To quote the man himself, there was a time ...There was a time before James Brown changed the sound of music when Brown's roots were much more transparent. Brown was deeply influenced by jump blues pioneer Louis Jordan, blues shouters Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris, and groundbreaking R&B groups like The Dominoes, The "5" Royales and Hank Ballard & The Midnighters. Brown recalled "No one inspired me more than Louis Jordan and Roy Brown. Jordan was just an unbelievable performer, writer, arranger, actor. And a businessman too. But Roy Brown had the dynamics. That's the main reason I was able to sing. That's the main reason I was able to sing hard, because I emulated him when I first started. I got the power and the drive from him, and combined it with my gospel background. That's where the soul comes from." Throughout his career, particularly in the 50's and 60's, Brown paid tribute to his influences. Even up through the 70's when he cutting some of his hardest funk records he still sprinkled his albums with R&B and blues items. In addition he and his sidemen (Brown played organ, drums and vocalized) recorded lots of smoking instrumental sides that were scattered over many out-of-print singles and albums. In this article we trace this lesser known side of Brown's music, spotlighting approximately the first twenty years where those roots are most visible.

 Brown was born May 3rd, 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina. During his early teens he gained musical experience singing with his own Cremona Combo and possibly occasionally gigged with Augusta's Bill Johnson & The Four Steps of Rhythm. At 16 he was arrested for theft and incarcerated, ending up in Alto Reform School. In 1953 he was given early release due to a positive attitude and found employment with the family of local gospel singer Bobby Byrd. He began concentrating on his singing, joining the local church choir to duet with Byrd's sister Sarah while rehearsing with Bobby's group, The Gospel Starlighters. As Byrd recalled: "We decided to switch to R&B about the time James joined us and pretty soon we were working social clubs and recreation centres in the area, local gigs. Although James became the lead singer we still didn't have a name at that point, people just knew us as 'that Bobby Byrd group.' As far as I recall we didn't do any original songs for quite some while, we'd just sing our favorite R&B hits: The Five Royales' "Baby Don't Do It", The Midnighters' "Annie Had A Baby", The Spaniels' "Goodnight Sweetheart", The Clovers' "One Mint Julep", all the old classics." Around 1954-55 the band named themselves the Famous Flames.

The Federal Recordings: 1956-1960

 In 1955 The Famous Flames recorded the demo "Please Please Please" at the studio of WIBB in Macon, Georgia. D.J. Hamp Swain first aired the demo while the group's manager Clint Brantley sent copies to several indie record companies. Duke and Chess Records were both interested but eventually lost out to producer/talent scout Ralph Bass who was working for Syd Nathan's King/Federal label. He signed the group in January 1956 and in February sent them to Cincinnati to re-record "Please Please Please" in the King studios. Released on Federal in March, the song eventually became a million seller. All of Brown's singles over the next two years flopped, as he sought to establish his own style. While Brown's music during this formative period is a bit derivative the contrast between Brown's raw, gospel inflected vocals against the band's mellow group harmony was often quite effective. From the first session came the fiery jump blues of "I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On" as Brown dips into some old blues lingo as he wails "I been 'buked pretty baby/I've been talked about" and the smoldering blues ballad "I Hold My Baby's Hand." In 1957 Brown waxed the Hank Ballard & The Midnighters styled "Let's Make It' a vocal version of Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk" cut by Doggett just the prior month. Brown obviously was fond of the song, cutting it again as "Honky Tonk (Parts 1 & 2) in 1972. other notable blues items cut during this period were the straight blues of "Why Does Everything Happen to Me" an impassioned cover of (although credited to Brown) Roy Hawkins' 1950 #2 R&B hit and the comic R&B number "That Dood It" very much in the mold of Ray Charles numbers "It Should've Been Me" and "Greenbacks." By the start of the the new decade Brown's fortunes were on the upswing. Brown scored his first #1 hit, "Try Me," in 1958. It was the best-selling R&B single of the year—and the first of 17 chart-topping R&B singles by Brown over the next two decades. In addition to the singles Brown issued a couple of LP's during this period including 1959's "Please Please Please" which was notable for the bluesy R&B of "Baby Cries Over The Ocean" featuring some bold blues guitar work by John Faire which was the flip side of "That Dood It" and the churchy sung/spoken " I Don't Know." Also issued in 1959 was the album "Try Me" most notable for the smoldering "Messing With the Blues" a #1 hit for Memphis Slim back in 1948.

