Most of y'all probably have heard James Brown's greatest hits from the 1970s .. but on my radio show Midnight Soulstice, I did a special feature a couple of months ago, presenting the lesser known material, including productions for many of Brown's associated artists. Many of these tracks have never been reissued on CD before and are only available on original vinyl, so some of these will even surprise the James Brown buffs among you ...

Download this two-hour show here:

http://midnightsoulstice....mes-brown/

Playlist:

- Introduction of James Brown by Danny Ray

- James Brown - Honky Tonk P. 1 (Polydor)

- James Brown - I got ants in my pants P. 1 (Polydor)

- James Brown - The Payback P. 1 (Polydor)

- James Brown - Down and out in New York City (Polydor)

- James Brown - Slaughter Theme (Polydor)

- James Brown - Think (Polydor)

- James Brown - Your love was good for me (Polydor)

- James Brown - Don’t tell a lie about me and I won’t tell the truth about you (Polydor)

- Maceo & The Macks - Cross the Track (Polydor)

- Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s - Watermelon Man (People)

- Lee Austin - Tutti Frutti (Polydor)

- Vicki Anderson - Don’t throw your love in the garbage can (Brownstone)

- The Believers - Across the Track (Brownstone)

- Lyn Collins - You can’t love me if you don’t respect me (People)

- Shirley Jean & The Relations - If I had a man like you (People)

- The Flames - My lonely hour (People)

- Gloria Walker - My precious love (People)

- Bobby Byrd - If you got a love you better (Hold on to it) (Brownstone)

- The Devils - The X-Sorcist (People)

- The Insiders - Lonely Teardrops (People)

- The Last Word - Keep on bumpin’ before you give out of gas (Polydor)

- The J.B.’s - Music for the People (People)

- Johnny Scotton - You don’t wanna do nothing do you (People)

- Hank Ballard and the Midnight Lighters - Finger Poppin’ Time (Polydor)

- Sweet Charles Sherrell - Hang out and hustle (People)

- Sweet Charles Sherrell - Why can’t I be treated like a man (People)

- Maceo - Drowning in the sea of love (People)

- The J.B.’s - Everybody plays the Fool (People)

- James Brown - Dooley’s Junkyard Dogs (Polydor)

- James Brown - Eyesight (Polydor)

- James Brown and introducing the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Gospel Energies - God has smiled on me (Royal King Records)

- James Brown - People get up and drive your funky Soul (Polydor)

All that's missing is Fred & the JBs doing "Love & Happiness". I still haven't heard that; it seems impossible to track down a promo of the album with that on it.

Mong said:

I think you're referring to the J.B.'s release Damn Right I'm Somebody (Love and Happiness - A Tribute to Disc Jockeys & Radio Stations
This one was released as a promo 45 on Polydor in '74. It's really not a vocal version of Al Green's Love and Happiness, because it just has JB, Lyn Collins, Maceo, Fred, Danny Ray and other band members giving shout-outs to radio DJs across the country ... It's a non-album track to my knowledge.

Fred Wesley did a solo album on People in 1974 titled Watermelon Man, which has the song of the same name on it, but most of the other tracks on that album are Jazz tracks. I have a copy of it, but the album was never released. Only a few test pressings exist.

You wouldn't happen to have details of the catalogue number? I'll have to track this 45 down.
[Edited 4/2/10 8:39am]

Mong said:

I can check at home later .. it's a white label promo, I don't know if it has a number ..

What about this rare gem?





Originally on the People label as the b-side to Gimme Some More

I just checked ... there actually is an alternate promo copy of the J.B.'s album Damn Right I am Somebody that includes this song. It has the catalog number People PE 6602 and the full 7:35 minute version is the third song on side 1.

Here's an image of this promo:



Interestingly, the title of the promo album is Exorcist - Damn Right I am Somebody. That's an obvious attempt to cash in on the movie The Exorcist, which was hip that year. I assume that the song The X-Sorcist by The Devils (a moniker for the J.B.'s) was also intended to be on that same album, but was only released as a 45 on people (with a cover version of Booker T.'s Hip-Hug Her on the flipside.) I played that 45 on the show.

I'll have to do some research on that ... I'm in touch with Fred, so I'll give him a call and see if he can shed some light on this promo release (although I won't keep my hopes up, he barely remembered the tune The X-Sorcist when I asked him about it some years ago ...

funkpill said:

It's a great track and I debated to play that tune on my show .. but we'll do another show later this year, focusing only on J.B.s material (we'll even play songs from the unreleased album These are the J.B.s), and I'll play it then.


... but it isn't rare. Gimme some more is one of the more common 45s on People. It's not hard to find.

True, but the b-side is seldom mention

Well, I never heard it being mention...

funkpill said:

It's definitely one of the lesser known tunes ..

Love it.....thanks.

Graycap23 said:

Shiiiiit

Cinnie said:

You took the words out of my mouth Cinnie.

Ya'll wait til ya'll hear, - James Brown - Don’t tell a lie about me and I won’t tell the truth about you.

Just sick... Lawd hav' mercy!

TD3 said:

My new sig.....

James left us one of the sickest catalogs ever, and Pari plays the best cuts

Cinnie said:

This show focused on JB's 1970s Sound.
I'll post the show focusing on the 1960s Sound this weekend.

MrSoulpower said:

This is I love the 70s stuff the most.

Cinnie said:

I LOVE the 1970s JB stuff ... but he was at his creative peak in the late 1960s. That shit was insane .. if you ever watched the footage from his show at the Olympia in Paris in '66 or '67, it will blow your mind. And the music he produced for other artists between '66 and '70 was simply amazing.

Like I said, I'll post the link this weekend.