1 00:00:03,917 --> 00:00:06,125 -"Black" is a thing that were basically put on a man -- 2 00:00:06,125 --> 00:00:08,875 on an American Black man, in America. 3 00:00:08,875 --> 00:00:10,750 And, hey, I'm Black, and I'm proud, 4 00:00:10,750 --> 00:00:12,875 but I really don't want to have to say 5 00:00:12,875 --> 00:00:14,500 I'm Black and you have to say you're White. 6 00:00:14,500 --> 00:00:16,417 I want to say that we're people and that we're brothers 7 00:00:16,417 --> 00:00:20,000 and we got the same fight. But now, if you step on my toe, 8 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:21,875 then I got to defend myself as a man. 9 00:00:21,875 --> 00:00:22,917 Same thing you would have to do it. 10 00:00:22,917 --> 00:00:25,000 Hit it! 11 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,958 ♪ 12 00:00:29,958 --> 00:00:31,750 ♪ Watch me 13 00:00:31,750 --> 00:00:33,583 ♪ I got it 14 00:00:33,583 --> 00:00:35,125 ♪ Watch me 15 00:00:35,125 --> 00:00:37,417 ♪ I got it, hey! 16 00:00:37,417 --> 00:00:40,333 ♪ I got something that makes me want to shout ♪ 17 00:00:40,333 --> 00:00:41,917 ♪ I've got that thing 18 00:00:41,917 --> 00:00:44,042 ♪ That tells me what it's all about ♪ 19 00:00:44,042 --> 00:00:46,208 ♪ I got the soul 20 00:00:46,208 --> 00:00:48,333 ♪ And I'm super bad 21 00:00:48,333 --> 00:00:50,375 ♪ 22 00:00:50,375 --> 00:00:53,083 ♪ Got soul 23 00:00:53,083 --> 00:00:57,208 ♪ And I'm super bad 24 00:00:57,208 --> 00:00:59,708 ♪ I'm a lover, love to do my thing ♪ 25 00:00:59,708 --> 00:01:01,708 -Without James Brown, 26 00:01:01,708 --> 00:01:06,458 the whole trajectory of culture just goes somewhere else. 27 00:01:06,458 --> 00:01:07,333 -♪ Hit it 28 00:01:07,333 --> 00:01:09,208 -Everybody wasn't that talented. 29 00:01:09,208 --> 00:01:11,667 Everybody wasn't exactly as driven. 30 00:01:11,667 --> 00:01:13,458 That maniacal drive. 31 00:01:13,458 --> 00:01:15,542 -It's hard for me to think about my dad 32 00:01:15,542 --> 00:01:19,042 as the most important Black man in America, 33 00:01:19,042 --> 00:01:20,667 because he was my dad. 34 00:01:20,667 --> 00:01:22,917 -♪ Got soul 35 00:01:22,917 --> 00:01:25,458 ♪ And I'm super bad 36 00:01:25,458 --> 00:01:27,542 ♪ Yeah, now 37 00:01:27,542 --> 00:01:29,583 ♪ 38 00:01:29,583 --> 00:01:31,875 -I love that two things that he brought to the table 39 00:01:31,875 --> 00:01:36,875 were, like, two taboo words -- "funk" and "black." 40 00:01:36,875 --> 00:01:38,458 -♪ Super bad 41 00:01:38,458 --> 00:01:42,042 -What's undeniable and consistently so 42 00:01:42,042 --> 00:01:44,833 in James Brown's presentation of self 43 00:01:44,833 --> 00:01:46,292 is that he's a Black man. 44 00:01:46,292 --> 00:01:49,833 He's authentically and unapologetically Black. 45 00:01:49,833 --> 00:01:54,125 -He found a rugged, ghetto way of translating Black culture. 46 00:01:54,125 --> 00:01:55,875 The energy was in the feeling. 47 00:01:55,875 --> 00:01:58,208 You know, records didn't have feelings back then like that. 48 00:01:58,208 --> 00:01:59,958 -♪ Got to move, huh 49 00:01:59,958 --> 00:02:01,875 -This is the closest you're gonna be connected to the soul 50 00:02:01,875 --> 00:02:04,375 where slavery happened and you saw all this pain happen 51 00:02:04,375 --> 00:02:06,292 and you saw this racism happen. 52 00:02:06,292 --> 00:02:08,125 And you get the men from the South 53 00:02:08,125 --> 00:02:10,042 and having all those different pressures 54 00:02:10,042 --> 00:02:11,708 just squeezed out James Brown out of it. 55 00:02:11,708 --> 00:02:12,875 -My dad... 56 00:02:12,875 --> 00:02:13,875 -♪ Super bad 57 00:02:13,875 --> 00:02:15,333 -...he was hard. 58 00:02:15,333 --> 00:02:16,958 -♪ Hey, I'm super bad 59 00:02:16,958 --> 00:02:18,208 -He wasn't soft. 60 00:02:18,208 --> 00:02:19,708 -♪ Good God, get it, huh 61 00:02:19,708 --> 00:02:21,042 ♪ Super bad 62 00:02:21,042 --> 00:02:22,708 -A diamond knows that it's a diamond. 63 00:02:22,708 --> 00:02:24,208 -♪ Super bad 64 00:02:24,208 --> 00:02:28,042 -And in order to rise to the top of the Earth's surface, 65 00:02:28,042 --> 00:02:30,250 it has to endure an extreme amount 66 00:02:30,250 --> 00:02:32,583 of pressure and temperature. 67 00:02:32,583 --> 00:02:34,125 -He was brilliant. 68 00:02:34,125 --> 00:02:35,875 He took all these influences and combined them. 69 00:02:35,875 --> 00:02:37,542 And then he created, 70 00:02:37,542 --> 00:02:40,583 almost single-handedly, this other group. 71 00:02:40,583 --> 00:02:43,875 -He really believed that he could do things 72 00:02:43,875 --> 00:02:45,667 and overcome things. 73 00:02:45,667 --> 00:02:49,750 He marched to the beat of his own drum, literally. 74 00:02:49,750 --> 00:02:53,833 -So it's all deeper than how great he was with the music. 75 00:02:53,833 --> 00:02:55,542 -Hey! 76 00:02:55,542 --> 00:02:59,458 -James Brown is a reflection of the Black experience 77 00:02:59,458 --> 00:03:01,875 in the context of the United States of America. 78 00:03:01,875 --> 00:03:05,500 That's why James Brown's story is an American story. 79 00:03:05,500 --> 00:03:08,667 -My thing, I had to get the way I felt, 80 00:03:08,667 --> 00:03:11,500 and I thought that I would be able to deliver better, 81 00:03:11,500 --> 00:03:13,625 doing it the way I feel, you know? 82 00:03:13,625 --> 00:03:15,250 It's one thing I've always tried to do 83 00:03:15,250 --> 00:03:18,917 is be unlike anybody else. 84 00:03:18,917 --> 00:03:20,917 Everybody over there! 85 00:03:20,917 --> 00:03:24,833 [ Cheers and applause ] 86 00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:35,917 You know, former little shoeshine boy 87 00:03:35,917 --> 00:03:38,375 from a very, very poor family. 88 00:03:38,375 --> 00:03:41,000 My father had to work hard all his life. 89 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,792 And we moved from pillar to post is what the people used to say. 90 00:03:44,792 --> 00:03:47,333 We never really had a home. 91 00:03:47,333 --> 00:03:49,083 I could, as far back as I can remember, 92 00:03:49,083 --> 00:03:50,542 was always renting. 93 00:03:50,542 --> 00:03:53,042 Paying another cat's bills 94 00:03:53,042 --> 00:03:56,000 and never really paying our own. 95 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000 -My father was born in a shack in Barnwell County, 96 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,708 South Carolina. 97 00:04:01,708 --> 00:04:05,208 There was no breathing. There was no sound. 98 00:04:05,208 --> 00:04:08,375 It didn't look like he was gonna come through. 99 00:04:08,375 --> 00:04:10,208 But then, all of a sudden... 100 00:04:10,208 --> 00:04:12,292 Oww! 101 00:04:12,292 --> 00:04:14,292 [ Laughs ] 102 00:04:14,292 --> 00:04:16,542 ...he was alive. 103 00:04:16,542 --> 00:04:18,875 They basically beat life into him. 104 00:04:18,875 --> 00:04:21,542 He always used to say, "I was born dead. 105 00:04:21,542 --> 00:04:23,583 So I had to make a life for myself." 106 00:04:23,583 --> 00:04:27,583 ♪ 107 00:04:27,583 --> 00:04:31,042 -Miracles just don't happen, but in my case, it did. 108 00:04:31,042 --> 00:04:32,333 Music was the only thing I had. 109 00:04:32,333 --> 00:04:34,208 My father stopped in the second grade. 110 00:04:34,208 --> 00:04:36,292 My mother stopped in the fourth grade. 111 00:04:36,292 --> 00:04:38,542 And I only went to the seventh grade. 112 00:04:38,542 --> 00:04:42,000 No music, no eat, no food. I was a janitor when I cut. 113 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:44,583 "Please, Please, Please." 114 00:04:44,583 --> 00:04:45,667 ♪ Please 115 00:04:45,667 --> 00:04:46,792 ♪ 116 00:04:46,792 --> 00:04:48,167 ♪ Please 117 00:04:48,167 --> 00:04:50,375 -He's growing up, South Carolina, 118 00:04:50,375 --> 00:04:53,708 Georgia, in the Black Belt, as we call it, 119 00:04:53,708 --> 00:04:56,583 being just two generations removed from it, 120 00:04:56,583 --> 00:05:00,375 the heart of slavery and knowing people 121 00:05:00,375 --> 00:05:03,917 who were the children of enslaved folks. 122 00:05:03,917 --> 00:05:05,792 ♪ 123 00:05:05,792 --> 00:05:07,708 -Have you ever been broke and hungry? 124 00:05:07,708 --> 00:05:10,125 I have really been broke and hungry. 125 00:05:10,125 --> 00:05:12,417 Plenty of times in my life. 126 00:05:12,417 --> 00:05:14,042 I raised up. 127 00:05:14,042 --> 00:05:16,125 I-I come up through that kind of thing, you know? 128 00:05:16,125 --> 00:05:17,750 Broke and hungry. 