The King Recordings: 1960-1971

  As Clifff White summarizes in the notes to "Roots of a Revolution": ...The years 1959-1961 were the crucial years of development for James Brown; he entered the period as a one-and-a-half hit hopeful of no special rank and came out of it as the fastest-rising new star of R&B, with a distinctive recording and performing style and the hottest, wildest, most ball-breaking, breathtaking show around." Starting in 1960 Brown's records were issued on the King imprint except for some recordings issued on Mercury's Smash subsidiary which are discussed below. As Brown noted: "Being on King meant you got more support from the company Mr. Nathan finally realized I was too strong for Federal, and he had to put me on King." While Brown's music was radically evolving during this period he hadn't totally abandoned his roots. In fact his third million-seller, 1960's "Think", was a cover of one of Brown's favorite bands, The Five Royales, who originally cut the song in 1957. Brown's version was far removed from the original. The LP "Think" was issued in 1960 and in 1961 "The Amazing James Brown" was released which had a number of bluesy items including a wild version of Roy Brown's "Love Don't Love Nobody" (in the studio dialogue included on "Messing With The Blues" Syd Nathan can be heard exhorting Brown to "not holler so much"!) and the overwrought "The Bells" (his first single for King) a number The Dominoes cut in 1952. R&B was primarily a singles market although King released seven James Brown LP's between 1959-1962 that didn't sell exceptionally well; the first comprised entirely of singles, the others comprising singles and unissued recordings. It was the eighth LP, "Live At The Apollo", that broke the mold eventually hitting #2 on the weekly album charts in 1963. In 1963 Brown cut a remarkable gospel/blues hybrid, the double sided single "Oh Baby Don't You Weep" (part 1 hit #23 on the charts) with Brown on piano and based on The Swan Silvertones' "Mary Don't You Weep."

 At the end of the 60's Brown waxed some bluesy unissued items including 1967's swinging big band version of "Kansas City" and in 1969 he grabbed some bar band substitutes for sidemen who were boycotting sessions and recorded fine versions of Fats Domino's "Goin' Home" and and epic nearly 12 minutes of Chuck Willis' "Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go)" (all have been issued on "Messing With The Blues"). Little Willie John's "Need Your Love So Bad" was recorded in 1967 and saw light the following year on the LP "I Can't Stand Myself." Brown, who toured as John's support act in the late 1950's, was campaigning for the singer's release from prison following a 1965 murder conviction. When John died behind bars in 1968 Brown released the hastily released, but heartfelt LP "Thinking About Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things" in 1968. Brown delivers moving versions of "Talk to Me, Talk to Me" and particularly "Suffering with the Blues." In 1967 on the "Cold Sweat" LP Brown cut a wailing version of Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" (issued as the B-side of "Let Yourself Go") and another version of "Kansas City" (issued as a single b/w "Stone Fox"). By 1969 Brown was cranking out some of his hardest funk when he issued the atypical "Soul On Top" a jazz-minded big-band album finding Brown backed by the Louie Bellson Orchestra. Brown and band deliver an old school, swinging version of "Everyday I Have the Blues" that's quite credible.

