20 All Time Greatest Hits James Brown

[Deandra Uleman]

ColdSweat [King, 1967]

The modal title milestone one-upped Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway" and introduced JB's funky drummer number two, Clyde Stubblefield. The uptempo oldies Brown added to the hit to make an album--Lloyd Prince's "Stagger Lee," Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City," Little Willie John's "Fever," and Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight"--smelled a little fishy at the time. Now, however, they're caviar--JB's full voice and flawless time yoking proven classics to some of the tightest big-band blues ever recorded. The slow side pits Brown's ballad falsetto and ballad scream against some of the most elaborate r&b strings ever recorded. Especially on the two Nat King Cole numbers and an over-the-top "Come Rain or Come Shine," the falsetto wins by a mile. [Rolling Stone: The 40 Essential Albums of 1967]

Sex Machine [King, 1970]

Some doubt the claim that this was recorded in concert in Augusta, Georgia, but everyone believes in the music. On "Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine" he creates a dance track even more compelling than the single out of the same five elements: light funk-four on the traps, syncopated bass figure, guitar scratched six beats to the bar, and two voices for call and response. When he modulates to the bridge it's like the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters. After that he could describe his cars for three sides and get away with it (hope this doesn't give him any bright ideas), but in fact all of what remains is prime JB except for the organ version of "Spinning Wheel" (horn bands will out) and the cover of "If I Ruled the World" (thought he already did). Side four, with its powerful "Man's World," is especially fine, closing with a soul-wrenching scream that says it all. A

Super Bad [King, 1970]

Recorded live, it says--hmm. Were the strings that accompany "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" on stage with him, or did he borrow them from Isaac Hayes on his way to pick up the uncredited "Chain Gang" finale from Sam Cooke? But it doesn't matter. Ten minutes of super rhythm plus ten minutes of bad blues plus a surprisingly passionate "Let It Be Me" with the Jamesettes and you even forgive the bad (really bad, I mean) Albert Ayler imitation that he identifies as a tribute to 'Trane. In fact, you kind of like it. A-

Sho Is Funky Down Here [King, 1971]

Brown's farewell to his own indie label is so outre purists will probably prize it. Rock-funk instrumentals dominated by (literally) anonymous electric piano and guitar, both more rock than funk, which would never be said of the rhythm section. At moments it sounds like JB Meets BB--and I don't mean the bluesman, I mean Bela Bartok--in the person of arranger Dave Matthews. As for JB, he grunts a few times. Veddy interesting. C+

Hot Pants [Polydor, 1971]

Is it rolling, James? The hit vamp (can't call it a tune, now can you?) "Escape-ism" was supposedly cut to kill time until Bobby Byrd arrived. The title track follows and it's a killer too, one of Brown's richest Afro-dances. "Blues and Pants" suggests that the title track is a mellowed down takeoff on "Sex Machine," which is good to know. And "Can't Stand It" is not to be confused with "I Can't Stand Myself." If you say so, James. Only he doesn't. I don't think he cares. And neither do I. A-

Revolution of the Mind [Polydor, 1971]

Ever the innovator, Brown here presents a live double-LP, "Recorded Live at the Apollo Vol. III." Good stuff, too--a consistent overview of his polyrhythm phase. But "Sex Machine" is sharper and "Bewildered" deeper on last year's live double. And with the medley on side three the tempo gets so hot that anybody but JB will have trouble dancing to it. B+

Soul Classics [Polydor, 1972]

Brown recorded nine of these ten cuts for King; every track is good and many--"Sex Machine," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," "I Got You"--are great. But they're so jumbled chronologically--side two jumps from '71 to '65 back to '71 to '69 to '66--that it's a tribute to Brown's single-minded rhythmic genius that they hold together at all. Hearing his classic '70s dance tracks in their original three-minute formats, you begin to pine for the extended album versions--devoid of verbal logic and often even chord changes, these patterns, for that's what they really are, are meant to build, not resolve. And the chief formal advantage of top-forty strictures is that they force speedy resolutions. A-

There It Is [Polydor, 1972]

A generous four r&b hits here, three of them--"There It Is," "I'm a Greedy Man," and "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing"--ace JB grooves. (Who's on congas, James?) The fourth is the "King Heroin" sermon, which together with its ten-minute offshoot "Public Enemy #1" is stuck cunningly--Brown has been reading his Alexander Pope--in the middle of the dance stuff on both sides. Plus an actual song, the first new one he's recorded in years, and a JB composition called "Never Can Say Goodbye" that asks the musical question, "What's going on?" For junkies, this is an A plus; for the rest of us, it's somewhat more marginal. A-