129 00:05:17,750 --> 00:05:20,208 -My grandmother and grandfather grew up so poor, 130 00:05:20,208 --> 00:05:22,375 Grandma Susie, she was a caregiver, 131 00:05:22,375 --> 00:05:24,042 like most of the people during that time. 132 00:05:24,042 --> 00:05:26,375 I mean, my dad was born in 1933, 133 00:05:26,375 --> 00:05:29,708 and she was born back in the teens. 134 00:05:29,708 --> 00:05:31,917 -My grandfather was a proud man. 135 00:05:31,917 --> 00:05:33,417 He went without food, 136 00:05:33,417 --> 00:05:35,208 and to keep from borrowing food from a neighbor, 137 00:05:35,208 --> 00:05:38,375 my grandfather would walk 17 miles. 138 00:05:38,375 --> 00:05:41,292 He saw that the life he had as a sharecropper 139 00:05:41,292 --> 00:05:43,375 wasn't going to be enough to support the family, 140 00:05:43,375 --> 00:05:46,375 so that's when he decided he would move to Augusta. 141 00:05:46,375 --> 00:05:49,042 -James's father was extremely violent. 142 00:05:49,042 --> 00:05:50,625 He beat her a lot. 143 00:05:50,625 --> 00:05:53,542 She finally fled to New York City. 144 00:05:53,542 --> 00:05:56,333 There's a history of Black and White men 145 00:05:56,333 --> 00:06:00,042 who treated women like property and beat them. 146 00:06:00,042 --> 00:06:01,750 It'd be like, "Oh, he was, 147 00:06:01,750 --> 00:06:04,708 you know, just putting his wife straight." 148 00:06:04,708 --> 00:06:07,042 -My grandfather was abusive to my grandmother. 149 00:06:07,042 --> 00:06:08,417 Not all the time, but he saw it. 150 00:06:08,417 --> 00:06:11,375 And then he was abusive to my father. 151 00:06:11,375 --> 00:06:14,292 So he saw that heavy hand early on. 152 00:06:14,292 --> 00:06:17,875 -That violence absolutely can revisit itself 153 00:06:17,875 --> 00:06:22,500 in interactions that he has with other people. 154 00:06:22,500 --> 00:06:24,250 -♪ I don't know how to sing the blues ♪ 155 00:06:24,250 --> 00:06:26,208 ♪ Like I used to sing them, yeah ♪ 156 00:06:26,208 --> 00:06:27,958 -What you see growing up, 157 00:06:27,958 --> 00:06:29,917 you think this is how things are supposed to be. 158 00:06:29,917 --> 00:06:33,875 You don't really see a healthy relationship. 159 00:06:33,875 --> 00:06:36,333 -It's one thing for your father to not be there, 160 00:06:36,333 --> 00:06:41,500 but I think it's a whole nother set of obstacles 161 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:46,333 when you're dealing with your mother abandoning you. 162 00:06:46,333 --> 00:06:49,083 My Aunt Honey, my grandfather's sister, 163 00:06:49,083 --> 00:06:51,208 helped raise him as a man. 164 00:06:51,208 --> 00:06:52,875 -My father was a very poor man. 165 00:06:52,875 --> 00:06:55,042 And then my mother, she was a houseworker. 166 00:06:55,042 --> 00:06:57,542 That's the early separation of the things happening. 167 00:06:57,542 --> 00:06:59,000 So I was kind of brought up with my aunt 168 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:00,417 and caught a little hard. 169 00:07:00,417 --> 00:07:01,708 So I did a lot of things to try 170 00:07:01,708 --> 00:07:04,000 to be like the other guys, you know? 171 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:05,500 I never had the chance to experience 172 00:07:05,500 --> 00:07:07,208 growing up as a kid. 173 00:07:07,208 --> 00:07:10,875 -He grew up in a whorehouse. That's really the reality of it. 174 00:07:10,875 --> 00:07:13,750 And what he saw at a young age was, 175 00:07:13,750 --> 00:07:16,333 you wouldn't want any of your children to see that. 176 00:07:16,333 --> 00:07:18,667 May make you think of women different, 177 00:07:18,667 --> 00:07:20,125 treat women different. 178 00:07:20,125 --> 00:07:21,792 -I was 9 years old 179 00:07:21,792 --> 00:07:23,833 before I got my first pair of underwear out of a store. 180 00:07:23,833 --> 00:07:27,500 All of my clothes were made, sacks and things like that. 181 00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:28,583 You know, I remember when I used to go 182 00:07:28,583 --> 00:07:31,458 to Floyd School, man, jack. 183 00:07:31,458 --> 00:07:34,708 You couldn't look at me no way. 184 00:07:34,708 --> 00:07:36,833 -No, at us. -Oh, okay. 185 00:07:36,833 --> 00:07:38,500 You couldn't look at us no way. 186 00:07:38,500 --> 00:07:40,042 -Me and you. -And miss nothing. 187 00:07:40,042 --> 00:07:42,375 And you always see the thing. Yes, sir. 188 00:07:42,375 --> 00:07:43,417 -You did. -'Cause the patches 189 00:07:43,417 --> 00:07:45,500 was hanging loose. 190 00:07:45,500 --> 00:07:48,042 As a boy, I shined shoes. 191 00:07:48,042 --> 00:07:50,875 I worked at the car lot. I worked in a sawmill. 192 00:07:50,875 --> 00:07:52,708 I picked cotton, danced for nickels 193 00:07:52,708 --> 00:07:55,375 and dimes to pay the rent. 194 00:07:55,375 --> 00:07:58,542 Jack, anytime you can't eat 195 00:07:58,542 --> 00:08:00,208 and don't know where you're gonna get your next meal, 196 00:08:00,208 --> 00:08:01,750 and if you don't get there early, 197 00:08:01,750 --> 00:08:03,708 you won't be able to sleep in the bed, 198 00:08:03,708 --> 00:08:05,917 you have to sleep on the floor or on a pallet... 199 00:08:05,917 --> 00:08:09,042 Well, we had to pay $5 for rent for a month. 200 00:08:09,042 --> 00:08:10,542 18 people lived in a home. 201 00:08:10,542 --> 00:08:12,042 They couldn't get it up to save their life. 202 00:08:12,042 --> 00:08:13,208 18 people. 203 00:08:13,208 --> 00:08:14,208 And I danced for the soldiers. 204 00:08:14,208 --> 00:08:16,750 In 20 minutes, I had $19. 205 00:08:16,750 --> 00:08:18,583 ♪ Hey! Hey, hey, pretty baby ♪ 206 00:08:18,583 --> 00:08:20,833 ♪ With your fine old foxy self 207 00:08:20,833 --> 00:08:22,542 ♪ 208 00:08:22,542 --> 00:08:25,833 ♪ Hey, pretty baby, with your fine old foxy self ♪ 209 00:08:25,833 --> 00:08:27,292 ♪ 210 00:08:27,292 --> 00:08:29,542 -Augusta being a military town, 211 00:08:29,542 --> 00:08:33,208 he spent a lot of time out tap-dancing for soldiers. 212 00:08:33,208 --> 00:08:34,708 -They would come into the brothels, 213 00:08:34,708 --> 00:08:36,375 so it's like, "How can I make a little money? 214 00:08:36,375 --> 00:08:38,083 So I'm going to do my little buck dances," 215 00:08:38,083 --> 00:08:39,458 is what they call it. 216 00:08:39,458 --> 00:08:41,708 -Buck dancing is one of those traditions 217 00:08:41,708 --> 00:08:43,875 that comes out of the history of slavery, 218 00:08:43,875 --> 00:08:46,042 connected to African dance. 219 00:08:46,042 --> 00:08:51,167 But it gets brought over and transmuted into this culture. 220 00:08:51,167 --> 00:08:53,708 And it was a certain kind of performance 221 00:08:53,708 --> 00:08:59,292 that was expected to produce entertainment for White folks 222 00:08:59,292 --> 00:09:00,875 watching Black folks. 223 00:09:00,875 --> 00:09:02,125 -I paid the rent for three months 224 00:09:02,125 --> 00:09:03,500 and put 4 in my pocket. 225 00:09:03,500 --> 00:09:04,875 I went to a movie, my daddy whupped me, 226 00:09:04,875 --> 00:09:06,333 and I come back and gave it to him, 227 00:09:06,333 --> 00:09:07,875 and I went back and made some more, 228 00:09:07,875 --> 00:09:09,542 went back to the movie. Come back and got me again. 229 00:09:09,542 --> 00:09:11,125 -In this country, 230 00:09:11,125 --> 00:09:13,375 particularly if we're talking about Black people, 231 00:09:13,375 --> 00:09:16,250 generational trauma is often associated 232 00:09:16,250 --> 00:09:18,208 with physical violence. 233 00:09:18,208 --> 00:09:22,708 Mr. Brown's father disciplining him, beating him, 234 00:09:22,708 --> 00:09:26,542 I don't know if he thought that he was doing anything wrong. 235 00:09:26,542 --> 00:09:28,917 But now we know through research 236 00:09:28,917 --> 00:09:32,625 that that violence that's inflicted upon children, 237 00:09:32,625 --> 00:09:34,750 it changes them. 238 00:09:34,750 --> 00:09:38,292 That trauma, you carry with you. 239 00:09:38,292 --> 00:09:39,625 -♪ Want to love you, baby 240 00:09:39,625 --> 00:09:41,917 ♪ Ease my misery 241 00:09:41,917 --> 00:09:45,708 ♪ 242 00:09:45,708 --> 00:09:49,292 -One night, we were riding around in South Carolina. 243 00:09:49,292 --> 00:09:51,208 He said, "Reverend, you talk to your father?" 244 00:09:51,208 --> 00:09:52,875 I said, "No, I don't know where he is," and all that. 245 00:09:52,875 --> 00:09:54,417 And I started talking about it -- 246 00:09:54,417 --> 00:09:56,208 "He left, and they cut the lights off, 247 00:09:56,208 --> 00:09:59,250 and they took mama's Cadillac and da da da da." 248 00:09:59,250 --> 00:10:02,667 And he said, "Son, stop. My mother and father left me." 249 00:10:02,667 --> 00:10:04,833 And he said, "Son, stop. My mother and father left me." 250 00:10:04,833 --> 00:10:07,208 -And ever since that time, I've been fighting, 251 00:10:07,208 --> 00:10:09,333 trying to do it for myself. 