#1) I was having dinner at Roscoe's in LA (on Pico) with Ricky Vincent, the author of the book "Funk" about ten years ago or so. My Dad and another friend of the family were there with us. We were having some ordinary pleasant dinnertime banter, and, as so very often does, the conversation turned to James. Ricky starts talking about the time he spent with James doing interviews while he was working on the book. Fascinating stuff. He told this story of hanging out with JB and some other heavy old-school cats in the studio one day,going into great detail about how funky the things James was saying were. Then he abruptly cut himself off mid-story, put down his fork, which in my mind I can still hear hitting the plate, and looked rather peculiarly from one to another of us at the table, as if to indicate we were about to be let in on some great industry secret, and deadpans: "Let me make one thing clear to each of you: It's ALL true. James REALLY IS Soul Brother #1." Maybe you had to be there, but it was a deeply profound moment.

#2) I used to work for a record company in the early 90s. There was a guy I used to work next to named Tom. Tom played guitar,and he used to tour/play with Black Flag although he was never an official member (this was the deal as best as I can remember it)...this one time Tom had an extra ticket to see P-Funk at the Hollywood Palladium in early '93. I really wanted to go but it was pouring rain really bad, and after working all day, I did not want to drive all the way to Hollywood, park, stand around in line outside in the pouring rain, so I passed on the opportunity - to my everlasting regret. Next day at work Tom tells me he and his girlfriend Cynthia had dinner with George before the show and I missed it! Motherfucker. Turns out that Tom knew George because Black Flag of all people apparently had opened up some Pfunk gigs for George in the early 80s. George was/is a huge punk fan. At any rate, this is about James not George. After we spent an entire Friday afternoon waxing James (we did this a lot in my department), Tom was the guy that absolutely insisted I purchase the "Funky People" compilations. So, the next day, I went out and purchased volume 2 of "Funky People", which had Lyn Collins "Think" on it, and a lots of other incredible stuff. I spent that Sunday driving around LA listening to it - utterly spellbound, completely overwhelmed by the funk. The next day (Monday) I come into work and Tom is on the phone. Someone is talking a mile a minute on the other end, and he is patiently listening, so I just hand him the CD, and he quickly turns it over to read the track listings. Without waiting for his phone call to end, he puts his hand over the mouthpiece, and semi-whispers to me "This is all great stuff, but you really need to track down all of the original LPs this stuff is on. True, this is a great compilation, but if you look closely you will notice that the cuts are mostly four to five minutes in length. And that's really great and will suffice for most people. But as for me, after four or five minutes of James, I am only getting warm and I am then ready to go ANOTHER four or five minutes, and on the original LPs, thankfully, James understands my needs in this area and is there for me." Then he dove back into his telephone conversation. I have no idea where Tom is at today, but I do now own about ten or eleven original James Brown LPs, and Tom was absolutely right. When I need eight, nine, ten minutes, or even fourteen minutes of James as opposed to 4 or 5, James IS there for me on the LPs. Again, maybe you had to be there, but I will remember this conversation forever.

See sticky http://www.prince.org/msg/8/212379