James Brown in 1960s America - Essay Example

I Feel Good: James Brown in 1960’s America CUL620 Research Project Maria _____, Number _____ Wednesday, November 30, 2005 ,CUL620 I Feel Good: James Brown in 1960’s America Maria _____ James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul,” is arguably one of the most prolific and influential musicians of the past fifty years. With a discography that includes over 120 albums, he remains one of the most enduring forces in American popular music. As if mirroring the social upheaval in which his life has been lived out, Brown has known both the dizzying heights of fame and riches as well as the abysmal privations of segregation and imprisonment. Born in South Carolina in 1933, James Brown grew up in an Augusta, Georgia brothel run by his aunt. A seventh-grade dropout, Brown was sentenced, at age sixteen, to hard labor for his role in an armed robbery and vehicle burglary. Now a strong proponent of education, Brown told interviewer Steve Hammer, in 1996, “I want to say […] to the young kids: Education may be hard today, but if you go through it today, tomorrow will be easy. If you don’t go through it today, it will be harder.”1 But ironically for Brown himself, prison may have served the means to his own salvation. For it was during his incarceration that he met pianist Bobby Byrd with whom, following his release, he began to play the clubs in Toccoa, Georgia. Transitioning from gospel to R&B, Brown and his band, the Famous Flames, caught the attention of King Records, and, in 1956, recorded the single Please, Please, Please, which catapulted them into the R&B top ten. With the release of his first album in 1959, Brown entered the most productive decade of his career—the 1960’s—in which he produced no fewer than 37 albums. It is in large part a testament to his adaptability and creative genius that Brown’s music evolved through the ‘60’s with such apparent ease. Building on his musical roots in African-American jazz and blues, Brown reached out to a broader and increasingly-eclectic audience as the decade unfolded. Whereas his music had at first been performed for and pitched to a predominately black market, by the mid-‘60’s his hits were to be found on the pop as well as R&B charts. Evidence of his broad appeal and ability to appropriate new elements into his music is clearly heralded in his 1965 hit single Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag: Come here mama, and dig this crazy scene; He’s not too fancy, but his line is pretty clean. He ain’t no drag. Papa’s got a brand new bag.2 Listed among “Papa’s” new tricks was a series of new dance moves that were sweeping the nation and scandalizing parents—among them, the jerk, the fly, the monkey, and the mashed potato.3 Since very little art is produced in isolation, it is impossible to evaluate Brown’s music and his influence on the American music scene without also looking closely at the tumultuous changes that were straining the cultural fabric of 1960’s America. Much has been written about this remarkable decade and of the social movements that characterized it. In the short span of those ten years, Americans made their first flights into space, took dramatic strides toward ending segregation, became mired in a costly and unpopular war in Vietnam, and assassinated four of their most visionary leaders. Yet, throughout the turmoil of that era, James Brown kept Americans on their feet and entertained. It would be easy, upon a cursory examination of his music, to dismiss Brown as nothing more than an animated singer of soul music, but he was, in fact, both a voice for and a force within the movements for social change at work in America during those years. For the most part, popular music in the ‘60’s took one of four forms—rock ‘n roll, rhythm and blues/soul, folk and, late in the decade, acid rock—and each of those forms served its unique role in both commenting on and fueling the social changes characteristic of the decade. Folk was most vocal in its social criticism and demands for change. Civil and workers’ rights, equality for women and the growing dissatisfaction over the war in Vietnam were all given voice by folk musicians. Rock ‘n roll, more and longer than any other popular musical genre, clung to the fading positivism of the 1950’s, but eventually lost itself in the “turn on and tune out” nihilism of acid rock. More than any other form, it was soul—evolved from R&B and powered by skyrocketing sales at Motown Records—that served as common ground for American youth of dissimilar backgrounds. Inner city black kids joined suburban white kids in dancing and singing to the hits of James Brown and other soul musicians. At the apex of his career, and in the face of the pervasive national depression brought on and exacerbated by the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, it