252 00:10:14,208 --> 00:10:15,667 -Oww! 253 00:10:15,667 --> 00:10:17,125 ♪ Talk about love, a doggone shame ♪ 254 00:10:17,125 --> 00:10:18,208 ♪ Talk about love, I hate that name ♪ 255 00:10:18,208 --> 00:10:19,792 -My first talent show I won 256 00:10:19,792 --> 00:10:22,458 was the Holland Talent Review in Augusta, Georgia. 257 00:10:22,458 --> 00:10:24,000 That was the Lenox Theater. 258 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:25,792 The Lenox Theater was on Ninth Street -- 259 00:10:25,792 --> 00:10:27,625 Campbell Street at that time. 260 00:10:27,625 --> 00:10:29,417 Today, it's James Brown Boulevard. 261 00:10:29,417 --> 00:10:34,458 -He grew up in the South, and he understood this notion 262 00:10:34,458 --> 00:10:39,542 that your value to other people is in what you can do. 263 00:10:39,542 --> 00:10:41,042 -If you were on a plantation, 264 00:10:41,042 --> 00:10:42,958 you weren't allowed to read books. 265 00:10:42,958 --> 00:10:44,917 You weren't allowed to congregate in big numbers. 266 00:10:44,917 --> 00:10:47,167 But what you could do is perform. 267 00:10:47,167 --> 00:10:48,750 -♪ Come on up here 268 00:10:48,750 --> 00:10:50,833 -Plantation owners and overseers, 269 00:10:50,833 --> 00:10:53,792 they would allow slaves to perform in limited, 270 00:10:53,792 --> 00:10:55,375 circumscribed ways. 271 00:10:55,375 --> 00:10:57,708 They wanted a certain kind of performance from slaves. 272 00:10:57,708 --> 00:10:59,708 -♪ Ooh, unh 273 00:10:59,708 --> 00:11:01,208 ♪ Come on 274 00:11:01,208 --> 00:11:03,083 -James Brown's relationship to buck dancing 275 00:11:03,083 --> 00:11:04,750 is where you really have to start. 276 00:11:04,750 --> 00:11:06,500 It's about doing it rhythmically 277 00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:09,833 and producing certain kinds of sounds with your whole body 278 00:11:09,833 --> 00:11:12,250 but especially the lower half of your body. 279 00:11:12,250 --> 00:11:13,875 You think of Sammy Davis Jr. 280 00:11:13,875 --> 00:11:16,625 You think of that whole Black entertainment tradition. 281 00:11:16,625 --> 00:11:20,042 So much of that is about the understanding 282 00:11:20,042 --> 00:11:22,250 of what the feet have to do in performance. 283 00:11:22,250 --> 00:11:32,250 ♪ 284 00:11:32,250 --> 00:11:36,792 ♪ 285 00:11:36,792 --> 00:11:38,292 -That's exactly what art is. 286 00:11:38,292 --> 00:11:41,417 We took our situation and made it beautiful. 287 00:11:41,417 --> 00:11:44,875 No matter how ugly it was meant to be, we made it beautiful. 288 00:11:44,875 --> 00:11:47,042 And that's what James Brown did. 289 00:11:47,042 --> 00:11:50,417 And he took the history of that and the perseverance therein, 290 00:11:50,417 --> 00:11:54,500 and used this experience as opportunity for him to blossom. 291 00:11:54,500 --> 00:11:58,292 ♪ 292 00:11:58,292 --> 00:11:59,542 -In Augusta, Georgia, 293 00:11:59,542 --> 00:12:02,250 he would visit the house of prayer as a young boy. 294 00:12:02,250 --> 00:12:05,542 And in the house of prayer, it's a lot of brass. 295 00:12:05,542 --> 00:12:07,083 It's like jubilee. 296 00:12:07,083 --> 00:12:10,708 He was attracted as a young child to that music. 297 00:12:10,708 --> 00:12:12,167 -At the end of World War II, 298 00:12:12,167 --> 00:12:14,875 when the big band era was starting to die, 299 00:12:14,875 --> 00:12:16,708 they had what they called jump bands, 300 00:12:16,708 --> 00:12:19,208 sort of like compact big bands. 301 00:12:19,208 --> 00:12:21,042 ♪ 302 00:12:21,042 --> 00:12:23,500 -My influence was Louis Jordan. 303 00:12:23,500 --> 00:12:26,000 Fella who recorded a song by the name of "Caldonia" 304 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:28,708 and a lot of things that were very, very big in the '50s 305 00:12:28,708 --> 00:12:30,208 and the late '40s. 306 00:12:30,208 --> 00:12:32,042 ♪ 307 00:12:32,042 --> 00:12:35,667 -Louis Jordan's band was the most popular one 308 00:12:35,667 --> 00:12:37,875 in Black culture at that point. 309 00:12:37,875 --> 00:12:41,375 His music was funny. Absolutely funny. 310 00:12:41,375 --> 00:12:44,750 -♪ Caldonia, Caldonia 311 00:12:44,750 --> 00:12:46,583 ♪ What make your big head so hard? ♪ 312 00:12:46,583 --> 00:12:48,250 -♪ Oww! 313 00:12:48,250 --> 00:12:56,708 ♪ 314 00:12:56,708 --> 00:12:58,083 ♪ Whoa 315 00:12:58,083 --> 00:13:01,708 ♪ 316 00:13:01,708 --> 00:13:07,250 1949, I was a juvenile delinquent. 317 00:13:07,250 --> 00:13:10,958 Broken home. 318 00:13:10,958 --> 00:13:14,125 Five kids, you know, underprivileged. 319 00:13:14,125 --> 00:13:17,042 A low-income family and a lot of things I just didn't have, 320 00:13:17,042 --> 00:13:19,708 and a lot of knowledge weren't there for my parents, 321 00:13:19,708 --> 00:13:21,375 and they just didn't understand. 322 00:13:21,375 --> 00:13:24,917 ♪ Been a long time 323 00:13:24,917 --> 00:13:28,333 ♪ I acted like a clown 324 00:13:28,333 --> 00:13:32,458 ♪ I really don't know what to do ♪ 325 00:13:32,458 --> 00:13:33,958 ♪ What to do 326 00:13:33,958 --> 00:13:36,042 -Well, unfortunately, it was a situation 327 00:13:36,042 --> 00:13:38,875 where there's a car theft was involved, 328 00:13:38,875 --> 00:13:41,542 and he was sent up for car theft. 329 00:13:41,542 --> 00:13:44,042 -I was 15 years old. 330 00:13:44,042 --> 00:13:49,292 I was taken by the authorities, the police. 331 00:13:49,292 --> 00:13:52,042 Took me about 300 miles away from home 332 00:13:52,042 --> 00:13:55,042 to a camp just like that, 333 00:13:55,042 --> 00:13:59,583 where I had 8 to 16 years. 334 00:13:59,583 --> 00:14:03,292 8 to 16 years. That's a long time. 335 00:14:03,292 --> 00:14:06,167 -James Brown being arrested at such a young age, 336 00:14:06,167 --> 00:14:08,375 being told that you have minimum eight years 337 00:14:08,375 --> 00:14:10,125 that you're going to serve, for a young person, 338 00:14:10,125 --> 00:14:12,167 that's their foreseeable future. 339 00:14:12,167 --> 00:14:15,000 "You're taking my foreseeable future away from me 340 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:17,083 for trying to boost a car battery." 341 00:14:17,083 --> 00:14:18,750 -One time, a reporter asked him, 342 00:14:18,750 --> 00:14:20,250 "Mr. Brown, you were stealing. 343 00:14:20,250 --> 00:14:23,792 You were doing these types of things. Why?" 344 00:14:23,792 --> 00:14:27,333 And my father's response was, "Survival." 345 00:14:27,333 --> 00:14:29,583 [ Cell door slams ] 346 00:14:29,583 --> 00:14:34,583 ♪ 347 00:14:34,583 --> 00:14:38,083 -Along with Mr. Johnny Terry, my father was an inmate 348 00:14:38,083 --> 00:14:41,250 at Alto Correctional Institution in Alto, Georgia, 349 00:14:41,250 --> 00:14:44,208 and they became cellmates. They entertained their self. 350 00:14:44,208 --> 00:14:47,375 The two would dance and sing in the cells. 351 00:14:47,375 --> 00:14:51,042 Other inmates saw him, and they were really attracted to the -- 352 00:14:51,042 --> 00:14:53,125 "What are these two guys doing in this cell? 353 00:14:53,125 --> 00:14:54,917 They're having so much fun." 354 00:14:54,917 --> 00:14:57,625 At that time, that's when the other inmates 355 00:14:57,625 --> 00:15:02,042 started labeling my father with the nickname "Music Box." 356 00:15:02,042 --> 00:15:06,583 -Bobby Byrd, who was a clean-cut, upstanding citizen, 357 00:15:06,583 --> 00:15:08,500 was part of a gospel unit 358 00:15:08,500 --> 00:15:12,208 that would often perform at various functions 359 00:15:12,208 --> 00:15:15,500 schools, churches, and, in this case, prison. 360 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:18,750 -On one particular weekend, Mr. Terry and my father 361 00:15:18,750 --> 00:15:20,875 went to see the gospel group perform, 362 00:15:20,875 --> 00:15:22,750 and that was the beginning of the magic 363 00:15:22,750 --> 00:15:25,417 between my father and Mr. Byrd, 364 00:15:25,417 --> 00:15:27,708 because he saw what Mr. Byrd was doing on stage 365 00:15:27,708 --> 00:15:30,375 and he said, "This is great. This is what I wanted to do." 366 00:15:30,375 --> 00:15:33,667 -Uncle Bobby became friendly with him, 367 00:15:33,667 --> 00:15:38,000 and in order for him to get out of the detention center, 368 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,750 he had to have a home. And he didn't. 369 00:15:41,750 --> 00:15:43,375 -Served almost four years. 