The Smash Recordings: 1964-1967

 Brown was having increasing problems with King owner Syd Nathan and finally broke free of Nathan's control in 1964 forming the independent production company Fair Deal with new releases to be issued on Smash, a subsidiary of Mercury Records. Brown made his first Fair Deal recordings with eight big band versions of R&B favorites, seven of which were included on his Smash debut "Showtime", overdubbed with crowd effects (they appear in undubbed versions on "Messing With The Blues"). The first single Brown cut was "Caldonia." It seemed right", Brown said, "to start out on the new label with the song that started me out as a performer way back when I had the Cremona Trio." He entrusted these sessions to veteran arranger Sammy Lowe who had previously arranged the hit "Prisoner of Love." Lowe was a long time arranger/trumpeter for Erskine Hawkins as well as arranging million-sellers for The Platters, The Tokens, Sam Cooke and others. As Lowe recalled: "When we first started doing sessions together James told me he liked big bands ...So we tried it. He picked the songs too." Brown pays tribute to Louis Jordan with strong swinging versions of "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", "Caldonia", "Somebody Done Changed the Lock on My Door" as well as "Good Rockin' Tonight" (first issued on "Out of Sight" which was immediately withdrawn, due to legal issues between King and Mercury, with the song later appearing on King), Billy Wright's "Blues For My Baby", Larry Darnell's "For You My Love" and Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used To Do." All these songs plus a few others appeared on "Showtime." Brown was back at King by 1965 but still did instrumental records for Smash.

Polydor Recordings: 1970's

 Starting in 1971 Brown began recording for The Polydor label, and association that lasted until 1981. Brown was both a brilliant bandleader and a stern taskmaster, the latter leading his band to walk out on him in late 1969. In the early '70s, many of the most important members of Brown's late-'60s band returned to the fold, to be billed as the J.B.'s (they also made records on their own). Brown recruited brothers Phelps "Catfish" Collins (guitar) and William "Bootsy" Collins (bass). One by one, some of Brown's previous band members returned to the fold, including Fred Wesley, who accepted Brown's offer to become musical director of the J.B.'s in December 1970. However, the lineup splintered with the departure of the Collins brothers just a few months later, leaving Wesley with only guitarists Hearlon "Cheese" Martin and eventually Jimmy Nolen, drummer John "Jabo" Starks, and tenor saxman St. Clair Pinckney. This nucleus was quickly fleshed out with bassist Fred Thomas and saxophonist Jimmy Parker and soon there was also a trumpet section, usually featuring Jerone "Jasaan" Sanford, Russell Crimes, and Isiah "Ike" Oakley. Brown recorded less blues during this period although the J.B.'s were able to deliver a potent, loose, funky brand of blues. One of the most impressive numbers was 1972's mostly spoken/partly sung "Like It Is, Like It Was" (appearing as two parts on "Messing With The Blues") an obviously unrehearsed, mostly unreleased studio jam. A portion of appeared on the soundtrack Brown did for the film "Black Caesar." It's obvious Brown feels distanced from his roots: "I don't know how to sing the blues like I used to", he says, adding later in a disjointed (unissued) middle, "I can't do 'em no more...because I ain't got no environment no more." And as he admonishes the band: "That just goes to show you we got to admit we have lost some of our heritage."

 Another notable song was the remarkable, rootsy twelve minute update of "Please, Please, Please" that appeared on 1972's "Get On The Good Foot" album. It starts off as a stripped down funky reworking of the song before Brown really starts testifying the blues. He reminisces in detail about his formative years with the Famous Flames, the Apollo, early influences like Jackie Wilson, Bobby Bland and most of all how hard the early years were - "You know I didn't get my soul walking around in the street/I got my soul trying to get something to eat." Speaking of Bobby Bland, Brown cut a cover of Bland's "Further on Up the Road" in 1973 that remained unissued until being released on "Messing With The Blues." Other notable bluesy items include the low-down blues of "Big Strong" from the 1973 soundtrack to "Slaughter's Big Rip-Off" and the incredible funk/blues reworking of "Kansas City" from 1975's "Everybody Doin' The Hustle & Dead On The Double Bump." Also worth noting are some funk transformations of "Stormy Monday" and "When The Saints Go Marching In" from 1974's "Hell."

