RhoDeo 1424 Grooves

Hello, as the Worldcup heats up, England is going home, they got routed by the Premiership player of the year who couldn't fire on all cylinders but it was enough to see England go down, the slim chance they had left was undone by Costa Rica that won their second game against the odds and is now the first to qualify from a group they were expected to trail, Italy and Uruguay can fight over the other place. In what probably is the weakest groupe France degraded Switzerland that nevertheless are likely to go on as the other 2 teams Ecuador and Honduras are weak. I mentioned it before the top half of the draw is occupied by much much stronger teams as the bottom half, an un fucking believable difference. Courtesy of FIFA the most corrupt organisation on the planet run by mafiosi in expensive suits, time to end its existence and let its voting members fry in the desert.


These weeks it's all about "Soul Brother Number One," "the Godfather of Soul," "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" -- those are mighty titles, but no one can question that today's artist earned them more than any other performer. Other singers were more popular, others were equally skilled, but few other African-American musicians were so influential over the course of popular music. And no other musician, pop or otherwise, put on a more exciting, exhilarating stage show: his performances were marvels of athletic stamina and split-second timing. He is ranked seventh on the music magazine Rolling Stone's list of its 100 greatest artists of all time. He's been very productive hence plenty to choose from, today 3 titles from his extensive live reportoire......N'joy

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Through the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals and the complex polyrhythms of his beats, Brown was a crucial midwife in not just one, but two revolutions in black American music. He was one of the figures most responsible for turning R&B into soul and he was, most would agree, the figure most responsible for turning soul music into the funk of the late '60s and early '70s. After the mid-'70s, he did little more than tread water artistically; his financial and drug problems eventually got him a controversial prison sentence. Yet in a sense, his music is now more influential than ever, as his voice and rhythms have been sampled on innumerable hip-hop recordings, and critics have belatedly hailed his innovations as among the most important in all of rock or soul.

Brown's rags-to-riches-to-rags story has heroic and tragic dimensions of mythic resonance. Born into poverty in the South, he ran afoul of the law by the late '40s on an armed robbery conviction. With the help of singer Bobby Byrd's family, Brown gained parole and started a gospel group with Byrd, changing their focus to R&B as the rock revolution gained steam. The Flames, as the Georgian group was known in the mid-'50s, signed to Federal/King and had a huge R&B hit right off the bat with the wrenching, churchy ballad "Please, Please, Please." By that point, The Flames had become James Brown & the Famous Flames; the charisma, energy, and talent of Brown made him the natural star attraction.

 All of Brown's singles over the next two years flopped, as he sought to establish his own style, recording material that was obviously derivative of heroes like Roy Brown, Hank Ballard, Little Richard, and Ray Charles. In retrospect, it can be seen that Brown was in the same position as dozens of other R&B one-shot: talented singers in need of better songs, or not fully on the road to a truly original sound. What made Brown succeed where hundreds of others failed was his superhuman determination, working the chitlin circuit to death, sharpening his band, and keeping an eye on new trends. He was on the verge of being dropped from King in late 1958 when his perseverance finally paid off, as "Try Me" became a number one R&B (and small pop) hit, and several follow-ups established him as a regular visitor to the R&B charts.

Brown's style of R&B got harder as the '60s began; he added more complex, Latin- and jazz-influenced rhythms on hits like "Good Good Lovin'," "I'll Go Crazy," "Think," and "Night Train," alternating these with torturous ballads that featured some of the most frayed screaming to be heard outside of the church. Black audiences already knew that Brown had the most exciting live act around, but he truly started to become a phenomenon with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963. Capturing a James Brown concert in all its whirling-dervish energy and calculated spontaneity, the album reached number two on the album charts, an unprecedented feat for a hardcore R&B LP.

Live at the Apollo was recorded and released against the wishes of the King label. It was this kind of artistic standoff that led Brown to seek better opportunities elsewhere. In 1964, he ignored his King contract to record "Out of Sight" for Smash, igniting a lengthy legal battle that prevented him from issuing vocal recordings for about a year. When he finally resumed recording for King in 1965, he had a new contract that granted him far more artistic control over his releases.