370 00:15:43,375 --> 00:15:45,417 But one day, I got wise to myself and said, 371 00:15:45,417 --> 00:15:47,208 "I want to get straight," and I sat down 372 00:15:47,208 --> 00:15:50,125 and wrote a letter to the parole board myself, you know? 373 00:15:50,125 --> 00:15:52,083 And they accepted me. 374 00:15:52,083 --> 00:15:54,375 -So Mr. Byrd and his family 375 00:15:54,375 --> 00:15:56,250 orchestrated a way to help my father 376 00:15:56,250 --> 00:16:00,833 get paroled into their household back in Toccoa. 377 00:16:00,833 --> 00:16:03,417 -The Famous Flames. -That's my group. 378 00:16:03,417 --> 00:16:06,292 James, he wasn't in the group at first. 379 00:16:06,292 --> 00:16:09,833 -Bobby Byrd expressed an interest in him and said, 380 00:16:09,833 --> 00:16:11,875 "Let me help you," and took him in. 381 00:16:11,875 --> 00:16:15,125 And that's where he met his first wife and -- 382 00:16:15,125 --> 00:16:17,542 and just started a life there. 383 00:16:17,542 --> 00:16:20,042 -It was all written by, by the Lord up front, you know? 384 00:16:20,042 --> 00:16:22,500 And said, "You got to live this out, James Brown, 385 00:16:22,500 --> 00:16:24,917 and be an example to people of what can be done 386 00:16:24,917 --> 00:16:26,417 and the way you should be going, you know?" 387 00:16:32,417 --> 00:16:33,708 -My experience was -- was like a teaching, 388 00:16:33,708 --> 00:16:35,208 but it was also luck, you know? 389 00:16:35,208 --> 00:16:36,917 People out there are pulling in your corner, 390 00:16:36,917 --> 00:16:39,375 and then somebody upstairs 391 00:16:39,375 --> 00:16:41,833 who kind of gave you that extra chance. 392 00:16:41,833 --> 00:16:44,167 ♪ Yeah, pretty baby 393 00:16:44,167 --> 00:16:47,000 ♪ This is what I say 394 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:49,750 ♪ You can always pay my way 395 00:16:49,750 --> 00:16:51,542 -How my parents met, 396 00:16:51,542 --> 00:16:54,958 it all kind of goes back into his friendship with Bobby Byrd. 397 00:16:54,958 --> 00:16:57,042 Mr. Byrd wanted to take my father out 398 00:16:57,042 --> 00:16:59,042 to a basketball game at a local high school. 399 00:16:59,042 --> 00:17:00,875 Whitman Street High School. 400 00:17:00,875 --> 00:17:04,250 And my mom, Velma Warren, was a basketball player on the team. 401 00:17:04,250 --> 00:17:06,000 She was very athletic, 402 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,333 and it was like instant magic between the two. 403 00:17:08,333 --> 00:17:10,917 Shortly after that, when he married my mother, 404 00:17:10,917 --> 00:17:13,042 he knew that, "Hey, I have to find 405 00:17:13,042 --> 00:17:16,417 something better to really feed my family." 406 00:17:16,417 --> 00:17:17,667 -But I know that I had to make it. 407 00:17:17,667 --> 00:17:20,000 I had to have a determination to go on, 408 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,208 and my determination was to be somebody. 409 00:17:22,208 --> 00:17:26,958 -Most of the groups were nice, smooth-singing people. 410 00:17:26,958 --> 00:17:30,792 James came in with this rowdy type of a idea, 411 00:17:30,792 --> 00:17:34,208 up-tempo, gutsy stuff. 412 00:17:34,208 --> 00:17:36,042 We'd start rehearsing, and we had -- 413 00:17:36,042 --> 00:17:37,500 the porch would be full of people 414 00:17:37,500 --> 00:17:39,708 and everybody peeping through the windows 415 00:17:39,708 --> 00:17:41,125 and that kind of thing. 416 00:17:41,125 --> 00:17:42,917 They didn't do that for no other groups. 417 00:17:42,917 --> 00:17:45,250 I knew we had something. 418 00:17:45,250 --> 00:17:47,208 -♪ I grabbed what I had in one hand ♪ 419 00:17:47,208 --> 00:17:49,417 ♪ And my baby by the other 420 00:17:49,417 --> 00:17:51,208 ♪ A giant grabbed my coattail and said ♪ 421 00:17:51,208 --> 00:17:52,875 ♪ Don't you go another farther 422 00:17:52,875 --> 00:17:56,042 -He and Bobby Byrd formed what became the Famous Flames, 423 00:17:56,042 --> 00:17:57,500 and they started playing 424 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:00,417 all those White colleges, like Clemson, 425 00:18:00,417 --> 00:18:04,208 the University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, 426 00:18:04,208 --> 00:18:05,750 building up their audience. 427 00:18:05,750 --> 00:18:10,792 ♪ 428 00:18:10,792 --> 00:18:12,667 James started getting booked 429 00:18:12,667 --> 00:18:16,083 by all these White college fraternities and their parties. 430 00:18:16,083 --> 00:18:19,833 Southern frat groups were hiring Black bands 431 00:18:19,833 --> 00:18:23,125 because, man, they were stirring up those women. 432 00:18:23,125 --> 00:18:25,000 You know, they -- [ Laughing ] They -- 433 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,667 they were getting those women excited. 434 00:18:27,667 --> 00:18:29,875 -He said when he first heard the ladies scream, 435 00:18:29,875 --> 00:18:31,708 he knew music was it. 436 00:18:31,708 --> 00:18:32,833 [ Laughing ] 437 00:18:32,833 --> 00:18:36,042 [ Women screaming ] 438 00:18:36,042 --> 00:18:38,042 -Him and Mr. Byrd would practice like 439 00:18:38,042 --> 00:18:40,708 I don't know what to become successful. 440 00:18:40,708 --> 00:18:44,750 -♪ Da da la, da da la 441 00:18:44,750 --> 00:18:48,750 ♪ Da da la, da da la 442 00:18:48,750 --> 00:18:51,375 -During that time, a lot of Black entertainers 443 00:18:51,375 --> 00:18:56,042 would perform at local clubs in Alabama, Lower Georgia, 444 00:18:56,042 --> 00:18:57,958 and they wanted to see the impact 445 00:18:57,958 --> 00:18:59,542 that they were having on their crowds, 446 00:18:59,542 --> 00:19:01,417 and I think that was the first time they went down 447 00:19:01,417 --> 00:19:04,042 and they met and saw Little Richard. 448 00:19:04,042 --> 00:19:06,458 -♪ Lucille 449 00:19:06,458 --> 00:19:08,625 ♪ You won't do your sister's will ♪ 450 00:19:08,625 --> 00:19:10,250 -Little Richard was already out there. 451 00:19:10,250 --> 00:19:11,583 Little Richard was doing his thing. 452 00:19:11,583 --> 00:19:13,875 So at that time, he was hotter than dad. 453 00:19:13,875 --> 00:19:19,542 -In the 1950s, James Brown borrowed a lot of his look 454 00:19:19,542 --> 00:19:21,750 and sound and style from Little Richard. 455 00:19:21,750 --> 00:19:25,250 -They had the same manager, Brown and Richard, 456 00:19:25,250 --> 00:19:27,833 and Richard was double booked. 457 00:19:27,833 --> 00:19:30,292 Wasn't nobody turning money down in those days. 458 00:19:30,292 --> 00:19:33,042 -James Brown would actually fill in for Little Richard, 459 00:19:33,042 --> 00:19:35,375 and people were kind of like, 460 00:19:35,375 --> 00:19:36,875 "I don't know if that's Little Richard or not," 461 00:19:36,875 --> 00:19:40,208 but for a while, James Brown was able to pull it off. 462 00:19:40,208 --> 00:19:42,167 -People sometimes forget that Little Richard 463 00:19:42,167 --> 00:19:45,417 was the direct influencer of James Brown. 464 00:19:45,417 --> 00:19:48,875 -That friendship lasts over the course of 5 or 6 decades. 465 00:19:48,875 --> 00:19:51,208 And they loved each other. 466 00:19:51,208 --> 00:19:54,042 -Mr. Brown, if we could get into 467 00:19:54,042 --> 00:19:55,375 something of your background. 468 00:19:55,375 --> 00:19:57,167 When did you first begin? 469 00:19:57,167 --> 00:20:00,667 -Well, Brother Brown, I guess we should bring this thing down 470 00:20:00,667 --> 00:20:03,667 and start by just calling me James, brother. 471 00:20:03,667 --> 00:20:04,792 Okay? -Right on. 472 00:20:04,792 --> 00:20:06,375 -All righty. 473 00:20:06,375 --> 00:20:09,625 I started professionally in 1956, 474 00:20:09,625 --> 00:20:11,708 the first of '56, 475 00:20:11,708 --> 00:20:13,667 when we recorded "Please, Please," 476 00:20:13,667 --> 00:20:17,417 the last of '55, and it was released April of '56. 477 00:20:17,417 --> 00:20:21,917 -♪ Please, please, please, please ♪ 478 00:20:21,917 --> 00:20:24,083 -♪ Please, please, don't go 479 00:20:24,083 --> 00:20:28,375 -♪ Please, please, please 480 00:20:28,375 --> 00:20:30,542 -He recorded "Please, Please, Please" 481 00:20:30,542 --> 00:20:33,375 pretty much as an independent recording in Macon. 482 00:20:33,375 --> 00:20:35,250 -When I heard myself, I just kept running around 483 00:20:35,250 --> 00:20:36,667 and saying, "That's me. You know that's me. 484 00:20:36,667 --> 00:20:38,042 That's me, man! You hear this cat singing? 485 00:20:38,042 --> 00:20:39,875 That's me, man." 486 00:20:39,875 --> 00:20:42,625 "Please, Please" was out about a year being played on the air 487 00:20:42,625 --> 00:20:43,958 just on a demo. 488 00:20:43,958 --> 00:20:47,875 -The guy from King Records heard it being played 489 00:20:47,875 --> 00:20:50,708 and got James signed to King. 490 00:20:50,708 --> 00:20:52,292 -One night, it was -- it was raining, 491 00:20:52,292 --> 00:20:53,542 and a fella come through, and he was sitting 492 00:20:53,542 --> 00:20:55,125 in a restaurant, and he heard the record, 493 00:20:55,125 --> 00:20:56,750 and he said, "Who's this guy?" 494 00:20:56,750 --> 00:20:59,458 He said, "Well, you know, that's a local group round here." 495 00:20:59,458 --> 00:21:02,333 And I was in Florida, and they called me from Georgia. 