[ARSCLIST] James Brown

[Matthew Barton <mbarton@xxxxxxx>]

James Brown actually wasn't all that funky in the period mentioned here,
although there were certainly hints of what was to come. Most of his
output (especially the hits) from 1956 to 1962 tended toward R&B ballads
like "Please, Please, Please"; "Try Me"; etc. We do get his covers of
"Think" in 1960 and "Night Train" in 1962, but the hard funk really
begins in 1964, with "Out of Sight," which was soon followed by "Papa's
Got a Brand New Bag"; "I Got You" and many others. After joining the
band ca. 1965, guitarist Jimmy Nolen and his "Chicken Scratch" sound (to
turn back to the subject of "scratchin'" for a moment) were a vital part
of this development in Brown's style.

Brown's output of the 1960s was heavily sampled by rappers, but they
took just as much, if not more, from the records relased by Brown's
sidemen in the 1970s — The J.B.'s, Maceo and the Macks, et al. I
worked in a New York city record store in the early 90s, and some of
those albums fetched a hundred dollars or more at the time for this
reason.

And "The Famous Flames" were not James Brown's backing band. They were
his backing vocal trio.

Matthew Barton
MBRS
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540-4610
202-707-5508
email: mbarton@xxxxxxx

>>> "Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 11/9/2007 12:07:30 AM
>>>

Over and above all of this is the reality that virtually ALL
20th/21st-
century "Urban Dance" music is still using versions (usually, LESSER
versions...!) of a "funk" rhythm first played by Chicago blues artists
(see under Earl Hooker...) in the late nineteen-fifties, and
essentially
perfected by the late James Brown, together with his "Famous Flames"
backing band c.1961-62...!