Brown's new era had truly begun, however, with "Out of Sight," which topped the R&B charts and made the pop Top 40. For some time, Brown had been moving toward more elemental lyrics that threw in as many chants and screams as they did words, and more intricate beats and horn charts that took some of their cues from the ensemble work of jazz outfits. "Out of Sight" wasn't called funk when it came out, but it had most of the essential ingredients. These were amplified and perfected on 1965's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," a monster that finally broke Brown to the white audience, reaching the Top Ten. The even more adventurous follow-up, "I Got You (I Feel Good)," did even better, making number three.

These hits kicked off Brown's period of greatest commercial success and public visibility. From 1965 to the end of the decade, he was rarely off the R&B charts, often on the pop listings, and all over the concert circuit and national television, even meeting with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and other important politicians as a representative of the black community. His music became even bolder and funkier, as melody was dispensed with almost altogether in favor of chunky rhythms and magnetic interplay between his vocals, horns, drums, and scratching electric guitar (heard to best advantage on hits like "Cold Sweat," "I Got the Feelin'," and "There Was a Time"). The lyrics were not so much words as chanted, stream-of-consciousness slogans, often aligning themselves with black pride as well as good old-fashioned (or new-fashioned) sex. Much of the credit for the sound he devised belonged to (and has now been belatedly attributed to) his top-notch supporting musicians such as saxophonists Maceo Parker, St. Clair Pinckney, and Pee Wee Ellis; guitarist Jimmy Nolen; backup singer and longtime loyal associate Bobby Byrd; and drummer Clyde Stubblefield.

Brown was both a brilliant bandleader and a stern taskmaster, the latter leading his band to walk out on him in late 1969. Amazingly, he turned the crisis to his advantage by recruiting a young Cincinnati outfit called the Pacemakers featuring guitarist Catfish Collins and bassist Bootsy Collins. Although they only stayed with him for about a year, they were crucial to Brown's evolution into even harder funk, emphasizing the rhythm and the bottom even more. The Collins brothers, for their part, put their apprenticeship to good use, helping define '70s funk as members of the Parliament-Funkadelic axis.

In the early '70s, many of the most important members of Brown's late-'60s band returned to the fold, to be billed as the J.B.'s (they also made records on their own). Brown continued to score heavily on the R&B charts throughout the first half of the '70s, the music becoming more and more elemental and beat-driven. At the same time, he was retreating from the white audience he had cultivated during the mid- to late '60s; records like "Make It Funky," "Hot Pants," "Get on the Good Foot," and "The Payback" were huge soul sellers, but only modest pop ones. Critics charged, with some justification, that the Godfather was starting to repeat and recycle himself too many times. It must be remembered, though, that these songs were made for the singles radio jukebox market and not meant to be played one after the other on CD compilations (as they are today).

By the mid-'70s, Brown was beginning to burn out artistically. He seemed shorn of new ideas, was being out-gunned on the charts by disco, and was running into problems with the IRS and his financial empire. There were sporadic hits, and he could always count on enthusiastic live audiences, but by the '80s, he didn't have a label. With the explosion of rap, however, which frequently sampled vintage J.B.'s records, Brown became hipper than ever. He collaborated with Afrika Bambaataa on the critical smash single "Unity" and reentered the Top Ten in 1986 with "Living in America." Rock critics, who had always ranked Brown considerably below Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin in the soul canon, began to reevaluate his output, particularly the material from his funk years, sometimes anointing him not just "Soul Brother Number One," but the most important black musician of the rock era.

For the majority of his career, Brown carried around a strict drug and alcohol-free policy with any member in his entourage, including band members, firing people who disobeyed orders, particularly those who used or abused drugs and alcohol. Some members of Brown's vocal group the Famous Flames were fired due to alcohol use. Noting of the policy, some of the original members of Brown's 1970s band, The J.B.'s, including Catfish and Bootsy Collins, intentionally got high on LSD during a concert gig in 1971, causing Brown to fire them after the show because he had suspected them to be on drugs all along.

