the Apollo Volume Two
, CD and liner notes (Polydor, 2001); Leeds, Stubblefield interviews.

“There Was a Time”:
Down Beat
, Feb. 15, 2007. For an amazing breakdown of this piece of music, see Manthia Diawara’s “The 1960s in Bamako: Malick Sidibe and James Brown,” in
Black Cultural Traffic: Crossroads in Global Performance and Popular Culture
, ed. Harry J. Elam Jr., and Kennall Jackson (University of Michigan Press, 2005). Along with work by Mura Dehn, it is the best writing anybody has done on Brown.

“I used to just try to play and keep my rhythm going as much like a drum as I possibly could.” Lee Hildebrand and Henry Kaiser, “Jimmy Nolen: A Rare Interview with James Brown’s Longtime Sideman,”
Guitar Player
, April 1984.

“Combine the applejack, the dolo, which is a slide, almost like the skate, and the scallyhop.” Scott Cohen,
Yakety Yak: Midnight Confessions and Revelations of 37 Rock Stars and Legends
(Fireside, 1994).

“Have you ever been embarrassed because of prejudice?”
Philadelphia Tribune
, April 26, 1966.

“In 12
hours after leaving the US for Europe, I became a man,” “Treated Like a Man in Europe,”
Jet
, Oct. 19, 1967.

Donald Warden: Sullivan,
The Hardest Working Man
; Donna Jean Murch,
Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California
(University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Thomas Barry, “The Importance of Being Mr. James Brown,”
Look
, Feb. 18, 1969;
The New York Times
, May 21, 1963; interview with Al-Mansour.

Brown and radio: Wolfman Jack with Byron Laursen,
Have Mercy!: Confessions of the Original Rock ’n’ Roll Animal
(Warner Books, 1995);
Los Angeles Sentinel
, Oct. 6, 1966; Clay Smith interview.

“His mother died when he was four years old.” “James Brown Stands Alone,”
New York Amsterdam News
, May 20, 1967.

Playing sick, rumors of retirement: “People Are Talking About…,”
Jet
, Aug. 11, 1966; “James Brown’s ‘Retirement,’”
Jet
, March 30, 1966. For Sarah Bernhardt’s coffin on wheels, see Bernhardt,
My Double Life
(State University of New York Press, 1999).

“How on earth am I going to sell this to redneck distributors in the South?” Glover interview, Country Music Hall of Fame.

Chapter Thirteen:
AMERICA

Life on the road: Alan Leeds, “James Brown and His First Family of Soul,”
Wax Poetics,
February–March 2007; Leeds, Rasbury, Patton, Alaimo interviews.

“Somebody that’s thin, they can only be my sister.” Brown interview, Tucker files.

Charles Bobbit: Leeds, Patton, Daviss, Sharpton, Roach interviews; Tim Drummond interview with Bruce Tucker, Tucker files.

“I am afraid of what lies ahead of us. We could end up with a full-scale race war in this country.” David J. Garrow,
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(William Morrow & Co., 1986).

The concert at Boston Garden: David Leaf and Morgan Neville,
The Night James Brown Saved Boston
DVD (Shout! Factory, 2009); Sullivan,
The Hardest Working Man
; J. Anthony Lukas,
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
(Knopf, 1985); the clip of Brown performing “I Can’t Stand It,” often viewable on YouTube, alone is
worth a book. And, during all of this life-changing intensity, another moment: With politics and lives on the line, Brown hears something he doesn’t like, thinks, smiles to himself, and signals to drummer Clyde Stubblefield that he’s gonna owe a fine. The coolest head in the house.

Washington, D.C., riots: “National Dateline,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, June 22, 1968; “The Wreckage of a Dream,”
Washington Post
, Aug. 24, 2004.

America is My Home:
James Brown, The Singles Volume Five: 1967-1969
(Hip-O Select, 2008).

Brown’s desire to play Vietnam: memos and letters written by Ofield Dukes, folders marked by month and year, in Hubert Humphrey papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; “‘Want to Take Soul to Vietnam,’ Says James Brown,”
Jet
, Nov. 30, 1967; “So This is Washington,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, Dec. 16, 1967; “James Brown Tunes Up For Vietnam,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, May 16, 1968; “Lack of Negroes in USO Shows Hit,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 25, 1968; “Despite Criticism, State Department Road Blocks, Brown Set to Go,”
Jet
, June 6, 1968; Ofield Dukes interview.

“I’ve been trying to get to Vietnam for the past 18 months.”
Jet
, Nov. 30, 1967.

“With a throbbing beat that is primitive and somewhat savage.” Press release, James Brown Clipping File, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center.

Antiwar pressure on black entertainers: “Dr. King’s Views Keeping Negro Entertainers Out of Vietnam?”
Soul
, Nov. 13, 1967; “Charge Negro Entertainers Won’t Go to Vietnam,”
Soul
, Oct. 26, 1967.

“Our black entertainers have been attacked in the white press.”
Jet
, June 6, 1968.

Brown in Vietnam: James Maycock, “Death or Glory: James Brown in Vietnam,”
Mojo
, July 2003; “James Brown Entertains the Troops,”
Ebony,
August 1968; Michael C. McDonald, “James Brown Comes Home for his First Farewell,”
Village Voice
, June 27, 1968; “James Brown Runs Into U.S. Bias on Vietnam Tour,”
Jet
, July 4, 1968;
The Night James Brown Saved Boston
; Marva Whitney, interview with DJ Pari (
www.wefunkradio.com/extra/marva
); Danny Ray, Stubblefield interviews; Drummond interview, Tucker files.

