Send "James Brown " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 It's True: Everybody Wants Some SpankListening to James Brown sing disco songs is an odd experience, sort of like watching a giant grizzly bear walk around in a tuxedo. The grizzly wears the tux well, but you can’t help noticing he seems a little hamstrung, like he’d rather burst free and start doing grizzly bear things – like catch some salmon or maul documentarians. Now, add to this mental image the knowledge that our hypothetical grizzly bear actually invented the tuxedo, or at least the materials and processes that led to its creation, and is shackled by the very ideas he set in motion 15 years earlier! If James Brown’s 1979 album The Original Disco Man wasn’t exactly Greek tragedy, that’s only because Brown sang it with the same immediacy and humour he gave his funk classics. And anyway, disco wasn’t the end of his story. As you’ve probably gathered, it’s hard to capture the James Brown Life Force in a metaphor, though producer Brad Shapiro certainly tried. Probably best known in ‘79 for his work with soul singer and monologist Millie Jackson, Shapiro produced and arranged two James Brown albums – Disco and 1980’s People – at the request of Brown’s label Polydor. On The Singles Volume 11: 1979-1981, you hear Shapiro trying to stuff Brown into various tuxedos, all of which should, theoretically, fit like custom tailor jobs. The Disco Tex-flavoured “Original Disco Man”, Southern soul “Women Are Something Else”, and countrypolitan “Regrets” all sound just fine for what they are: metaphorical James Brown singles. They exist to make points. The word funky couldn’t exist without Brown, and the soul and country numbers are suited to his musical roots. But as well as Brown sings these songs, and as tightly as Shapiro arranges them, they’re not James Brown music. In his cheerfully ambivalent liner notes, Alan Leeds succinctly explains the Shapiro period using Brown’s own words: “The current music climate demanded a watering down and I figured Brad was suitable to fill that role.” This two-disc collection isn’t completely watered down; far from it. There’s some jaw-dropping stuff on disc two, featuring a raft of 12-inch singles, although that term shouldn’t conjure any hopes of creatively remixed epics. In most cases, these 12-inches were simply album cuts re-released as one-sided promotional discs for DJs. “If You Don’t Give a Doggone About It” was actually shorter on its 12-inch than on its parent album. Even truncated, it’s a great jam – an assured meditation on the importance of keeping engaged, both in life and with your clavinet player. (That’s J.B.’s stalwart Charles Sherrell.) The highlight of the entire collection is the not-at-all-sexist 11-minute “For Goodness Sakes, Look at Those Cakes”, in which Brown outs himself – along with his bandmates, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder – as a cake man. Percussion, bass, guitar, and electric piano lock into a polyrhythmic formation that constantly shifts and reinvents itself, even as it lays out a bedrock for Brown’s drooling stream of cake-consciousness, like he’s some deranged Food Network personality....full text |
| Music-news |
| Hip-O Select have finally reached the end, the eleventh and final volume of their exhaustive series of releases chronicalling every single James Brown released between 1956 and 1981. That's a total of 22 CDs worth of hits, misses and b-sides from one of the greatest entertainers of the last sixty years. Disc 1 of Vol. 11 features 19 tracks from Brown at the end of his Polydor tenure and includes all of the 7-inch singles issued by Brown on Polydor that followed 'It's Too Funky In Here,' his chart return from 1979. Among them are 'Let The Boogie Do The Rest,' a B-side that could have been a hit, while 'Regrets' is a country-flavored ballad that JB turns autobiographical. JB also released a fiery live album, Hot On The One, during this period, and stomping stage versions of 'Get Up Offa That Thing' and 'It's Too Funky' were issued as singles. Also included is 'I Go Crazy,' a cover of a previous hit that was only issued as a single in the U.K. Incredibly, with time left on his Polydor contract Brown was allowed to record an independent album for the TK label, and from that session came 'Rapp Payback,' a stinging performance that hit the international charts and is included here. Disc 2 of Vol. 11 features an additional nine songs: rare 12-inch singles from the man who created the extended jam, including long versions of 'Get Up Offa That Thing' and 'Rapp Payback.'...full text |
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