(* and the Famous Flames )
Chart entered : 23 September 1965
Chart peak : 25
Number of hits : 16
Here we have the first chapter in a new and unwelcome story where a vastly influential black performer becomes feted by the succeeding generation and proceeds to have more hits as a "Legend" , usually with grossly inferior material, than they did in their prime.
James Brown was born in South Carolina either in 1928 or 1933 depending on which source you trust. After an unpromising start to adult life with a stint inside for armed robbery, he befriended the R & B singer Bobby Byrd who invited him into his gospel group The Gospel Starlighters in 1952. The group also moonlighted as an R& B group that eventually settled on the name The Flames. The group built up a live reputation and in 1955 came to the attention of Little Richard and his manager Clint Brantley. The latter became their manager and arranged the recording of a demo of Brown's song "Please Please Please". They were signed to Federal Records and the song became their first single under the name "James Brown With The Famous Flames" in March 1956.
"Please Please Please " is an amalgam of doo wop ballad , R & B vocal pleadings and Fats Domino piano with dramatic stops for James's showboating which is what makes the record, the song itself being fairly slight. It made number 5 on the R & B chart. It was something of a false start as a long string of flops followed : "I Don't Know" ( sunk by a long spoken section where the backing vocalists sound like a bag of cats ), the jazzier "No No No No" ( dominated by a lengthy sax solo), "I Won't Plead No More" where the ponderous backing lets down the impassioned vocal, "Just Won't Do Right", the very gospel "Gonna Try" and "You're Mine You're Mine".By this point , July 1957 , the original Flames, tired of playing second fiddle to a singer who wasn't bringing home the bacon had split up.
James soon gathered together a new Flames to be his backing band and who remained exactly that. There was no immediate change in fortune as the mainly spoken novelty song "That Dood It " and "Begging Begging" ( which has some nice guitar work ) failed to register. The breakthrough came with "Try Me" in March 1958. James later acknowledged the influence of Jerry Butler's For Your Precious Love on this rolling ballad with its hypnotic guitar part from Bobby Roach but no one apart from James himself got a songwriting credit. It not only took him to the top of the R & B charts but reached number 48 on the main chart as well. "I Want You So Bad" is a similar but sparser effort with no backing vocals and a tapping cymbal the lead instrument. It was an R & B hit only. "I've Got To Change" was a flop perhaps because of an over-intrusive sax riff and "Got To Cry" was perhaps a bit too similar to the hit. James changed tack with the creditable rock and roll of "Good Good Lovin'" to no avail.
The turn of the decade revived his fortunes once more with "I'll Go Crazy" which made the R & B charts with the help of another great riff from Bobby Roach. His next single "Think" was a pop hit as well. It was a cover of an R & B hit from 1957 but James re-shaped it into something more rhythmical and here's where the beginnings of funk are. Nat Kendrick's drums are prominent in the transformation. It was also the first of his singles to be released in the UK. "This Old Heart", though somewhat shambolic, consolidated the success and as a result James's singles were no longer released through the subsidiary Federal but the parent company, King.
His first release on the label, "The Bells" was a solo effort , a slow bluesy cover of Billy Ward and the Dominoes' 1952 R & B hit about bereavement. Oddly it was a hit in the pop chart but not the R & B one. " Hold It" came out under the name James Brown Presents His Band and is a mainly instrumental proto-funk number which didn't sell. The Flames were back for "Bewildered" a song much-covered by R & B artists though James's version reintroduces the doo-wop element of his fifties singles. "I Don't Mind" saw James clash with producer Gene Redd who didn't like the odd piano riff at the base of the song but it didn't harm its chart performance. "Suds" was another instrumental under the "Presents" credit and was credited to Kendrick although it's the stabbing guitar rather than the drums that catches the attention. "Baby You're Right" is a Joe Tex cover although James altered the lyrics and melody enough to give himself a credit. It's another slow ballad with a no-holds barred vocal from James. "Just You And Me Darling " is a self-penned number that was preferred to the nominal A-side "I Love You Yes I Do" a Bullmoose Jackson cover. "Lost Someone" was his seventh single of 1961 and is another great vocal performance.
"Night Train" from March 1962 is a sax-led near instrumental already much recorded. James's vocal contribution is merely a list of East Coast cities he hoped would play his records. This time he left the credit as James Brown and the Famous Flames despite the fact they're not on it and sure enough it was a hit. "Shout And Shimmy " is a blatant rip-off of Shout which he somehow got away with. "Mashed Potatoes U.S.A." is awful, a tuneless grind where James repeats the name checking cities trick and you begin to think "the hardest working man in show business" could do with taking a break. "Three Hearts In A Tangle" a cover of a Roy Drusky hit from the previous year sounds like a Ray Charles number.