496 00:21:02,333 --> 00:21:06,250 And I drove up 500-some miles and got the okay 497 00:21:06,250 --> 00:21:08,125 and drove another 500 to record it. 498 00:21:08,125 --> 00:21:12,042 -It was an interesting label that culturally was living 499 00:21:12,042 --> 00:21:14,125 in hillbilly and country music. 500 00:21:14,125 --> 00:21:18,542 Syd Nathan had the presence of mind to see a marketplace, 501 00:21:18,542 --> 00:21:20,167 certainly among the Black community 502 00:21:20,167 --> 00:21:22,833 for a music like James Brown's. 503 00:21:22,833 --> 00:21:28,000 -Syd Nathan was not sold on James Brown immediately. 504 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:29,875 When he first heard "Please, Please, Please," 505 00:21:29,875 --> 00:21:31,542 he was like, "Well, where's the lyrics? 506 00:21:31,542 --> 00:21:33,375 Like, where's the...? 507 00:21:33,375 --> 00:21:35,333 Is 'please' the only word you're gonna say?" 508 00:21:35,333 --> 00:21:37,500 -♪ Please, please, please, please ♪ 509 00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:40,458 ♪ Please, please, please, please ♪ 510 00:21:40,458 --> 00:21:42,458 -And my first record, "Please, please," 511 00:21:42,458 --> 00:21:44,375 went right to the top. 512 00:21:44,375 --> 00:21:45,833 -♪ I love you so 513 00:21:45,833 --> 00:21:53,250 ♪ 514 00:21:58,750 --> 00:21:59,875 -♪ Try me 515 00:21:59,875 --> 00:22:03,917 ♪ Just try me 516 00:22:03,917 --> 00:22:06,333 ♪ And your love 517 00:22:06,333 --> 00:22:11,167 ♪ Your love will always be true ♪ 518 00:22:11,167 --> 00:22:12,375 ♪ Whoa 519 00:22:12,375 --> 00:22:14,833 ♪ I need you 520 00:22:14,833 --> 00:22:16,667 ♪ I, I 521 00:22:16,667 --> 00:22:18,083 ♪ Alright 522 00:22:18,083 --> 00:22:19,708 ♪ Whoa-oh 523 00:22:19,708 --> 00:22:21,042 ♪ I 524 00:22:21,042 --> 00:22:23,958 -My records were a cross of R&B and race music. 525 00:22:23,958 --> 00:22:26,375 -That's right. You never got played on stations 526 00:22:26,375 --> 00:22:27,917 Elvis got played on. -That's right. 527 00:22:27,917 --> 00:22:29,833 -You never got -- I never worked at a station 528 00:22:29,833 --> 00:22:31,542 that played your records. -That's right. 529 00:22:31,542 --> 00:22:33,458 -Lot of what we called White stations never played you. 530 00:22:33,458 --> 00:22:34,958 -Mine was underground. 531 00:22:34,958 --> 00:22:36,875 -James Brown not being on his first album 532 00:22:36,875 --> 00:22:39,667 is just a typical expression of erasure, 533 00:22:39,667 --> 00:22:42,042 of Black bodies and Blackness 534 00:22:42,042 --> 00:22:44,917 that we're on the other side of, in some respects, 535 00:22:44,917 --> 00:22:47,542 but that we still have to negotiate today. 536 00:22:47,542 --> 00:22:49,542 -If you were Black in the '50s, 537 00:22:49,542 --> 00:22:51,833 and you wanted to make it in show business, 538 00:22:51,833 --> 00:22:54,375 you needed to be tall, light-skinned -- 539 00:22:54,375 --> 00:22:56,375 as he'd say, "light-skinneded" -- 540 00:22:56,375 --> 00:22:59,667 wavy hair, and a certain polish. 541 00:22:59,667 --> 00:23:01,417 ♪ 542 00:23:01,417 --> 00:23:05,542 -So, here you have this shorter man who's dark-skinned, 543 00:23:05,542 --> 00:23:07,833 and he has something to prove. 544 00:23:07,833 --> 00:23:11,250 ♪ 545 00:23:11,250 --> 00:23:13,708 -James Brown is stepping into himself 546 00:23:13,708 --> 00:23:16,250 as he is presenting himself, this beautiful, 547 00:23:16,250 --> 00:23:19,500 dark-skinned Black man who's screaming at you, 548 00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:22,583 talking about, "Please, please, please, please." 549 00:23:22,583 --> 00:23:25,917 -First, "Please, Please, Please" had the Famous Flames on it. 550 00:23:25,917 --> 00:23:27,500 Just the Famous Flames. 551 00:23:27,500 --> 00:23:31,375 Then it became James Brown with the Famous Flames. 552 00:23:31,375 --> 00:23:34,583 Now, all that was done unbeknownst to us. 553 00:23:34,583 --> 00:23:37,750 You know, we didn't know this was about to happen 554 00:23:37,750 --> 00:23:40,417 until that record came out. 555 00:23:40,417 --> 00:23:45,500 Then it had James Brown and his Famous Flames. 556 00:23:45,500 --> 00:23:48,292 That's where the problems started right there. 557 00:23:48,292 --> 00:23:51,583 -Well, dad being dad -- [ Laughs ] -- 558 00:23:51,583 --> 00:23:55,042 being James Brown before he was "James Brown," 559 00:23:55,042 --> 00:23:56,750 kind of took over. 560 00:23:56,750 --> 00:24:02,458 ♪ 561 00:24:02,458 --> 00:24:06,375 -It's always trouble when you single someone out. 562 00:24:06,375 --> 00:24:07,958 Naturally, it's gonna be tension, 563 00:24:07,958 --> 00:24:12,792 so the Famous Flames quit and moved back to Toccoa 564 00:24:12,792 --> 00:24:15,750 to get, like, regular day jobs. 565 00:24:15,750 --> 00:24:18,542 -A lot of people think that when James recorded 566 00:24:18,542 --> 00:24:21,542 "Please, Please, Please" that... 567 00:24:21,542 --> 00:24:23,958 that shot his career into high gear and everything. 568 00:24:23,958 --> 00:24:26,542 It was another two years before James had another hit. 569 00:24:26,542 --> 00:24:28,458 -♪ I need you 570 00:24:28,458 --> 00:24:30,125 [ Cheers and applause ] 571 00:24:30,125 --> 00:24:32,708 ♪ 572 00:24:32,708 --> 00:24:36,875 ♪ Oh, oh, walk with me ♪ 573 00:24:36,875 --> 00:24:38,208 -♪ Walk with me 574 00:24:38,208 --> 00:24:40,750 -His second successful hit, which was "Try Me," 575 00:24:40,750 --> 00:24:42,958 wound up selling a million units 576 00:24:42,958 --> 00:24:46,750 and became James Brown's saving grace. 577 00:24:46,750 --> 00:24:49,167 The power of James Brown is, 578 00:24:49,167 --> 00:24:53,667 he somehow got the Flames back into the fold. 579 00:24:53,667 --> 00:24:55,792 -He literally built himself from scratch. 580 00:24:55,792 --> 00:24:57,875 I mean, this was one of those guys 581 00:24:57,875 --> 00:25:01,958 who just felt every inch of the soul that he gave people. 582 00:25:01,958 --> 00:25:05,708 -Soul is a man finding his way into something 583 00:25:05,708 --> 00:25:08,500 that he don't have a theory for. 584 00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:10,250 He's singing just what he feels. 585 00:25:10,250 --> 00:25:11,542 ♪ 586 00:25:11,542 --> 00:25:18,625 -♪ Aaaaaaah 587 00:25:18,625 --> 00:25:21,417 -We're talking about an artist/audience relationship. 588 00:25:21,417 --> 00:25:24,167 If you didn't represent excellence, 589 00:25:24,167 --> 00:25:25,208 they would let you know. 590 00:25:25,208 --> 00:25:26,792 James Brown is a performer 591 00:25:26,792 --> 00:25:29,833 who cut his teeth in the Chitlin' Circuit, right? 592 00:25:29,833 --> 00:25:32,208 He had to become the hardest-working man 593 00:25:32,208 --> 00:25:33,417 in show business. 594 00:25:33,417 --> 00:25:35,125 That wasn't just a title. 595 00:25:35,125 --> 00:25:37,375 That was something he really was invested in. 596 00:25:37,375 --> 00:25:43,833 ♪ 597 00:25:43,833 --> 00:25:47,375 The Chitlin' Circuit was a run of venues, 598 00:25:47,375 --> 00:25:50,042 primarily in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, 599 00:25:50,042 --> 00:25:52,333 where African-American performers could play. 600 00:25:52,333 --> 00:25:55,542 They had these small spaces in these kind of sundown towns 601 00:25:55,542 --> 00:25:57,833 or even in bigger markets, 602 00:25:57,833 --> 00:26:00,917 where Black performers could literally go entertain the crowd 603 00:26:00,917 --> 00:26:03,875 and really build themselves up and build their brands. 604 00:26:03,875 --> 00:26:06,250 -You had the Uptown Theater in Philly, 605 00:26:06,250 --> 00:26:08,167 the Regal Theater in Chicago, 606 00:26:08,167 --> 00:26:10,917 the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., 607 00:26:10,917 --> 00:26:12,583 the Fox Theatre in Detroit, 608 00:26:12,583 --> 00:26:14,292 and the Apollo Theater in New York. 609 00:26:14,292 --> 00:26:15,875 These were like a tour. 610 00:26:15,875 --> 00:26:17,875 -But one thing you better not do... 611 00:26:17,875 --> 00:26:21,000 you better not be wack and take Black people's money. 