The new track in the player is from a recent session I recorded and played on.
The trio is:

Brad Webb - Drums

Stevie Watts - Organ

Me - Git fiddle

Happy New Year!

James Brown passed away xmas morning. I was lucky enough to see his last uk show at the roundhouse in camden, it was a good gig although he seemed not to be well, he was trying to reach notes he could'nt and he was pissed off with himself he could'ny make them, a true professional inspirational genius.


I pinched this off ?uestlove check it:

top 10 Best Uses Of James Brown in Hip Hop


1. Public Enemy's "Rebel Without A Pause"/"The Grunt"..........what better way to express Rock like anger with than with St Clair's Pickney's tea kettle squeal of a saxaphone.

2. DJ Rob Base And EZ Rock's "It Take's Two"/"Think"..........i got respect for any song that makes it to sports anthem status and Spin magazine's best single of all time status--yes of all time. YEah! WHOO!!


3. Mark The 45 King's "900 Number"/"Unwind Yourself"..........most of you head's know this as "let me clear my throat" from dj kool---the addictive horn line that made yo mtv rap's ed lover start america to shaken everyday after school at 4pm. it will never leave you. u huh uh hu hu cot damn!

4. Ultra Magnetic MC's "Give The Drummer Some"/"There Was A Time".........i think this song was even more of an influence on my drumming than "Funky Drummer" was. Thanks to the genius of legendary producer "Paul C" (rip) and his masterful filtering and chopping of the classic JB classic. He showed hip hop producers that one monkey don't stop no show (in this case the monkey was the hard stereo isolated drums on the right side of the speaker that he distorted and amplified to the nth degree and then he left a glitch in there which cause the song to borderline sound offbeat. i heard that shit in the 12 grade and lost my mind. i paid tribute to that interpretation on my own "yall know who" which can be found on The Roots' "HOMEGROWN" vol 2

5.Brand Nubian "All For One"/"Can Mind" and "One For All"........When i found a copy of JB's psychedelic experiement: Sho Is Funky Down Here" (made with Matthews' Grodeck Whipperjenny group) i ignored it because there was no obvious material to cling to. thank god i was not a part of the Stimulated Dummies production team behind this classic hip hop gem of i woulda missed it. Actually it took me 8 years to find this 3 second quickie of a sample. It was so unjames sounding that i never bothered to look for it thinking it was someone else.

6.Eric B and Rakim "I know you got soul"/"i know you got soul"......."tell the truth james brown was old....til eric and ra came out with "i got soul" rap brings back old rnb and if we would not then the people woulda forgot" amen stetsasonic....amen. Even Chuck D said this song scared the shit outta him cause this ushered in "The New Movement" of hip hop. his answer? see entry number 1.

7. Ice Cube "Who's The Mack"/"Transmorg....?" back in the day touching post Body Heat James was a task because after his son's death many considered his career peaked.--the funk was far and few between--but even on the plagiarized heavy Monorail album (james started ripping off the cats he thought was ripping him off in this case: BT Express ) but leave it to the boundless bomb squad team to embrace what was not accepted in music and turn it into a psychedelic mind fuck of a canvas for cube to rant over

8. The Notorious BIG "Dreams"/"blues and pants"

this shit sucks......(im only playing....know what im saying? lol) James never gave clearance to this sample (blacks are WAY more christian conservative and red state than ANY people i know lol) but somehow the bootleg made its way to the mainstream.

9 Janet Jackson's "That's The Way Love Goes"/"Papa Don't Take No Mess"
not that there was anything that screamed "WOW!" about the papa sample
what it did show me was the potential of "window dressing" something basic and
giving it the perfect amount of accessories to almost turn it into a new song (they even
had a top 10 success with this method by using the Tthink" sample for her "Alright" song from her previous album). With just a few mellow synth chords she borderline put herself in pioneering neo soul territory.

10. EnVouge "Hold On"/"The Payback" a friend once told me a classic is when you can personally recall the EXACT moment in life you first heard a song and you being able to recount said events. This song was so inescapable in the spring of 1990 that even bboy's themselves took to it (liking RnB in the "REAL" hip hop period was somewhat suspect so it took a mighy fine song to break down that barrier) LL had to have it to show off his new sound system. It even broke down his Purple Badness to show us how to "Gett Off"---and if you knew Prince's anti rap steeze---then sheeeit it took a might song to do that.


Top 10 James Brown Drum Breaks

1. Funky Drummer
2. Hot Pants (I'm Coming) (Bobby Byrd)
3. Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose
4. Funky President (People It's Bad)
5. Think (Lyn Collins)
6. I Can't Stand It 74
7. Soul Pride
8. Cold Sweat
9. Don't Tell It (extended version)
10.Blind Man can See It (extended)

The 5 Students of JB

1. Prince (In Music and Bandleading)
2. Michael Jackson (in Relentless motion)
3. George Clinton (he said Funkadelic/Parliament was just Soul on Acid)
4. The Average White Band ("Pick Up The Pieces" was the best song James never did. Even he thought so when he answered with his own side project of 74: Above Average Black Band)
5. Tower Of Power (Horns and Drums and Bass all day in synch heaven)

For More Info and reflections on JB i say Seek Alan Leed's page. Al was pretty much there for the "magic period" of JB.

his best performance on tv

"NIGhttrain" on The TAMI show -see the performance that made Elvis rent a memphis theater out and watch 3 hours in a row. see the performance that turned Mick Jagger black. and made Sting pay homage on "when the world is running down...."

albums?

i'd skip the Startime Boxset and the quickie JB greatest hits and would grab some REAL funk.

1. The JB's Funky Good Time
2. Foundations Of Funk 1964-1969
3. Funk Power 1970
4. Make It Funky 1971-1975

this contains all that is in The Boxset but with the EXTENDED versions and breaks.

then for his LIVE prowess go get hip to

1. Revolution Of The Mind...Live At The Apollo Vol 3 1971
2. Love Power Peace! Live At The Olympia, Paris, 1971
3. Say It Live And Loud: Live In Dallas 1968
4. Live At The Apollo Vol 2. (1967)
5. Live At The Apollo Vol 1 (1963)

(Sex Machine live and the Superbad albums although indeed Superbad were "canned" live albums and the best parts of the album can be found on the initial 4 i recommended)

i pray that we can present a clear picture of how REVOLUtionary this man was. i know most of us remember him drunk as fuck on that youtube interview or you think Eddie Murphy or even the infamous Prince vs Mike battle of 1983.---

but this man was on some REVoLutionary shit.

James Brown Was THe SHIt.

good god.