One of these days, I’m gonna write about James Brown.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, I started twice.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling the story of how a white boy learned about the black experience.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll append my two attempts.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither of which get to the point of working on the South Side of Chicago in the summer of ’69 as a playground counselor at an inner city elementary school where a young girl was raped on the fourth floor and I wondered about all those handwritten signs posted everywhere promoting a POPCORN CONTEST!<\/p>\n
Yes, James Brown was an icon.\u00c2\u00a0 A truly unique, American one.\u00c2\u00a0 A performer who could not only quell riots, but get in trouble with the law.<\/p>\n
It’s been well-documented how James Brown not only impacted his generation, but the generation AFTER him, the rappers who sampled seemingly everything he did.\u00c2\u00a0 But my personal story began with the "T.A.M.I. Show".\u00c2\u00a0 The trailer, in fact.<\/p>\n
You see we were rained out in Vermont.\u00c2\u00a0 And we went to the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 My little sister seems to ultimately believe it was some free-standing theatre in Stratford, where some kids tried to break a light while we watched "Emil and the Detectives".\u00c2\u00a0 I believe it was at the Majestic, in burned out Bridgeport, across the street from Mooney’s, where I bought my skis, with bamboo poles and bindings, all for the package price of nine dollars.<\/p>\n
But wherever it was, whatever theatre we were attending, both Wendy and I were MESMERIZED by seeing James Brown in the trailer for the "T.A.M.I. Show".\u00c2\u00a0 It kind of reminded me of catching the Beatles in their debut on the "Jack Paar Show", playing "She Loves You".\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t know whether to LAUGH or castigate myself for being so out of it and try to jump into the screen, to take part.<\/p>\n
I’m the biggest Jan & Dean fan of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 I even went to their comeback concert at the Starwood.\u00c2\u00a0 And I was familiar with Lesley Gore and Gerry and the Pacemakers and the other acts on the bill.\u00c2\u00a0 All except for this one James Brown.\u00c2\u00a0 You see he was a black thing.\u00c2\u00a0 A negro thing, as they used to say back then.\u00c2\u00a0 It was two worlds.\u00c2\u00a0 But in one fell swoop, we ignorant white boys were CONVERTED!\u00c2\u00a0 Because there was NOTHING like James Brown.\u00c2\u00a0 He was giving it 150%!\u00c2\u00a0 Moving like no white man could, constantly.\u00c2\u00a0 And they had the cape thing in the trailer too.\u00c2\u00a0 Which seemed so staged, like something out of "Andy’s Gang", but all we knew in the theatre that something was happening here and we were LEFT OUT!<\/p>\n
This event, seeing the "T.A.M.I. Show" trailer, has been a bonding experience for Wendy and me.\u00c2\u00a0 There have been phone calls and e-mail.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what a death does, bring us closer together.\u00c2\u00a0 Deaths that count, that is.\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry Ford?\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly a good man whose impact PALED in comparison to that of James Brown.\u00c2\u00a0 James Brown was the real deal.\u00c2\u00a0 Even when he came back, with "Living In America" in the eighties.\u00c2\u00a0 Hey, get your bad self together and we’ll go out and HAVE A GOOD TIME!<\/p>\n
Anyway, trying to catch up on my e-mail, I found another message from Wendy, with a couple of links.<\/p>\n
The first is of James and the Flames performing "Out Of Sight" at the "T.A.M.I. Show".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s spectacular <\/p>\n
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