612 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,208 Ain't got no money for you to waste 613 00:26:23,208 --> 00:26:26,750 by me spending my time and what little money I got 614 00:26:26,750 --> 00:26:29,542 on you being a terrible-ass act. 615 00:26:29,542 --> 00:26:37,792 ♪ 616 00:26:37,792 --> 00:26:41,458 -Black people gravitated to a James Brown concert 617 00:26:41,458 --> 00:26:43,875 because James Brown was a phenomenon. 618 00:26:43,875 --> 00:26:46,083 He was unprecedented. 619 00:26:46,083 --> 00:26:49,417 ♪ 620 00:26:49,417 --> 00:26:51,583 -Well, that's James Brown. 621 00:26:51,583 --> 00:26:54,542 Dancing, singing, entertaining, 622 00:26:54,542 --> 00:26:55,875 falling to the floor with, 623 00:26:55,875 --> 00:26:57,792 you know, the theatrics and everything. 624 00:26:57,792 --> 00:27:01,083 It was enhancing everything else that was going on musically. 625 00:27:01,083 --> 00:27:04,625 The totality of it was an experience, 626 00:27:04,625 --> 00:27:06,792 the ultimate experience, 627 00:27:06,792 --> 00:27:08,375 that people are still -- 628 00:27:08,375 --> 00:27:11,208 such as Bruno Mars or Janelle Monáe. 629 00:27:11,208 --> 00:27:14,000 Like, there are so many artists out today 630 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,458 who are still coming from this -- 631 00:27:16,458 --> 00:27:18,875 this influence of the great James Brown. 632 00:27:18,875 --> 00:27:20,833 -You move around a lot, don't you? 633 00:27:20,833 --> 00:27:22,875 -Yes, I do a lot of dancing. -You get down on the floor? 634 00:27:22,875 --> 00:27:25,083 -Yes. Splits, knee drops. 635 00:27:25,083 --> 00:27:28,042 I can make the mike stand just stand there, 636 00:27:28,042 --> 00:27:29,750 and I can spin around three or four times. 637 00:27:29,750 --> 00:27:31,333 Triple spins and everything. 638 00:27:31,333 --> 00:27:34,125 -Did you plan that or did that just start happening? 639 00:27:34,125 --> 00:27:35,333 -It happened. 640 00:27:35,333 --> 00:27:36,917 Along with the cape act, as well, 641 00:27:36,917 --> 00:27:39,792 where I throw the cape and run off and come back. 642 00:27:39,792 --> 00:27:42,417 That was -- It happened extemporaneous, 643 00:27:42,417 --> 00:27:43,708 right off -- to impulse. 644 00:27:43,708 --> 00:27:45,542 And then it became -- it was so great, 645 00:27:45,542 --> 00:27:47,583 it had to become part of my act. 646 00:27:47,583 --> 00:27:51,292 -My mom loved all my father's music. 647 00:27:51,292 --> 00:27:52,750 And my father was performing. 648 00:27:52,750 --> 00:27:57,000 I mean, he was throwing watches, necklaces, 649 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,500 taking his shirt off, throwing it in the audience. 650 00:27:59,500 --> 00:28:01,875 And the audience was going wild. 651 00:28:01,875 --> 00:28:07,292 ♪ 652 00:28:07,292 --> 00:28:11,750 -He had the most exciting stage show in the business, 653 00:28:11,750 --> 00:28:16,292 and logic tells you, "We should release this, 654 00:28:16,292 --> 00:28:18,542 make a record out of this." 655 00:28:18,542 --> 00:28:21,792 -[ Singing ] ♪ Alright 656 00:28:21,792 --> 00:28:23,208 -James Brown saw the connection 657 00:28:23,208 --> 00:28:25,708 between him and his audience live. 658 00:28:25,708 --> 00:28:28,667 People falling out, trying to jump on stage. 659 00:28:28,667 --> 00:28:31,542 They're screaming before he even get a note out. 660 00:28:31,542 --> 00:28:33,708 And the Apollo at the time 661 00:28:33,708 --> 00:28:37,583 is the hottest venue in the world. 662 00:28:37,583 --> 00:28:39,125 It's Harlem. 663 00:28:39,125 --> 00:28:41,708 It's the epicenter of Black culture. 664 00:28:41,708 --> 00:28:43,458 To be the king of that, 665 00:28:43,458 --> 00:28:45,417 you got to get that on that real. 666 00:28:45,417 --> 00:28:49,875 -In 1962, I had a planned show at the Apollo Theater 667 00:28:49,875 --> 00:28:52,125 to give the public what they want. 668 00:28:52,125 --> 00:28:55,042 -The show was -- It was exciting. 669 00:28:55,042 --> 00:28:57,833 Him doing this as a live album and expecting people to buy it, 670 00:28:57,833 --> 00:28:59,917 his record company didn't think it was a good idea. 671 00:28:59,917 --> 00:29:02,542 And then James said, "I'm going to do it anyway." 672 00:29:02,542 --> 00:29:04,375 -He went to the labels and whatnot, and they was giving -- 673 00:29:04,375 --> 00:29:06,167 You know, they didn't think it would work or whatnot. 674 00:29:06,167 --> 00:29:08,792 "It's fine. I'll take my own money and I'll do it." 675 00:29:08,792 --> 00:29:10,875 He paid for it himself. 676 00:29:10,875 --> 00:29:13,792 He produced that thing with his own cash. 677 00:29:13,792 --> 00:29:15,875 -We're used to live albums now, 678 00:29:15,875 --> 00:29:18,375 but at that time, what are you, crazy? 679 00:29:18,375 --> 00:29:21,042 -♪ Hey, come on, hey, hey 680 00:29:21,042 --> 00:29:23,000 ♪ I'm feelin' alright, huh 681 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:24,708 -They said it couldn't be done. 682 00:29:24,708 --> 00:29:26,542 I've always been a man to do my own thing 683 00:29:26,542 --> 00:29:27,958 and control my own destiny. 684 00:29:27,958 --> 00:29:29,667 -♪ I'm feeling alright, get it 685 00:29:29,667 --> 00:29:31,125 ♪ Uh, uh, uh 686 00:29:37,250 --> 00:29:38,958 -So, now, ladies and gentlemen, it is star time. 687 00:29:38,958 --> 00:29:41,000 Are you ready for star time?! [ Audience cheers ] 688 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,917 -"Live at the Apollo" is one of the most important albums 689 00:29:42,917 --> 00:29:44,375 in the history of recorded music 690 00:29:44,375 --> 00:29:48,208 because it captures James Brown and his band 691 00:29:48,208 --> 00:29:51,500 at a very specific time in the evolution of his career. 692 00:29:51,500 --> 00:29:53,958 He had figured out how to perform in such a way 693 00:29:53,958 --> 00:29:55,833 that was going to win people over. 694 00:29:55,833 --> 00:29:57,750 -It is indeed a great pleasure to present to you 695 00:29:57,750 --> 00:29:59,167 at this particular time -- 696 00:29:59,167 --> 00:30:01,750 national and international known 697 00:30:01,750 --> 00:30:04,500 as the hardest-working man in show business. 698 00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:07,125 Here to sing "I'll Go Crazy." 699 00:30:07,125 --> 00:30:10,375 -The emcee famously did the big introduction. 700 00:30:10,375 --> 00:30:13,375 "The hardest-working man in show business. Mr. Dynamite." 701 00:30:13,375 --> 00:30:16,083 Bah-bah-bah. And the band is wailing. It's like... 702 00:30:16,083 --> 00:30:19,875 -James Brown and the Famous Flames! 703 00:30:19,875 --> 00:30:24,875 -Then everybody in the place just lost it! 704 00:30:24,875 --> 00:30:26,375 -The record company didn't believe in it. 705 00:30:26,375 --> 00:30:27,875 The record person said, 706 00:30:27,875 --> 00:30:29,667 "You can't sing the same thing over and over." 707 00:30:29,667 --> 00:30:30,875 And I said, "Well, I can because 708 00:30:30,875 --> 00:30:32,625 when you sing it live, it's different." 709 00:30:32,625 --> 00:30:34,375 -Well, you know in the studio recordings, they can fix it. 710 00:30:34,375 --> 00:30:37,375 They can -- They're gonna, "Take two. Take three." 711 00:30:37,375 --> 00:30:39,083 What he was thinking is, "Well, I'm going to give them 712 00:30:39,083 --> 00:30:40,792 the feeling of being there," 713 00:30:40,792 --> 00:30:42,333 which you still get when you listen to it now. 714 00:30:42,333 --> 00:30:45,375 Put it on now, you feel like you're at the show. 715 00:30:45,375 --> 00:30:48,208 -He and his band had gone through so much, 716 00:30:48,208 --> 00:30:52,417 and he had gone through so much to get to where he was. 717 00:30:52,417 --> 00:30:55,833 It's an album that actually confirms its title 718 00:30:55,833 --> 00:30:57,708 because it is all the way live. 719 00:30:57,708 --> 00:31:01,000 ♪ 720 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,875 -It's one of the earliest examples of being viral. 721 00:31:03,875 --> 00:31:06,042 Every household had to have 722 00:31:06,042 --> 00:31:09,583 "James Brown: Live at the Apollo, Volume 1." 723 00:31:09,583 --> 00:31:11,708 He revolutionized the live album. 724 00:31:11,708 --> 00:31:14,375 Deejays, they're playing the entire album 725 00:31:14,375 --> 00:31:16,125 from start to finish. 726 00:31:16,125 --> 00:31:18,042 And it's a hit, but not only that, 727 00:31:18,042 --> 00:31:21,583 but this album is also making its way overseas. 728 00:31:21,583 --> 00:31:26,292 ♪ 729 00:31:26,292 --> 00:31:28,083 -"James Brown: Live at the Apollo" 730 00:31:28,083 --> 00:31:30,417 was a big hit album. 731 00:31:30,417 --> 00:31:33,833 Collecting records in those early days was quite expensive. 