Yet another icon of Rock ‘n Roll’s halcyon years has left the stage for good–James Brown. He is probably best known for his fantastic cameo role as the Reverend Cleophis James in one of my 5 all-time favorite movies- The Blues Brothers. From the movie:
MC: And now, this weeks sermon is from our beloved the Reverend Cleophis James..
Reverend: And now people. And now people. When I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this morning I heard a disturbing sound. What I heard was the jingle-jangle of a thousand lost souls. And I’m talking about the soul of modern men and women, departed from this life. Wait a minute, those lost jangle souls roamin’ unseen over the earth, seek the divine light, they’ll not find. Because it’s too late… too late yeah, too late for them to ever see again, the light they once chose not to follow! Alright, alright, don’t be lost when the time comes. For the day of the Lord cometh, as a thief in the night. Amen..
People: Amen!
Yeah, he had troubles back in the day, but he was a good guy. I don’t know if he wrote the above line from the BB movie, but I’ll bet he believed what he was saying. The words really seem to fit the occasion of his passing.
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The Rolling Stone magazine recently ran an in-depth piece on Brown that makes for an interesting read. From the article, James Brown, during a session complaining about the quality of the mike:
"I want one with no felt on it. Get me a cheap mike. I made all those hits on a cheap mike."
And Brown, arriving at the studio some time after the band, which had already recorded a piece of music:
Now he explains to the band that it’s not going to bother with the track it recorded before he arrived. Go figure: Hollie was right. "Sounds good," James Brown says, "but it sounds canned. We got to get some James Brown in there." Here it is, the crux of the matter: He wasn’t in the room; ipso facto, it isn’t James Brown music. The problem is fundamentally one of ontology: In order for James Brown to occur, you need to be James Brown.
Alas, James Brown will "occur" no more…
