{"id":176441230,"date":"2014-08-03T00:42:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T05:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176441230"},"modified":"2014-08-03T00:42:20","modified_gmt":"2014-08-03T05:42:20","slug":"video-james-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2014\/08\/03\/video-james-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: James Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-03.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-176441232\" alt=\"james brown 03\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-03-1024x681.jpg\" width=\"553\" height=\"368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-03-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-03-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-03-920x612.jpg 920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\"><strong>JAMES BROWN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: large;\"><strong>(May 3, 1933 \u2013 December 25, 2006)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-01.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-176441231\" alt=\"james brown 01\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-01.jpg\" width=\"367\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-01.jpg 367w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-01-220x300.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 367px) 100vw, 367px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"922\" height=\"519\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uZhyUtYzr1I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: large;\"><strong>__________________________<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/new-yorker1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-176440929\" alt=\"new yorker\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/new-yorker1.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/new-yorker1.jpg 658w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/new-yorker1-300x64.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<header id=\"page-header\"><time itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"20140730\"><\/time><time itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"20140730\">JULY 30, 2014<\/time>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\"><strong>The Possessed:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hgroup>\n<h1 itemprop=\"name headline\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\"><strong>James Brown in Eighteen\u00a0Minutes<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hgroup>\n<h1 itemprop=\"name headline\"><\/h1>\n<h3><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>BY\u00a0<a itemprop=\"author\" title=\"David Remnick\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/contributors\/david-remnick\" rel=\"author\">DAVID REMNICK<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/hgroup>\n<div id=\"attachment_176441233\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-04.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176441233\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-176441233\" alt=\"James Brown performs onstage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, in Santa Monica, California, as part of T.A.M.I. (Teenage Awards Music International), in October, 1964.CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES\/GETTY.\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-04.jpg\" width=\"690\" height=\"842\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-04.jpg 690w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/james-brown-04-245x300.jpg 245w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176441233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: small;\"><strong>James Brown performs onstage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, in Santa Monica, California, as part of T.A.M.I. (Teenage Awards Music International), in October, 1964.CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES\/GETTY.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<div id=\"articleBody\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u201cGet On Up\u201d is the second-best film ever made about James Brown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">This is not a trifling achievement. For at least the first hour of an overlong bio-pic, it\u2019s fun to see Chadwick Boseman, who recently played Jackie Robinson, in \u201c42,\u201d inhabit the Godfather of Soul\u2019s ineffable soul. It\u2019s fun to watch Boseman in the same way that it was to see Jamie Foxx do Ray Charles, Joaquin Phoenix do Johnny Cash, Cate Blanchett do Bob Dylan, Sissy Spacek do Loretta Lynn, Forest Whitaker do Charlie Parker, and Jimmy Stewart do Glenn Miller.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">These are good impersonations, even good performances, but what puts them in the shade is the real thing. And when it comes to James Brown, the real thing, in its most thrilling, compressed, erotic, explosive form, just eighteen minutes long, is also arguably the most electrifying performance in the history of postwar American music.\u00a0First, watch:<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5_jqhXNF98A?feature=oembed\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">This was fifty years ago, in October, 1964, a few months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Emceed\u2014adorably, cornily\u2014by the rock-and-roll duo Jan and Dean at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, the T.A.M.I. show (the Teenage Awards Music International) was a departure from the \u201cShindig\u201d-style pop programming of the time. The lineup was long and included white acts like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, and, as headliners, the Rolling Stones, but it was heavily weighted with black acts of all sorts: Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and James Brown and the Famous Flames.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">The Stones had come to the States from England determined to play black R. &amp; B. for a mainly white audience that did not know its Son House\u00a0from its Howlin\u2019 Wolf. They were already stars, and the T.A.M.I. producers had them scheduled to close the show. James Brown did not approve. \u201cNobody follows James Brown!\u201d he kept telling the show\u2019s director, Steve Binder. Mick Jagger himself was hesitant. He and Keith Richards were boys from Kent with an unusual obsession with American blues. They knew what Brown could do. In Santa Monica, they\u00a0watched him from the wings, just twenty feet away, and, as they did, they grew sick with anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Brown, who had played the Chitlin Circuit for years, was genuinely incensed that the producers would put him on before pallid amateurs (in his mind) like the Stones. His performance, he later admitted, was a cutting contest that he refused to lose. As Brown puts it in his memoir, \u201cJames Brown: The Godfather of Soul,\u201d \u201cWe did a bunch of songs, nonstop, like always. . . . I don\u2019t think I ever danced so hard in my life, and I don\u2019t think they\u2019d ever seen a man move that fast.\u201d It was a four-song set: the staccato blues number \u201cOut of Sight\u201d; an\u00a0astonishing inside-out revival of \u201cPrisoner of Love,\u201d which had been recorded by smoothies like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VWuGF-Xh-RM\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Billy Eckstine<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lbNPg_Rp0ws\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Perry Como<\/span><\/a>; the dramatic centerpiece \u201cPlease, Please, Please\u201d; and the closer, \u201cNight Train,\u201d which the boxer Sonny Liston would play to get himself going in the gym.