However, by the mid-1980s, it was alleged that Brown himself was using drugs. After meeting and later marrying Adrienne Rodriguez, she and Brown began using PCP ("angel dust"). The drug resulted in domestically violent outbursts from Brown and he was arrested several times for domestic violence against Rodriguez while high on the drug. Clearly Adrienne Rodriguez had a bad influence on him and his brain couldn't cope with drugs. In 1988, Brown's personal life came crashing down in a well-publicized incident in which he was accused by his wife of assault and battery. After a year skirting hazy legal and personal troubles, he led the police on an interstate car chase after allegedly threatening people with a handgun. The episode ended in a six-year prison sentence that many felt was excessive; he was paroled after serving two years.

Throughout the '90s Brown continued to perform and release new material like Love Over-Due (1991), Universal James (1992), and I'm Back (1998). While none of these recordings could be considered as important as his earlier work and did little to increase his popularity, his classic catalog became more popular in the American mainstream during this time than it had been since the '70s, and not just among young rappers and samplers. One of the main reasons for this was a proper presentation of his recorded legacy. For a long time, his cumbersome, byzantine discography was mostly out of print, with pieces available only on skimpy greatest-hits collections. A series of exceptionally well-packaged reissues on PolyGram changed that situation; the Star Time box set is the best overview, with other superb compilations devoted to specific phases of his lengthy career, from '50s R&B to '70s funk.

In 2004, Brown was diagnosed with prostate cancer but successfully fought the disease. By 2006, it was in remission and Brown, then 73, began a global tour dubbed the Seven Decades of Funk World Tour. Late in the year while at a routine dentist appointment, the singer was diagnosed with pneumonia. On December 25, 2006, Brown died at approximately 1:45 am EST (06:45 UTC) from congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia, at age 73, with his personal manager and longtime friend Charles Bobbit at his bedside. According to Mr. Bobbit, Brown stuttered "I'm going away tonight", and then Brown took three long, quiet breaths and fell asleep before dying.

After Brown's death, Brown's relatives and friends, a host of celebrities and thousands of fans attended public memorial services at the Apollo Theater in New York on December 28, 2006 and at the James Brown Arena on December 30, 2006 in Augusta, Georgia. A separate, private memorial service was also held in North Augusta, South Carolina on December 29, 2006, which was attended by Brown's family and close friends. Celebrities who attended Brown's public and/or private memorial services included Michael Jackson, Jimmy Cliff, Joe Frazier, Buddy Guy, Ice Cube, Ludacris, Dr. Dre, Little Richard, Dick Gregory, MC Hammer, Prince, Jesse Jackson, Ice-T, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bootsy Collins, LL Cool J, Li'l Wayne, Lenny Kravitz, 50 Cent, Stevie Wonder, and Don King, among others.


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James Brown is featured here with the then newly formed J.B.'s -- the maestro's second great band, including Bootsy Collins, Phelps Collins, Jabo Starks, Bobby Byrd, and Fred Wesley. Live at the Apollo had caught James Brown the '50s gospel/R&B singer; Love Power Peace captures James Brown the funkster. In the early '70s Brown turned up the funk, recording such litanies for Black America as "Ain't It Funky Now," "Sex Machine," "Give It Up or Turn It Loose," "Super Bad," "Get Up, Get into It, Get Involved," and "Soul Power." They're all here, along with revved-up, white-hot versions of the early- and middle-period classics. Brown had planned to release this as a triple album in 1971. When several bandmembers left shortly after it was recorded, Brown switched from King to Polydor Records, leading him to scrap it and record a new studio album instead. In 1992, Polygram decided to make the recording available for the first time.

