Where were you when you heard the news? I heard from friend on Christmas day afternoon via SMS whilst I was in Thailand. James Brown dead. The day one icon kicked the bucket was now to be the date when two of the most important figures in world history slipped off this mortal coil. I was in Bangkok when the news broke and I went straight to the internet and lo, it was almost front page news on the BBC and CNN websites and I was relieved for once that this wasn’t going to be another brother passing away without acknowledgement. I have mixed feeling about James Brown in has latter years. Of course I wanted to see the man in the flesh but a while ago I saw him on TV at a festival, Reading I think, performing his many ‘hits’ with a live band. To say it was cabaret was an understatement. Brown was giving it up of course but his backing band were fat white guys attempting to ape Maceo, Bootsy etc and his back-up singers would have been rejected in round one of American Idol. It was painful and there in the middle of this car crash was Soul Brother Number One giving everything he had but hamstrung by these inferior journeymen. This was James Brown circa mid 2000 and I was torn between witnessing the world’s greatest entertainer in the flesh but knowing he was past his prime and was only on the road for the cheddar. The only positive seeing him live in the latter years of his career would of being able to have some bragging rights but at what price? Locked in the same airspace as photocopier salesmen moving awkwardly to Sex Machine? When I heard he was dead a part of me was relieved.
As I was away I didn’t have any music with me plus it was Christmas so I regret to say that the news didn’t really hit me. It was only a week or so later that the awful truth sunk in. We were driving somewhere and I had my ipod with me plugged into the car stereo. I had it on shuffle and on came Give It Up Or Turn It lose. I could hear every grunt, screech, snare and riff as before but, as opposed to the last 15 years of my listening to his songs, my guide to this other-worldly funk wasn’t here on earth with me anymore. The last connection to outer space where Hendrix and ODB came from was now severed. As That Break kicked in I got shivers down my spine had I tears in my eyes and so I looked out of the car window so my wife couldn’t see me. Not sure where it came from and I did feel a bit of a fool but I knew there would be no more soul food. Music was dead.
Christmas day in my house is now James Brown day. RIP James.