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">What is there to say? If Astaire\u2019s dancing was the graceful line of black-tie seduction, Brown\u2019s was a paroxysm of sexual frenzy, a blend of Pentecostal possession and erotic release. RJ Smith\u2019s \u201cThe One\u201d is the book to read on James Brown. (The Profile to read is Philip Gourevitch\u2019s brilliant\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2002\/07\/29\/mr-brown\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cMr. Brown,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in 2002, four years before Brown\u2019s death. Two veteran critics,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/21\/arts\/music\/21TAMI.html?pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alan Light<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/usatoday30.usatoday.com\/life\/music\/news\/2010-03-18-TAMI18_CV_N.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Edna Gundersen<\/span><\/a>, have written interesting pieces on the T.A.M.I. performance.) Smith quotes Brown as saying that the T.A.M.I. performance was the \u201chighest energy\u201d moment of his career: \u201cI danced so hard my manager cried. But I really had to. What I was up against was pop artists\u2014I was R. &amp; B. I had to show \u2019em the difference, and believe me, it was hard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">This was the first time that Brown, while singing \u201cPlease, Please, Please,\u201d pulled out his \u201ccape act,\u201d in which, in the midst of his own self-induced hysteria, his fit of longing and desire, he drops to his knees, seemingly unable to go on any longer, at the point of collapse, or worse. His backup singers, the Flames, move near, tenderly, as if to revive him, and an offstage aide, Danny Ray, comes on, draping a cape over the great man\u2019s shoulders. Over and over again, Brown recovers, throws off the cape, defies his near-death collapse, goes back into the song, back into the dance, this absolute abandonment to passion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u201cIt\u2019s a Holiness feeling\u2014like a Baptist thing,\u201d Brown said of the act. \u201cIt\u2019s a spiritual-background thing. You\u2019re involved and you don\u2019t want to quit. That\u2019s the definition of soul, you know. Being involved and they try to stop you and you just don\u2019t want to stop. The idea of changing capes came later, \u2019cause it\u2019s good for show business.\u201d As Smith writes,<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">That falling-to-the-knees-overcome-with-emotion dramaturgy is straight out of the Holiness Church, out of a belief system holding, in the charnel heat of the moment, that a person could be overpowered by a sudden tap from the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost jumpers were what they called those filled with the spirit in the earliest days of Pentecostalism. It was a form of possession, of yielding with glory to a higher force. Many figures in the black Pentecostal tradition wore the cape. There was King Louis Narcisse, a preacher who modeled himself on Daddy Grace. . . . There was Brother Joe May, one of the major gospel voices of the \u201950s and \u201960s . . .<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Watching the film, it\u2019s easy to see why Jagger was tempted to stay in his dressing room. This was 1964, and the Stones were not yet fully formed. They still played a mix of originals and covers (Berry\u2019s \u201cAround and Around,\u201d Bobby Womack\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s All Over Now\u201d). Jagger had not quite worked out his peculiar blend of frugging and Satanic posturing. He is hardly Perry Como, but, compared with Brown, he is an anemic thing, a pretender. Nelson George, a sharp writer on race and music and much else, calls out Jagger at the T.A.M.I. show for his \u201clame funky chicken,\u201d in contrast to Brown\u2019s \u201cproto-moon-walking, athletically daring performance.\u201d Taking the stage after Brown, the Stones are Unitarians making nice:<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ThT7csEZLio?feature=oembed\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Richards would eventually say that the very idea of following James Brown was the biggest mistake of the\u00a0Stones\u2019\u00a0careers. \u201cJust go out there and do your best,\u201d Marvin Gaye had told Jagger. And he did. Jagger was never anything but admiring and respectful of James Brown\u2014and he is one of the producers of \u201cGet On Up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">By all means, see the bio-pic. If nothing else, you\u2019ll glimpse a movie star in Chadwick Boseman and at least the suggestion of an immortal. You\u2019ll see that Brown was an abused and abusive man, as well as a source of radiance onstage. But start with T.A.M.I. (and listen to the \u201cLive at the Apollo\u201d recordings, too). An outfit called Shout! Factory issued a good cleaned-up DVD of the complete T.A.M.I. concert four years ago, and, to hype it, Steve Van Zandt rightly called it \u201cthe best rock movie you\u2019ve never seen.\u201d But the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5_jqhXNF98A\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">somewhat grainy eighteen minutes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on YouTube will do you just fine. You\u2019ll feel good. You\u2019ll feel nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">+++++++++++++++++++++<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<section><\/section>\n<section itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\">\n<article>\n<figure><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><a itemprop=\"image\" title=\"David Remnick\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/contributors\/david-remnick\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"remnick\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/remnick.png\" width=\"115\" height=\"115\" \/><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/figure>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">David Remnick has been editor of\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0since 1998 and a staff writer since 1992.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;via:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/possessed-james-brown-eighteen-minutes?utm_source=tny&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=dailyemail&amp;mbid=nl_Daily%20(228)&amp;spMailingID=6834938&amp;spUserID=NjQyOTc2MTkzNjES1&amp;spJobID=483174207&amp;spReportId=NDgzMTc0MjA3S0\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/possessed-james-brown-eighteen-minutes?utm_source=tny&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=dailyemail&amp;mbid=nl_Daily%20(228)&amp;spMailingID=6834938&amp;spUserID=NjQyOTc2MTkzNjES1&amp;spJobID=483174207&amp;spReportId=NDgzMTc0MjA3S0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; JAMES BROWN (May 3, 1933 \u2013 December 25, 2006) __________________________ JULY 30, 2014&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Possessed: James Brown in Eighteen\u00a0Minutes &nbsp; BY\u00a0DAVID REMNICK \u201cGet On Up\u201d is the second-best film ever made about James Brown. This is not a trifling achievement. For at least the first hour of an overlong [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176441230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176441230"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176441230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176441245,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176441230\/revisions\/176441245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176441230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176441230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176441230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}