James Brown - Love Power Peace  (flac 380mb)

01 Intro 1:12
02 Brother Rapp 3:03
03 Ain't It Funky Now 5:36
04 Georgia On My Mind 6:12
05 It's A New Day 2:53
06 Bewildered 4:19
07 Sex Machine 8:45
08 Try Me 2:24
09 Medley : Papa's Got A Brand New Bag / I Got You (I Feel Good) / I Got The Feelin' 1:30
10 Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose 5:14
11 It's A Man's Man's Man's World 5:43
12 Please Please Please 2:09
13 Sex Machine (Reprise) 0:39
14 Super Bad 5:08
15 Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved 2:07
16 Soul Power 4:25

James Brown - Love Power Peace   (ogg 129mb)

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This is the recording of Brown’s 1974 concert that was part of the build up to the “Rumble in the Jungle”, the famed boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. This is, to my knowledge, the only post-Payback, pre-decline live album of Brown, and therefore it is absolutely essential. The sound quality is great-to-good throughout, and although sometimes the crowd cheering drowns out the band a little (especially, annoyingly enough, during “The Payback” and its reprise) all the musicians are loud and clear, and the only complaint is that maybe the horns are occasionally too screechy-sounding, but it is not a major problem. A bigger problem is that some of the tracks are edited together rather poorly, with “Get on the Good Foot” being split into two parts and some songs getting cut off before the band has finished playing. Although these edits don’t have too much of a negative effect on the album, they do ensure that the flow gets broken a few times throughout.

James Brown - The Godfather Goes to Africa  (flac 432mb)

01 Intro 2:05
02 The Payback 3:55
03 Soul Power 2:26
04 The Boss 1:58
05 Makin' It Easy 1:51
06 Doin' It To Death 5:27
07 Bewildered 5:00
08 Sex Machine 5:03
09 Interlude 0:45
10 The James Brown Theme Part 1 5:07
11 The James Brown Theme Part 2 0:20
12 Caught With A Bag-Gimme Some More 2:58
13 Get On The Good Foot Part 1 1:51
14 Get On The Good Foot Part 2 0:59
15 It's a Man's World Jam Part 1 5:03
16 It's a Man's World Jam Part 2 11:10
17 Money 3:10
18 Finale 10:26

James Brown - The Godfather Goes to Africa  (ogg 154mb)

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The earlier show celebrates Studio 54 (on its' closing night) and the mid-'80s showcelebrates 40 years of James Brown in Show Business.This show from New York, at this point for longtime fans and JB is the one *on* the one! An absolutely terrific performance with the new JB, if you will - riding high on the Yuppie-Club Circuit, with a new, scaled-down, "Disco Soul" approach, with a softer-edge on the vocals: much less emphasis on screams, moans, and other nonverbalisms. He's trimmed down and funky as he wanna be.
Opening number, "It's Too Funky In Here" and finale intro. version both cut on CD.

The Chastain Park show has been recycled nearly into oblivion but the show is good > typical of the period - no surprises - but even at age 52 the superstar's energy level is amazing. It includes one of the greatest "Georgia On My Mind"(s) you'll ever hear. I've always said that Brown's arrangement is just as good as Ray Charles'; it's a shame it got lost on a B-side. It can be said that the '80 show is more guitar-driven, whereas the '85 mix showcases the horns (meaning that St. Clair Pinckney and Maceo "Father Popcorn" Parker have arrived early for the party).

James Brown - Double Dynamite  (flac 505mb)

01 Gonna Have A Funky Good Time (Doing It To Death) 2:53
02 Get Up Offa That Thing 6:07
03 Body Heat 5:13
04 Sex Machine 6:37
05 Try Me 4:27
06 Papa's Got A Brand New Bag 2:32
07 Get On The Good Foot 4:09
08 Medley Man's World, Lost Someone, Man's World (Reprise) 14:59
09 I Got The Feeling 2:42
10 Cold Sweat 3:15
11 Please, Please, Please 2:52
12 Jam 4:59
13 Medley The Payback, It's To Funky In Here 4:15
14 Prisoner Of Love 4:46
15 I Got You (I Feel Good) 3:27
16 Georgia On My Mind 5:52

James Brown - Double Dynamite  (ogg 190mb)

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