Here are some clips of James Brown hosting his own show Future Shock.
I know only a few of us remember this show.

i own the whole series..at least whats out there..

prettymansson said:

Only three episodes right? So was this like a Soul Train where he had guest perform or more like the Jacksons Variety series with JB doing skits, yikes.

I believe it was 4 episodes..
its closest to soul train..he had guest..but not really performing..he had like politicians..radio djs..and dance contest..and him doing a little talking here and there and singing a bit with a backing track.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

[Edited 11/27/07 1:22am]

wow is this some 70s goodness or what?

thx, I had no idea the godfather had a Soultrain

JB had his own Soultrain alright. Man, the sets and format are shameless copycatting.

And so is that song he performed, Hot (I Need to be Loved, Loved, Loved). I checked the dates. David Bowie released Fame in '75 and JB released Hot in '76.

How Brown was never sued for this I have no idea unless Bowie gave him a pass just because he was James Brown.

The vid from back in the day of platrform shoes and big 'fros brought a s mile to my face though. It was cool to see the dance contest of everyone doing the Which-a-Way.

Anyhoo, that song got me diggin' and here's what I found-


There's a fascinating exposition on the genesis of that tune over on wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...owie_song)

with more in depth info at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...los_Alomar

The first version of the FAME(D) signature guitar riff was originally employed by Bowie's Diamond Dog band guitarist, Carlos Alomar a year earlier on a song called Footstompin' which you can see performed live here:

http://visualguidanceltd....ompin.html

What's interesting is that before Alomar ever played with Bowie he was a member of James Brown's band in '68 & '69 so the speculative controversy is all very incestuous to say the least.

If Alomar ever played that riff in Brown's band and the contract with Brown said the Godfather would get composition credit even for passages contributed by band members, then maybe JB did have some claim to it.

Interesting stuff...

damn, how broke or how high was brotha brown during this time to agree to this? it's cool but it just doesn't represent his strengths at all...

DakutiusMaximus said:

Y'know I thought the same thing when I heard Fame sampled and him singing over it. I've got to get into those links, thanks for posting them.

Maybe that's why he took credit for rap music but really wasn't vocal about people sampling his music, which was done to death.

I just like his 70's mustache...

I remember long discussions about this back in the day and hearing statements to the effect that Bowie's track sounded too much like JB so it must be a rip on Bowie's part. What's interesting is that a lot of groups back in the day sampled each other, maybe thats why there was a tougher copyright law enacted in the late 70's. Fred Wesley, JB's trombonist, had wrote that before he left the group, one of his complaints was that JB was starting to copy people that were copying him. There were countless groups that were taking bits and pieces from JBs sound back in the day. Some of the sitcoms and gameshow theme music openings are rips from him. He probably got tired of it and decided to take some back. The JBs took The Express from BT Express and made JBs Monurail. They took Keep on Doing from the Isley Brothers and made it into The Grunt. The guitar line made famous in Give it Up or Turn it Loose got snatched by the BlackByrds. Still going on today...