His first single of 1963 ,"Like A Baby " was originally recorded by Elvis and James's organ-heavy cover again suggests Ray Charles. "Prisoner Of Love " was a cover of the Perry Como hit and saw him recording with a full orchestra and chorus for the first time. It seemed to bring out a feminine side to his voice and it actually sounds like Tina Turner's singing it. It succeeded in broadening his audience becoming his first Top 20 pop hit. Encouraged he next tackled "These Foolish Things" in an R & B vein but it didn't do quite as well. "Signed Sealed and Delivered " was his fourth cover in a row but recorded with his band rather than an orchestra. James's singles of 1963 were actually something of a sideshow to his epochal Live At The Apollo album , self- financed due to the company's lack of faith in the project, which eventually got to number 2 in the US album charts and sealed his reputation for all time.
His first single of 1964 " Oh Baby Don't you Weep" was an epic, stretched across both sides of the single with dubbed on audience noise. It's based on an old spiritual Mary Don't You Weep and starts off straight before James starts name checking other performers such as Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke. It's self-indulgent and tedious. James again clashed with Redd over his piano playing and James responded by announcing his departure for Smash records. While the lawyers got busy the label reissued "Please Please Please" with some audience noise added but it was only a very minor hit. They then released "Again" another string-driven ballad from the "Prisoner Of Love" sessions where James again sounds like Tina Turner but really cuts loose at the end. It massed out on the charts and James's first release ( without the Famous Flames ) on Smash , "Caldonia" an old jump blues number credited to "James Brown and his Orchestra" didn't do much better. King responded with "So Long" an outtake ballad from the early sixties with some nice string work. James then put out a version of Guitar Slim's R & B monster "The Things That I Used To Do" which scraped the bottom of the chart.
James found his feet again with his next release "Out Of Sight" . For legal reasons the composer credit was "Ted Wright" , a pseudonym for James himself. He said in his autobiography "You can hear the band and me start to move in a whole other direction rhythmically .The horns, the guitars, the vocals , everything was starting to be used to establish all kinds of rhythms at once ". Notice the absence of any mention of "tune" there . This might well be where the disposability of melody in pop music began. There are certainly no singalong bits here. This single is also where saxophonist Maceo Parker started making a big contribution to his music. It reached number 24 in the US charts.
King responded with "I Don't Care " a raucous blues number with an interesting spiky guitar sound. They now had the market to themselves due to a legal injunction stopping James making vocal recordings for Smash. After a re-release of "Think" they scored a minor hit with "Have Mercy Baby" , another Billy Ward cover given a rock and roll re-working. James could only respond with an instrumental cover "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf " featuring James on organ. It's quite good actually but didn't chart.
By June 1965 King's lawyers had triumphed and James had to come back to the label. And so, finally we get to "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag". The Famous Flames were credited although none of them were still involved with him when the song was recorded. The lyrics are ostensibly about an old man who can still cut it on the dancefloor but are clearly a statement of his own artistic rebirth, made good by this seminal record. It's worth remembering that James was either 32 or 37 at this point and the shift to a more rhythm-based music might well have been necessitated by his declining vocal powers ; certainly his voice sounds ragged here in comparison to earlier recordings. The hooks here are not melodic but that initial horn blast, the horn punctuations and that instantly recognisable guitar jangle. Where this record leads is not really where I want to go but its influence and importance are unquestionable.
The turn of the decade revived his fortunes once more with "I'll Go Crazy" which made the R & B charts with the help of another great riff from Bobby Roach. His next single "Think" was a pop hit as well. It was a cover of an R & B hit from 1957 but James re-shaped it into something more rhythmical and here's where the beginnings of funk are. Nat Kendrick's drums are prominent in the transformation. It was also the first of his singles to be released in the UK. "This Old Heart", though somewhat shambolic, consolidated the success and as a result James's singles were no longer released through the subsidiary Federal but the parent company, King.
