AKA, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. AKA James Joseph Brown, born on this date in 1933.
He performs like a house a fire. His band is nonstop, and he's even more nonstop. He is always in motion. How can anyone go on for so long? Finally, his DJ comes to help him off the stage. But no, he can't stop. He has to go on! It's one of the best bits in show biz, ever:
And here he is, just straight, just doing his job.
Brown toured with seriously big bands, and seemed to do one-nighters every night of the year. He was a notorious task master, from his band's playing to the shine on their shoes. He was a political activist committed to many causes, and his activism worked its way into his songs, most noticeably with 1968's "Say it Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud."
“The song is obsolete now... But it was necessary to teach pride then, and I think the song did a lot of good for a lot of people... People called "Black and Proud" militant and angry – maybe because of the line about dying on your feet instead of living on your knees. But really, if you listen to it, it sounds like a children's song. That's why I had children in it, so children who heard it could grow up feeling pride... The song cost me a lot of my crossover audience. The racial makeup at my concerts was mostly black after that. I don't regret it, though, even if it was misunderstood.” [From Brown's autobiography, quoted on Wikipedia]
Brown in his lifetime received just about every honor there was to get.
Ain't it funky now? (And yeah, that's Bootsy's older brother on guitar.)
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