was James Brown who, in 1968, belted out “I feel good. I knew that I would now. So good, so good, ‘cause I got you.” 4 Remarkably, this soulful “feel-good” anthem was picked up by black and white alike, and became something of a response to the negativism of the period which grew evermore frustrated at the pace of social change. Despite his own claims to the contrary, it is still possible to paint Brown as disinterested in the violence, dissent and upheaval swirling around him. Suggestive of his response to that charge, are these lyrics from his July, 1966 release “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World:” This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl. […] And after man has made everything, everything he can; You know that man makes money to buy from other man. […] He’s lost in the wilderness; He’s lost in bitterness. 5 In a clear return to his roots in southern-black blues, Brown laments the futility of material acquisition without love to give meaning and purpose to accomplishment and wealth. Despite unprecedented social mobilization to combat poverty, campaign for women’s equality, and demand an end to the Vietnam War, it was the issue of civil rights that most galvanized young Americans throughout the decade of the ‘60’s. While radical African-American groups like the Black Panthers advocated the violent disruption of the American status quo, James Brown, through his music, called for equal access and opportunity for all Americans. Regardless of the opinions of some in the movement—and there were those who felt Brown too ”Uncle Tom”—Brown himself viewed his contribution to the struggle for civil rights to be a significant one. “Others may have followed in my wake, but I was the one who turned racist minstrelsy into Black soul—and by doing so, became a cultural force.”6 In his 1969 single “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I’ll Get It Myself)”, Brown demanded the removal of all barriers restricting African-Americans’ access to educational, vocational and cultural opportunities. Commenting years later on both that issue and this song, Brown said, “[…] any time an Afro-American kid, nine or ten years old, can get up and say, ‘Mama, I think I’m gonna study hard because I want to be president,’ and have a shot at being president, then we’ve got America. Other than that, we’ve got a name and we’re trying to find out what it means. […] We’re trying to let people know that, hey, don’t give me nothin’, just open up the door, and if I don’t earn it, then I don’t earn it.”7 As America entered the decade of the ‘70’s, and the war in Vietnam began to wind down, so too, it appeared, did Brown’s career. Crippled by a $4.5 million IRS bill, the breakup of his marriage, and the death of his son, Brown failed to crack the top ten in any category during the entire decade. Then came the disco-80’s, and Brown again adapted. Bolstered by a part in the cult film The Blues Brothers, Brown went on to score a number four hit single with Living in America, the title song to Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV. In 1986, he partnered with others, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, to produce the ground-breaking album Gravity—as much as anything to prove he could hold his own with the rising stars of hip-hop and rap. But just as it appeared that Brown was regaining some of his former primacy, he landed in prison for two years as the result of a battery conviction and an interstate car chase. In February, 1991, Brown was released from prison, and wasted no time in restarting his music career. Since then, he has ridden a wave of sold-out concert tours, picked up a Grammy in 1993, and spent an average of 150 nights each year on stage—earning him the moniker of “the hardest working man in show business.” In 1998, when asked by an interviewer from Time Out New York magazine how he would wish to be remembered, Brown replied, “I want to be the one who took the low side and made it the high side.”8 That he did. And I feel good about it. Bibliography Brown, James. I Feel Good. New York: New American Library, 2005 Brown, James. Lyrics for All, “James Brown – Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” Brown, James. SoundTrack Lyrics, “Artist: James Brown, Song: I Got You (I Feel Good)” Brown, James. SoundTrack Lyrics, “Artist: James Brown, Song: It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” Gerber, Louis. “James Brown” (2000) Hammer, Steve. “A Chat with the Godfather of Soul” (1996) Kimball, Roger. The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2000 Kingwood College Library, “American Cultural History 1960 – 1969,” Kingwood College, Scaruffi, Piero, Ed. “The Sixties: A Chronology of Events” “TONY Interview: James Brown,” Time Out New York, July 16-23, 1998, Read More