His first release on the label, "The Bells" was a solo effort , a slow bluesy cover of Billy Ward and the Dominoes' 1952 R & B hit about bereavement. Oddly it was a hit in the pop chart but not the R & B one. " Hold It" came out under the name James Brown Presents His Band and is a mainly instrumental proto-funk number which didn't sell. The Flames were back for "Bewildered" a song much-covered by R & B artists though James's version reintroduces the doo-wop element of his fifties singles. "I Don't Mind" saw James clash with producer Gene Redd who didn't like the odd piano riff at the base of the song but it didn't harm its chart performance. "Suds" was another instrumental under the "Presents" credit and was credited to Kendrick although it's the stabbing guitar rather than the drums that catches the attention. "Baby You're Right" is a Joe Tex cover although James altered the lyrics and melody enough to give himself a credit. It's another slow ballad with a no-holds barred vocal from James. "Just You And Me Darling " is a self-penned number that was preferred to the nominal A-side "I Love You Yes I Do" a Bullmoose Jackson cover. "Lost Someone" was his seventh single of 1961 and is another great vocal performance.
"Night Train" from March 1962 is a sax-led near instrumental already much recorded. James's vocal contribution is merely a list of East Coast cities he hoped would play his records. This time he left the credit as James Brown and the Famous Flames despite the fact they're not on it and sure enough it was a hit. "Shout And Shimmy " is a blatant rip-off of Shout which he somehow got away with. "Mashed Potatoes U.S.A." is awful, a tuneless grind where James repeats the name checking cities trick and you begin to think "the hardest working man in show business" could do with taking a break. "Three Hearts In A Tangle" a cover of a Roy Drusky hit from the previous year sounds like a Ray Charles number.
His first single of 1963 ,"Like A Baby " was originally recorded by Elvis and James's organ-heavy cover again suggests Ray Charles. "Prisoner Of Love " was a cover of the Perry Como hit and saw him recording with a full orchestra and chorus for the first time. It seemed to bring out a feminine side to his voice and it actually sounds like Tina Turner's singing it. It succeeded in broadening his audience becoming his first Top 20 pop hit. Encouraged he next tackled "These Foolish Things" in an R & B vein but it didn't do quite as well. "Signed Sealed and Delivered " was his fourth cover in a row but recorded with his band rather than an orchestra. James's singles of 1963 were actually something of a sideshow to his epochal Live At The Apollo album , self- financed due to the company's lack of faith in the project, which eventually got to number 2 in the US album charts and sealed his reputation for all time.
His first single of 1964 " Oh Baby Don't you Weep" was an epic, stretched across both sides of the single with dubbed on audience noise. It's based on an old spiritual Mary Don't You Weep and starts off straight before James starts name checking other performers such as Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke. It's self-indulgent and tedious. James again clashed with Redd over his piano playing and James responded by announcing his departure for Smash records. While the lawyers got busy the label reissued "Please Please Please" with some audience noise added but it was only a very minor hit. They then released "Again" another string-driven ballad from the "Prisoner Of Love" sessions where James again sounds like Tina Turner but really cuts loose at the end. It massed out on the charts and James's first release ( without the Famous Flames ) on Smash , "Caldonia" an old jump blues number credited to "James Brown and his Orchestra" didn't do much better. King responded with "So Long" an outtake ballad from the early sixties with some nice string work. James then put out a version of Guitar Slim's R & B monster "The Things That I Used To Do" which scraped the bottom of the chart.
James found his feet again with his next release "Out Of Sight" . For legal reasons the composer credit was "Ted Wright" , a pseudonym for James himself. He said in his autobiography "You can hear the band and me start to move in a whole other direction rhythmically .The horns, the guitars, the vocals , everything was starting to be used to establish all kinds of rhythms at once ". Notice the absence of any mention of "tune" there . This might well be where the disposability of melody in pop music began. There are certainly no singalong bits here. This single is also where saxophonist Maceo Parker started making a big contribution to his music. It reached number 24 in the US charts.
King responded with "I Don't Care " a raucous blues number with an interesting spiky guitar sound. They now had the market to themselves due to a legal injunction stopping James making vocal recordings for Smash. After a re-release of "Think" they scored a minor hit with "Have Mercy Baby" , another Billy Ward cover given a rock and roll re-working. James could only respond with an instrumental cover "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf " featuring James on organ. It's quite good actually but didn't chart.
By June 1965 King's lawyers had triumphed and James had to come back to the label. And so, finally we get to "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag". The Famous Flames were credited although none of them were still involved with him when the song was recorded. The lyrics are ostensibly about an old man who can still cut it on the dancefloor but are clearly a statement of his own artistic rebirth, made good by this seminal record. It's worth remembering that James was either 32 or 37 at this point and the shift to a more rhythm-based music might well have been necessitated by his declining vocal powers ; certainly his voice sounds ragged here in comparison to earlier recordings. The hooks here are not melodic but that initial horn blast, the horn punctuations and that instantly recognisable guitar jangle. Where this record leads is not really where I want to go but its influence and importance are unquestionable.
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