732 00:31:33,833 --> 00:31:36,250 -♪ Believe me 733 00:31:36,250 --> 00:31:38,208 ♪ I'll go crazy 734 00:31:38,208 --> 00:31:40,708 -Not all these records were readily available in England 735 00:31:40,708 --> 00:31:42,375 and not easy to get. 736 00:31:42,375 --> 00:31:44,917 But that one was, and we all shared it around. 737 00:31:44,917 --> 00:31:46,750 I just loved the tone of his voice, 738 00:31:46,750 --> 00:31:48,625 and it's so raspy and so powerful 739 00:31:48,625 --> 00:31:52,833 and doing those high screams, and, yeah, it was amazing. 740 00:31:52,833 --> 00:31:56,458 ♪ 741 00:31:56,458 --> 00:31:58,875 ♪ Try me 742 00:31:58,875 --> 00:32:00,667 -♪ Try me 743 00:32:00,792 --> 00:32:02,250 -♪ Try me 744 00:32:02,375 --> 00:32:04,083 -♪ Try me 745 00:32:04,083 --> 00:32:06,875 -♪ Darlin', tell me 746 00:32:06,875 --> 00:32:09,625 ♪ I need you 747 00:32:09,625 --> 00:32:12,375 -I write and arrange all my tunes with my records, 748 00:32:12,375 --> 00:32:14,375 and I've never taken music in my life. 749 00:32:14,375 --> 00:32:17,042 I write all the lyrics, all the music, 750 00:32:17,042 --> 00:32:19,042 record the record and everything. 751 00:32:19,042 --> 00:32:21,167 So when the record come out, it's James Brown. 752 00:32:21,167 --> 00:32:22,542 It's not somebody else. 753 00:32:22,542 --> 00:32:24,458 ♪ 754 00:32:24,458 --> 00:32:26,333 ♪ Hey 755 00:32:26,333 --> 00:32:27,542 ♪ Yeah 756 00:32:27,542 --> 00:32:34,542 ♪ 757 00:32:34,542 --> 00:32:36,917 -"Live at the Apollo" peaked at number two 758 00:32:36,917 --> 00:32:39,250 on the Billboard charts. 759 00:32:39,250 --> 00:32:41,875 It was on the charts for 66 weeks. 760 00:32:41,875 --> 00:32:45,208 So that's, what, a year and 14 more weeks. 761 00:32:45,208 --> 00:32:47,583 So -- Wow. That says quite a lot. 762 00:32:47,583 --> 00:32:49,333 Especially at that time. 763 00:32:49,333 --> 00:32:52,542 -It's the opposite of the way the label was thinking. 764 00:32:52,542 --> 00:32:54,542 That's genius thinking. 765 00:32:54,542 --> 00:32:56,000 He's knowing the power of the show. 766 00:32:56,125 --> 00:32:57,542 He's seeing the power of the show. 767 00:32:57,708 --> 00:32:59,208 He's seeing the power of how people feel, 768 00:32:59,208 --> 00:33:01,542 and they're crying and falling out every night. 769 00:33:01,542 --> 00:33:03,708 I do feel like the live album gives you a different feeling 770 00:33:03,708 --> 00:33:05,458 when you listen to it. That's the whole purpose of them, 771 00:33:05,458 --> 00:33:06,917 is that you do feel like you're there, 772 00:33:06,917 --> 00:33:08,875 and they do feel like the little -- 773 00:33:08,875 --> 00:33:10,708 the little imperfections are great. 774 00:33:10,708 --> 00:33:12,792 ♪ 775 00:33:12,792 --> 00:33:15,375 [ Audience cheers ] 776 00:33:15,375 --> 00:33:18,917 ♪ 777 00:33:18,917 --> 00:33:21,458 -♪ Ohh 778 00:33:21,458 --> 00:33:23,917 ♪ Ohh-ohh 779 00:33:23,917 --> 00:33:26,583 ♪ 780 00:33:26,583 --> 00:33:27,625 -♪ I don't mind 781 00:33:27,708 --> 00:33:29,833 -♪ I don't mind 782 00:33:29,833 --> 00:33:33,500 -♪ Your love 783 00:33:33,500 --> 00:33:34,833 ♪ I don't mind 784 00:33:34,958 --> 00:33:36,167 -♪ I don't mind 785 00:33:36,167 --> 00:33:38,750 -♪ The one you thinking of 786 00:33:38,750 --> 00:33:40,833 -James Brown was an amazing singer. 787 00:33:40,833 --> 00:33:43,625 He comes out of a Black church tradition 788 00:33:43,625 --> 00:33:46,083 where you know how to sing. 789 00:33:46,083 --> 00:33:48,917 You imbue a song with a certain kind of power. 790 00:33:48,917 --> 00:33:50,750 You're able to tell your own story 791 00:33:50,750 --> 00:33:54,083 by kind of pulling your voice out of your body 792 00:33:54,083 --> 00:33:57,042 in such a way that it enters into your music. 793 00:33:57,042 --> 00:34:00,583 -♪ I found someone to love me ♪ 794 00:34:00,583 --> 00:34:03,333 ♪ 795 00:34:03,333 --> 00:34:07,167 -James Brown. He appealed to everybody. 796 00:34:07,167 --> 00:34:09,125 I get visitors at the Apollo from France, 797 00:34:09,125 --> 00:34:13,792 Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Israel. 798 00:34:13,792 --> 00:34:15,542 And they all talk about James Brown. 799 00:34:22,125 --> 00:34:23,042 -I'm a religious man because a man must believe 800 00:34:23,042 --> 00:34:24,167 in something, you know? 801 00:34:24,167 --> 00:34:25,208 I know I believe in myself, too. 802 00:34:25,208 --> 00:34:26,542 I'm religious that way, too. 803 00:34:26,542 --> 00:34:27,875 I'm religiously believing in James Brown. 804 00:34:27,875 --> 00:34:29,375 -♪ I said I lost someone 805 00:34:29,375 --> 00:34:31,792 ♪ But I know where I'm gonna find them ♪ 806 00:34:31,792 --> 00:34:33,167 ♪ All aboard! -♪ Yeah! 807 00:34:33,292 --> 00:34:35,250 -♪ All aboard! -♪ Yeah! 808 00:34:35,250 --> 00:34:36,625 -♪ The night train 809 00:34:36,625 --> 00:34:42,292 ♪ 810 00:34:42,292 --> 00:34:44,333 -The success of "Live at the Apollo" 811 00:34:44,333 --> 00:34:46,458 woke up another part of James Brown, 812 00:34:46,458 --> 00:34:48,958 which is the business acumen. 813 00:34:48,958 --> 00:34:51,333 -To bootstrap if you were Black 814 00:34:51,333 --> 00:34:53,708 is Booker T. Washington theory. 815 00:34:53,708 --> 00:34:55,500 Work hard. Have a trade. 816 00:34:55,500 --> 00:34:57,250 You utilize what skill you have 817 00:34:57,250 --> 00:34:59,750 to bring yourself up in the American fabric, 818 00:34:59,750 --> 00:35:02,250 and those will be the things that were earned profit 819 00:35:02,250 --> 00:35:04,167 that helped to make you more self-sufficient, 820 00:35:04,167 --> 00:35:05,875 which is really something that James Brown 821 00:35:05,875 --> 00:35:07,500 was really, really big on. 822 00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:10,208 -This is a man who was fierce in his self-determination 823 00:35:10,208 --> 00:35:12,167 and his desire to also have 824 00:35:12,167 --> 00:35:14,375 that kind of autonomy and sovereignty. 825 00:35:14,375 --> 00:35:16,333 He was determined to do that. 826 00:35:16,333 --> 00:35:18,375 -Having a whole lot of creativity about yourself 827 00:35:18,375 --> 00:35:20,750 and no place to exercise it, it's very bad. 828 00:35:20,750 --> 00:35:24,375 -The tension between James Brown and Syd Nathan 829 00:35:24,375 --> 00:35:26,917 was almost necessary for Brown's 830 00:35:26,917 --> 00:35:29,375 "I have to do it myself" character. 831 00:35:29,375 --> 00:35:33,500 -Hold it. That was a good start, man. We're rolling. 832 00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:35,875 -Tell him not to holler that much. 833 00:35:35,875 --> 00:35:39,500 -Mr. Nathan said cool the melody a little bit, you know. 834 00:35:39,500 --> 00:35:41,542 I mean, make it more of a melodic thing. 835 00:35:41,542 --> 00:35:43,958 Because you're singing the hell out of it, 836 00:35:43,958 --> 00:35:45,625 but, you know, just a little more melody 837 00:35:45,625 --> 00:35:48,167 like you did on the -- -Trying to sing too hard. 838 00:35:48,167 --> 00:35:49,792 Tell him -- -Yeah, don't sing too hard. 839 00:35:49,792 --> 00:35:52,042 -♪ Get away from me 840 00:35:52,042 --> 00:35:54,792 -♪ Get away, get away 841 00:35:54,792 --> 00:35:57,292 -Well, one would easily say that being in jail 842 00:35:57,292 --> 00:36:02,333 is a far cry more difficult than speaking truth to power 843 00:36:02,333 --> 00:36:04,875 to a White man who holds purse strings. 844 00:36:04,875 --> 00:36:07,625 Throughout all of his difficult upbringing, 845 00:36:07,625 --> 00:36:11,875 James Brown was able to adapt and was able to be ingenious. 846 00:36:11,875 --> 00:36:13,542 ♪ 847 00:36:13,542 --> 00:36:17,458 -♪ Why 848 00:36:17,458 --> 00:36:21,333 ♪ Does everything have to happen to me? ♪ 849 00:36:21,333 --> 00:36:23,958 -James Brown felt that he wasn't going to 850 00:36:23,958 --> 00:36:25,375 get the kind of money 851 00:36:25,375 --> 00:36:28,042 that he wanted from King Records. 852 00:36:28,042 --> 00:36:32,042 He knew exactly what he wanted. He knew exactly how to do it. 853 00:36:32,042 --> 00:36:33,667 -I don't want to be totally programmed. 854 00:36:33,667 --> 00:36:36,375 I want to be able to think for myself to some degree. 855 00:36:36,375 --> 00:36:38,833 I think one thing that makes a Black man 856 00:36:38,833 --> 00:36:41,250 that's more heavier for the soul 857 00:36:41,250 --> 00:36:45,708 is because of the fact that he had extra-hard knocks, 858 00:36:45,708 --> 00:36:48,458 and he's lived with the word "can't" for so long. 859 00:36:48,458 --> 00:36:53,542 -W.E.B. Du Bois talks about the way in which the slave song 860 00:36:53,542 --> 00:36:57,750 is the one great gift that came from slavery. 