Get on the Good Foot [Polydor, 1972]

Only two hits on this studio double, though it takes Hank Ballard five minutes to describe its riches on side two--"he comes from all sides on this one." Lines repeat from song to song--"The long-haired hippies and the Afro blacks/All get together off behind the tracks/And they party"--and so do riffs. The hook on the twelve-minute "Please, Please" (not to be confused, of course, with "Please, Please, Please") repeats one hundred forty-eight (and a half) times. I love the hook, I even like the line, and if this were the world's only James Brown album it would be priceless. But there's a lot of waste here, and Brown's voice can't carry ballads the way it used to. B-

Soul Classics Volume II [Polydor, 1973]

In absolute terms, Brown has declined on Polydor. Even if you don't insist on great compositions (never his strength) or great singing (where he's waned physically), he just hasn't matched rhythmic inventions like "Mother Popcorn" and "Sex Machine" for the big label. And this compilation inexplicably omits "Hot Pants," which comes close, in favor of his ill-advised revivals of "Think" and "Honky Tonk." Still, eight of these ten tracks have made the soul top ten over the past two years, and not counting "King Heroin" you'll shake ass to every one. A-

The Payback [Polydor, 1973]

Because more is often more with JB, a studio double comprising eight long songs isn't necessarily a gyp. Especially when all the songs have new titles. Not only does most of this work as dance music, but two slow ones are actually sung. "Time Is Running Out Fast," however, is a spectacularly inaccurate title for a horn-and-voice excursion that shambles on for 12:37. B+

Sex Machine Today [Polydor, 1975]

If Someone were to airlift this one tape to you in the tundra, the remakes would be godsends. But if you own another version of "Sex Machine" you own a better one. Ditto "I Feel Good," ditto every aimless solo, and ditto the reading from Rand-McNally. Which leaves us with the symphosynth, the complaints that other musicians are ripping him off, and the putdowns of hairy legs. C+

Everybody's Doin' the Hustle and Dead on the Double Bump [Polydor, 1975]

In which JB eases the tempo and stops using his voice as a conga drum, thus fashioning a languorous funk that I guess is designed to compete with Barry White. It's not horrible, but I'd just as soon hear the competition--after all, what's JB without intensity? And then suddenly he says fuck it and closes the record with a seven minute jam on "Kansas City" so sharp it could bring back the lindy hop, at least in dreams. B-

Hot [Polydor, 1975]

This record has a bad rep. Most of it was reportedly cut with arranger Dave Matthews by New York studio musicians and then dubbed over by JB, and the title hit didn't do as well among blacks as David Bowie's "Fame," where its guitar lick first went public. But side one really works. If Brown did cop that lick, he certainly had it coming, and except for the sodden "So Long" everything else is touched with the extraordinary, from the cracked falsetto that climaxes "For Sentimental Reasons" to the stirring male backup on "Try Me" to "The Future Shock of the World," a high-echo rhythm track on which JB does nothing but whisper the word "disco." Unfortunately, the dance vamp and ballads overdisc are nothing new, though "Please, Please, Please" (with more male backup) sounds fine in its umpteenth version. B

Get Up Offa That Thing [Polydor, 1976]

"I'm Black, I'm Back?" is how JB begins the commercial message on the jacket, and the title track is his biggest single in a year and a half. "I can see the disco now," he emphasizes, and even the blues and the ballad cultivate a groove designed to reintroduce him to that alien world he founded. But he sounds defensive because he has a reason to be--he can't hit the soft grooves the way he can the hard ones. When he starts equating himself with Elvis Presley (just before the fade on "I Refuse to Lose"), you know the identity problems are getting critical. B-

Jam/1980's [Polydor, 1978]

Free of the pretentious bluster that has marred so much of his work in the disco era, this is the groove album Brown has been announcing for years. He's finally learned how to relax his rhythms without diluting his essence, and the A side is simply and superbly what the title promises, though he may have the decade wrong. The B side is less of the same, and I bet no one who buys this record ever chooses to play it. I also bet they'd get dancing if they did. B+

3a8082e126