Editor’s Note - James Brown’s ups and downs
Godfather of Soul
Our Year in Culture issue has a hot-and-cold theme to it. Creative Loafing’s astute critics observed that many people, places and things that were up at the beginning of the year were down toward the end of the year, and that the same was true in reverse.
James Brown’s death isn’t covered in the Year in Culture because Brown died after we put those stories to bed. But nobody rode the pop-culture roller coaster more than he did. Senior Editor Scott Freeman writes about the Godfather of Soul in this week’s Fallout section (p. 16). Brown went from young convict to R&B’s most popular, and distinctive, singer. He fell off the charts — then, as the founder of funk, regained popularity. He ended up back in prison in the late 1980s, but bounced back again as both a great live performer and as an obvious influencer on rap, indeed a leading source of sampled music for hip-hop artists.
Maybe, instead of the roller coaster analogy, I should be describing Brown’s path as a meandering highway — and his form of transport as a wildly careening automobile. It’s hard in 2006 (or ‘07) to fathom him having to fend for himself back in the 1940s as a black child in Augusta abandoned by a society that had shut off almost all opportunities to African-Americans. How does a kid like that end up where Brown’s journey ended?
It’s nearly as weird to think that there could be a cultural landscape devoid of Brown’s 1969 singular message — “I’m Black and I’m Proud” — which resonated so powerfully as soon as it was pronounced that it quickly sunk into the everyday lexicon of the ’60s and ’70s.
And it’s easy to cast judgment on Brown’s tempestuous personal life, his legal problems, the complaints of wife beating, the drug charges, and some very bad driving.
But the man gave us something. He put front and center a uniquely American way of expressing himself. His music came straight from the gut, from the soul, from a personal story full of struggle and pain — unique, but also much like the story of many great artists. It popped out of the music and motion of one man, but his voice provided a window into something that we all know is universal. It had a lasting impact.