861 00:36:57,750 --> 00:36:59,375 Everything else is crazy, 862 00:36:59,375 --> 00:37:02,000 but the song and the sound 863 00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,792 illuminates this truth about the nature of freedom. 864 00:37:06,792 --> 00:37:11,292 -For James Brown, the dollar is freedom and power. 865 00:37:11,292 --> 00:37:14,625 So he cuts a side deal on Smash Records, 866 00:37:14,625 --> 00:37:17,417 doing what he felt was best for his future. 867 00:37:17,417 --> 00:37:19,542 -Let's make a record. One take. Here we go. 868 00:37:19,542 --> 00:37:21,792 ♪ 869 00:37:21,792 --> 00:37:25,625 -♪ You've got your high-heeled sneakers on ♪ 870 00:37:25,625 --> 00:37:27,500 -Smash Records. They turned me loose. 871 00:37:27,500 --> 00:37:29,792 I wrote "Out of Sight" and "Maybe the Last Time." 872 00:37:29,792 --> 00:37:31,042 Had a two-sided hit. 873 00:37:31,042 --> 00:37:33,375 -"Out of Sight" represents 874 00:37:33,375 --> 00:37:37,375 a major tempo shift in James Brown's music. 875 00:37:37,375 --> 00:37:40,375 "Out of Sight" had a slower, 876 00:37:40,375 --> 00:37:42,792 slinkier, sexier, 877 00:37:42,792 --> 00:37:44,333 syncopated groove, 878 00:37:44,333 --> 00:37:46,417 and the slower that funk gets, 879 00:37:46,417 --> 00:37:48,750 the nastier funk gets. 880 00:37:48,750 --> 00:37:50,917 -You know, if you get a good James Brown "Huh," 881 00:37:50,917 --> 00:37:52,042 you felt it! 882 00:37:52,042 --> 00:37:53,875 -♪ Ho! 883 00:37:53,875 --> 00:37:55,208 ♪ Hey, hey 884 00:37:55,208 --> 00:37:58,042 -He used an alias for "Out of Sight." 885 00:37:58,042 --> 00:38:00,542 "Ted Wright" is actually James Brown. 886 00:38:00,542 --> 00:38:03,458 Syd Nathan has an injunction slapped on him 887 00:38:03,458 --> 00:38:05,000 to stop all future pressings. 888 00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,708 -Fortunately, at that moment, it was a hit record. 889 00:38:08,708 --> 00:38:11,542 -In this sort of arm-wrestling game that they had, 890 00:38:11,542 --> 00:38:13,625 James Brown had the upper hand 891 00:38:13,625 --> 00:38:15,667 because he comes back to King Records 892 00:38:15,667 --> 00:38:18,375 on his own terms with a bigger percentage. 893 00:38:18,375 --> 00:38:20,542 -Business is a part that you've got to adapt yourself to 894 00:38:20,542 --> 00:38:23,375 so you can be prepared for whatever might come up. 895 00:38:23,375 --> 00:38:25,208 -From one minute to another, 896 00:38:25,208 --> 00:38:30,583 you can't tell how this guy James Brown is going to act, 897 00:38:30,583 --> 00:38:35,583 and we respect the fact that he has made it. 898 00:38:35,583 --> 00:38:38,458 And he will fight with me 899 00:38:38,458 --> 00:38:41,625 and say, "Mr. Nathan, you are wrong." 900 00:38:41,625 --> 00:38:43,417 ♪ 901 00:38:43,417 --> 00:38:44,917 -As an olive branch. 902 00:38:44,917 --> 00:38:48,417 Syd Nathan gave James Brown his own imprint, 903 00:38:48,417 --> 00:38:50,833 which was Try Me Records. 904 00:38:50,833 --> 00:38:52,500 -Even when I was coming up in the industry, 905 00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:54,667 myself or Puff or Jay-Z or anybody in that era 906 00:38:54,667 --> 00:38:56,708 was always like, "Okay, well, once we get a record big, 907 00:38:56,708 --> 00:38:58,583 then how do we get our own record label? 908 00:38:58,583 --> 00:39:00,750 How do we get our own this? How do we get our own that?" 909 00:39:00,750 --> 00:39:02,583 And he was really the first one to show you 910 00:39:02,583 --> 00:39:04,042 that all that could happen. 911 00:39:04,042 --> 00:39:05,458 -James Brown was really setting 912 00:39:05,458 --> 00:39:06,875 the standard of excellence, 913 00:39:06,875 --> 00:39:09,500 having a crystallized vision for himself 914 00:39:09,500 --> 00:39:11,333 where he wanted to be, 915 00:39:11,333 --> 00:39:13,250 always creating a "yes." 916 00:39:13,250 --> 00:39:16,500 And this is something that I saw with Beyoncé. 917 00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:19,750 -♪ Alright tonight 918 00:39:19,750 --> 00:39:23,375 ♪ And I do just what I want, ow ♪ 919 00:39:23,375 --> 00:39:24,750 -He wouldn't take no for an answer. 920 00:39:24,750 --> 00:39:26,917 And he was fearless. His music was fearless. 921 00:39:26,917 --> 00:39:29,875 His sound, sonically, was fearless. 922 00:39:29,875 --> 00:39:34,833 -He decided that he wanted to not only draw his own people, 923 00:39:34,833 --> 00:39:37,708 but he wanted to draw White audiences. 924 00:39:37,708 --> 00:39:42,250 ♪ 925 00:39:42,250 --> 00:39:44,125 -He got on the "T.A.M.I. Show," 926 00:39:44,125 --> 00:39:46,000 and everybody said, 927 00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,875 "Well, he's not gonna fit," and this and that. 928 00:39:48,875 --> 00:39:52,458 James Brown definitely was a showman, and he proves it. 929 00:39:52,458 --> 00:39:55,208 -The stakes were high in the "T.A.M.I. Show." 930 00:39:55,208 --> 00:39:57,375 Those were probably the highest stakes 931 00:39:57,375 --> 00:39:59,375 that James Brown had gone up against 932 00:39:59,375 --> 00:40:02,417 in terms of other artists. 933 00:40:02,417 --> 00:40:04,542 -The greatest of the great, including such kings 934 00:40:04,542 --> 00:40:06,875 of rock entertainment as... 935 00:40:06,875 --> 00:40:09,583 ♪ 936 00:40:09,583 --> 00:40:11,417 ...and today's hottest exponents 937 00:40:11,417 --> 00:40:13,208 of the Merseybeat from England, 938 00:40:13,208 --> 00:40:15,542 The Rolling Stones! 939 00:40:15,542 --> 00:40:17,500 -Steve Binder. He was the producer. 940 00:40:17,500 --> 00:40:19,375 And Binder said, "Well, you go on last." 941 00:40:19,375 --> 00:40:21,417 You kind of did what you were asked to do. 942 00:40:21,417 --> 00:40:23,333 You're not gonna go, "I'm not going to go on. 943 00:40:23,333 --> 00:40:24,833 I want to go on here. I want to go there." 944 00:40:24,833 --> 00:40:26,708 If you're asked to go on at the end, you go on at the end 945 00:40:26,708 --> 00:40:28,375 and you do your thing, you know? 946 00:40:28,375 --> 00:40:30,542 And then James came to me and he said, 947 00:40:30,542 --> 00:40:32,542 "Well, I'm not comfortable with this." 948 00:40:32,542 --> 00:40:34,917 And I said, "Well, it's gonna be edited 949 00:40:34,917 --> 00:40:38,000 and you could end up as the final act." 950 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,208 In 50 years of hindsight, 951 00:40:40,208 --> 00:40:41,708 should have said to Steve Binder, 952 00:40:41,708 --> 00:40:43,708 "I'd prefer to go on before James." 953 00:40:43,708 --> 00:40:45,667 [ Laughs ] But, you know, I didn't. 954 00:40:45,667 --> 00:40:47,708 -If you've been around most entertainers, 955 00:40:47,708 --> 00:40:49,833 you know they do not like 956 00:40:49,833 --> 00:40:53,333 somebody taking away that thunder away from them. 957 00:40:53,333 --> 00:40:54,583 And I'll say this about 958 00:40:54,583 --> 00:40:56,708 Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. 959 00:40:56,708 --> 00:40:58,708 They had that "T.A.M.I. Show" taken away from them 960 00:40:58,708 --> 00:41:01,667 by James Brown and the Famous Flames. 961 00:41:01,667 --> 00:41:03,167 -♪ All aboard! -♪ Yeah! 962 00:41:03,292 --> 00:41:04,625 -♪ All aboard! -♪ Yeah! 963 00:41:04,625 --> 00:41:06,667 -♪ The night train 964 00:41:06,667 --> 00:41:08,292 ♪ 965 00:41:08,292 --> 00:41:10,208 [ Crowd cheering ] 966 00:41:10,208 --> 00:41:11,417 ♪ Miami, Florida 967 00:41:11,417 --> 00:41:14,083 ♪ 968 00:41:14,083 --> 00:41:15,333 ♪ Atlanta, Georgia 969 00:41:15,417 --> 00:41:17,667 ♪ Atlanta, Georgia, ah! 970 00:41:17,667 --> 00:41:21,083 ♪ 971 00:41:21,083 --> 00:41:23,208 -The "T.A.M.I. Show" was the first time 972 00:41:23,208 --> 00:41:26,625 you really got to see him in front of a mixed crowd 973 00:41:26,625 --> 00:41:29,042 doing this amazing, electrifying set. 974 00:41:29,042 --> 00:41:31,583 -Oh! Oh, God! When he did "Night Train"? 975 00:41:31,583 --> 00:41:35,417 Oh, man! Yo! Come on. Come on 976 00:41:35,417 --> 00:41:37,458 -♪ Night... ♪ Train! 977 00:41:37,458 --> 00:41:38,792 -♪ Train 978 00:41:38,792 --> 00:41:47,917 ♪ 979 00:41:47,917 --> 00:41:50,708 -It really signaled that Black music 980 00:41:50,708 --> 00:41:53,792 was a predominant force in music. 981 00:41:53,792 --> 00:41:56,917 James Brown was literally on his way to take over. 982 00:41:56,917 --> 00:42:03,375 ♪ 983 00:42:03,375 --> 00:42:10,125 ♪ 984 00:42:10,125 --> 00:42:16,917 ♪ 985 00:42:16,917 --> 00:42:23,542 ♪ 986 00:42:23,542 --> 00:42:24,958 ♪ Yeah 987 00:42:24,958 --> 00:42:30,083 ♪ 988 00:42:30,083 --> 00:42:35,167 ♪ 989 00:42:35,167 --> 00:42:40,167 ♪