Hi,

Yours Truelly was 2 foot away from James Brown at the weekend. He was palying at a festival i was at, i was in the front row, the cat can still groove at such an old age. I always knew Prince was a big fan of James Brown, but after seeing him live, i could see a strong strong influence in prince's music from james brown. Everything from the music he was playing to his dancing.

Before James Brown came on, the crowd were getting into the groove by a DJ playing funky tunes, he played Sly Stone, Ohio Players, stevie wonder and of course.....Prince, the crowd went crazy when he played Raspberry Berret!

Then throughout the concert, James and the band were having a long jam, and he was asking the lead guitarist to play like B.B king, then he said Play it like prince....and he burst into a funky solo.....it was amazin!

james brown is a force of nature.

James Brown is THE godfather of FUNK ...
followed closely by George and Sly

I always wondered why Prince has never done anything with James Brown. Besides that time he got on stage with James and Michael Jackson he has never done anything with James.
I always thought that someday James would be in Larry Graham's seat right now, so to speak.

Anxiety said:

Daywalker77 said:

i think james is too headstrong and crazy for prince to hang around with. just a guess...

AND STILL!!!!

SOUL BROTHA' #1!!!

Anxiety said:

So true

Anxiety said:

..and an inspiration to us all.

All hail to Mr. Dynamite!

UndercovaBrotha said:

A guy who beat the shit out of a woman with a lead pipe is an inspiration to us all? Not to me.

JB will never lose it. I caught him on UK TV on the Jonathon Ross show the other week. Still awesome. I hope Prince will be as good in his seventies. i suspect he will be.

Daywalker77 said:

Prince did do something with James Brown..... well, sort of.

He remixed the Aretha Franklin & James Brown 12" version of "Gimme Your Love" in 1989.

Although he is not credited on the sleeve the remix is titled "The Purple Mix Pts 1 & 2" and when the mix hits part 2 you KNOW it's Prince! At one stage he uses the guitar effect he used on the Alphabet St.(This Is Not Music) mix. Sounds like a vocal being run through guitar fx pedals and distortion.

Cool 12" and should be easy to find in most 2nd hand Wrecka Stows.

Anxiety said:

headstrong? probly
crazy? well now he is

PurpleKnight said:

I agree to this comment.

JB is IS! 2me he is the KING of live performances. And Prince is representing that role now and doin it 2 the fullest.Elvis better b glad that he was never on the same ticket as JB.
[Edited 7/15/05 9:45am]

spx said:

A. I think that's a gross exaggeration of what he did B.He served his time for it C. His accomplishments as an artist, a humanitarian and a community leader far outway this and D. The list of great artists who are assholes or who have done assholish things in their personal life is a mile long and certainly includes his purple majesty; in fact it probably includes just about everybody except maybe Stevie Wonder . One has to seperate art from the artist to a certain extent, very few people are as outstanding human beings as they are artists

PurpleKnight said:

i'm not calling him an inspiration.

but he IS a force of nature. like a tornado or an earthquake. sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it really sucks.

Anxiety said:

That much I can agree with.

jacktheimprovident said:

That is a great point; one that most people do not want to see. Frank Sinatra was not the nicest of guys, but it took me years to admit that yes, he was talented. Prince was not a prince of a guy, but damn, he has talent leaking out of his pores.

Art != artist.

We always want to deify those whose gifts we admire.

Moonwalkbjrain said:

"don't let me beat you with my good foot"

jacktheimprovident said:

well said but u know that negro is crazy !!!

jacktheimprovident said:

James Brown is like most human beings, he has his flaws like all of us. People kill me getting on their high horses when famous people do things that human beings do. No one is all good or all bad, we are just humans. I can appreciate Brown's talent, influence and artistry without delving into his character flaws. Everyone has those, I know I do .

lilgish said:

Wha?...c'mon cleggis c'mon! c'mon cleggis c'mon! C'MON!!!

Moonwalkbjrain said:

DorothyParkerWasCool said:

Umm, these aren't just basic character flaws we're talking about.

HE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF WOMEN!

Why must men be excused for doing the most heinous things as long as they can sing and dance really well?

You'd never see someone saying something like "Well he beat women, but he's just like all of us" if the man in question was a painter.

Oh, but it's an entertainer, so let's forgive him for the most repulsive things!

I mean, at least Prince seems to be trying to be a decent person now as a married man again, and he never did anything as bad as physical abuse like good ol' JB definitely has.

Seriously, ppl...

[Edited 7/16/05 20:04pm]

PurpleKnight said:

No One's saying James brown should be excused for what he did, but it doesn't nullify his accomplishments, any more than Michael Jackson's pedophilia (if it's true) nullifies his art. An artist can still deserve honor and respect for their accomplishments even if they are guilty of a criminal or immoral act. No one's saying those acts should go unpunished but to dimiss or condemn the artist or their body of work entirely is a mistake. For your information, John lennon was abusive, physically and emotionally, to many of his girlfriends and spouses, by his own admission as was Miles Davis (miles davis was also dismissive and arrogant to nearly every "normal" person he met), are you gonna say that John Lennon and Miles Davis aren't inspirations or great artists? Marvin Gaye cheated on his wife and had an illegimate child with a 15 year old girl, is that going to prevent you from appreciating What's Going On for the masterpiece it is. Picasso was an inveterate womanizer and sleazebag, Mozart was rude, obnoxious and a compulsive gambler. Chuck Berry was a huge pervert who was arrested for transporting an underaged prostitute across state lines in the trunk of his car. and Prince? from what I've heard he's one of the worst womanizers of his generation, and I think I've heard that he's gotten physical with women too. I could go on and on. Great artists are actually quite rarely as good at being upstanding citizens as they are at their art

jacktheimprovident said:

Oh and James brown did more than just sing and dance, he's easily one of the most influential and important artists of the last 50 years. The man helped define soul music, nearly single-handedly invented funk and was the catalyst for disco, hip-hop and nearly every beat driven form of music invented since.

jacktheimprovident said:

I know all that. I'm merely responding to specific comments which were phrased apologetically in JB's favour for what he did to those women.

If I am not wrong JB is not a musician. He is a great performer but not a musician. He was at the rigth place at the rigth time with the good people around him (Maceo...). I would not consder him a genius. If it was not him, it would have been someone else I guess.

spx said:

Not quite. James Brown was a musician, though certainly not a one-man band type like Prince or Stevie ro Sly. He did play drums on many of his early recordings and is considered a fairly accomplished organ/keyboard player. And he certainly was the one who developed the funk groove, in his search for the ultimate groove to compliment his dance moves. Many of his songs/grooves were co-written with his bandmates, but he was still the main formulator. Often he would grunt out the sounds of the different instruments' parts to his band and have them play it, and the bandmembers would often add riffs on top of that.