“We didn’t do like Bob Hope. We went back there where the lizards wore guns!” “James Brown, the Sultan of Sweat and Soul,”
Washington Post
, Dec. 7, 2003.

“A
lot of blacks thought they didn’t have a real reason to go there because they wasn’t getting their rights here.” Christian G. Appy,
Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides
(Viking, 2003).

Chapter Fourteen:
HOW YOU GONNA GET RESPECT?

“I am a soul brother.”
Washington Afro-American
, May 7, 1968.

Humphrey’s courting of African Americans in his 1968 campaign: “Humphrey Visits Cleveland Bearing Gifts for Ghetto,”
Cleveland Call and Post
, July 6, 1968; an editorial in the
Chicago Defender
, May 18, 1968, noted approvingly how Humphrey had attacked prejudice in a recent address in Chicago;
Jet
, May 30, 1968, pointed out that Humphrey was the first candidate to visit Resurrection City in D.C., a community erected on the Mall by the Poor People’s Campaign, Martin Luther King’s final project; the vice president’s 1968 trip to Africa, accompanied by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, was widely covered in the black press.

Robert Kennedy as the “blue eyed soul brother”: Thurston Clarke,
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America
(Henry Holt & Co., 2008); in her political column, syndicated in the African American press, Ethel Payne praised Kennedy for receiving the endorsement of Rosey Grier and Rafer Johnson, two prominent black athletes.

Brown at Yankee Stadium:
Village Voice
, June 27, 1968.

“What about our negro entertainers?” July 16, 1968, memo from Humphrey. Box two, folder titled “Vice President Hubert Humphrey; Presidential Campaign, July 1968.” Ofield Dukes Papers, Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

The deal to keep the peace in Watts: Ofield Dukes interviews. Baraka disputes Dukes’s account, calling it “Mother Goose tales” that “have no validity.” Complicating the picture is a memo dated Jan. 8, 1969, from Dukes to Humphrey. It’s an evaluation of Humphrey’s unsuccessful campaign, in which Dukes tells him: “It is also inconceivable to me that we should start thinking in terms of ‘black political sinners,’ when in your campaign we had lots of ‘bad guys’ ‘risky, unpredictable people,’ according to white standards, ‘doing their thing’ for your election…black militant Ron Karenga, who made certain your visits to Newark, Harlem and Watts were not disrupted. Even Leroi Jones cooperated.” (Jones had changed his name to Baraka in 1967; folder “Hubert Humphrey; corres., Dec. 1968-Jan. 1969,” in Dukes papers, Wayne State University).

Humphrey booed in Watts: “Humphrey in ‘Hoot Out’,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, Aug. 1, 1968.

Brown endorses Humphrey: memo from Dukes to Humphrey, dated July 24, 1968, Folder “Dukes. By date: July 1968,” Humphrey papers; “Singer James Brown Endorses HHH,”
Washington Post
, July 30, 1968; “Humphrey Joins in but Rock Singer Steals the Show,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 30, 1968; “‘Soul Brother No. 1’ in Watts,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, Aug. 1, 1968; “HHH Bares His Soul in Watts,”
Jet
, August 15, 1968.

“James Brown will be black power.” Carmichael interview in
Baltimore Afro American
, May 11, 1968.

“America is My Home”: Jordan Kessler, “The Political Impact of James Brown, 1967-1972,” unpublished paper; “James Brown Waxes Tune Aimed at Uniting Blacks, Whites,”
Jet
, May 23, 1968;
Muhammad Speaks
, July 19, 1968; Byrd interview, AAAMC; Byrd interview, Tucker files.

“We hope this record, if handled right, will provide a public service.”
Jet
, May 23, 1968.

“Everybody got on us about [the song].” Byrd interview, AAAMC.

“Roy Wilkins of the music world.”
Look
, Feb. 18, 1969.

“What record could possibly follow ‘America’?”
Muhammad Speaks
, July 19, 1968.

“You got a white man playing with you, a black man needs a job.” Drummond interview, Tucker files.

Brown and the cultural conflict over hair style: Bobbit interview in
The Night James Brown Saved Boston
; Leeds interview. Also see a series of columns Brown wrote for
Soul
magazine in this era, in which he passionately and suddenly champions the Afro.

“If James Brown is so soulful why does he still wear that konk in his hair?”
Baltimore Afro American
, May 25, 1968.

Fake bomb left outside hotel door: Brown and Tucker,
Godfather of Soul
; Patton interview.

“The Black Panthers were putting the heat on us.” Panel discussion with Bobbit, David Leaf, and others in Boston, March 31, 2008.

“Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud”:
James Brown, The Singles Volume Five: 1967-1969
(Hip-O Select, 2008);
The Night James Brown Saved Boston;
Wesley interview, Red Bull Music Academy posted at
redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/1402/
; Matt Rowland, “For Sweet People From Sweet Charles,”
Wax Poetics
5, Summer 2003; C. L. Franklin Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; two full-page ads,
Los Angeles Sentinel
, Aug. 29, 1968; “California, Here I Come?,”
Cleveland Call & Post
, Oct. 5, 1968; “Black Deejay Quits Station In Fuss Over Record,”
Jet
, Oct. 25, 1968;
Jet
, Oct. 31, 1968; “Singer Explains ‘White and Proud’ Song,”
Baltimore Afro American
Dec. 20, 1975; “Say it Loud: Black Anthem Turns 40,”
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
, Aug. 10, 2008; Wesley, Patton interview.