Instrumentals Recordings

 A much lesser known side of James Brown's output is numerous instrumental sides - a mixture of jazz, blues, R&B and funk - he cut throughout the 1960's and to a lesser extent up into the 70's. Between 1964 and 1966 (though the releases went into 1967) Brown recorded a series of LP’s for Smash records that featured his talents as an organist. Not a technically great organist he nonetheless plays with plenty of feeling. He also recorded sporadic small-group organ 45’s for King. In 1964, Brown had a brief break with King Records, during which he moved to the Mercury subsidiary Smash. After releasing the "Out of Sight" LP in 1964, he returned to King for all of his vocal records, but maintained a relationship with Smash that resulted in 8 LP's (2 of which were compilations or reissues), 5 of which were primarily organ/instrumental. Brown waxed far fewer instrumentals in the 70's, the bulk appearing on a pair of soundtracks.

 Brown's first instrumental heavy LP was the 1961 King album "James Brown Presents His Band And Five More Great Artists" which contained six numbers by Brown and his band. Most notable is the surging R&B of "Hold It" with energetic vocalizing from Brown which was issued as a single b/w another instrumental, "The Scratch." Several other instrumental singles were also issued on King. His first Smash instrumental foray was 1964’s "Grits and Soul", which, like all of the other Smash LP’s, also contained band features and was very much in a jazz vein. The other instrumental LP's were "James Brown Plays Yesterday and Today" (mostly instrumental version of his hits), "James Brown Plays New Breed (The Boo-Ga-Loo)" featuring the blues "Sumpin’ Else" and "Handful of Soul" with the highlight going to the smoldering blues "The King." The last of the organ LP’s for Smash was 1967's "James Brown Plays the Real Thing." Many of these were issued as singles. Another instrumental tune worth noting is "Evil" from the Smash LP "Showtime" a steamy, swinging number with Brown really cooking on the B-3. Brown continued to record on the organ for King including ""Shhhhhhhh (for A Little While)", "Lowdown Popcorn", "Gittin' a Little Hipper", "Ain’t It Funky Now", "Fat Wood", "Shades of Brown" and "Spinning Wheel Pt, 1 & 2." In 1969 he released the all instrumental LP "The Popcorn" highlighted by the smoking "Soul Pride, Pt, 1 & 2." In 1972 Brown issued the two part single version of "Honky Tonk" a much different, funkier version than the vocal version he cut some fifteen years earlier. In 1973 Brown recorded the soundtracks for "Black Caesar" and "Slaughters Big Rip Off" that were heavy on instrumentals.

  While James Brown is mainly known by listeners for his massive hits, beneath that lays a vast, eclectic and innovative mass of recordings that taken in total, really show the full musical genius of James Brown. The blues recordings amount to a small part of Brown's output but show that even an innovator like Brown had roots, a fact he's been generous in acknowledging. The blues were a a key component of Brown's music from those early recordings and even through the mid-70's when he was blasting out his most adventuress funk. Hopefully this article has shed some light on a less well known, but not less exciting aspect of Brown's amazing career.

Essential Listening

Messing With The Blues (Polydor): This double CD compiles 30 of Brown's bluesiest items cut between 1957 and 1975. Brown puts his distinctive stamp on covers by Louis Jordan, Roy Brown, Memphis Slim, Ivory Joe Hunter, Fats Domino, Chuck Willis, Little Willie John, Billy Ward, Guitar Slim, and Bobby Bland. The set includes several unreleased cuts, alternate takes, and unedited versions of previously released songs.

Roots Of A Revolution (PolyGram): A double-CD retrospective of recording Brown cut between 1956-1964. Include many fine overlooked R&B hits and B-sides like "I Feel That Old Feeling Comin' On," "That Dood It," "Oh Baby Don't You Weep," and "Maybe the Last Time," "Shout and Shimmy", "I've Got Money" and many others.

Soul Pride: The Instrumentals (1960-69) (Polydor): A double-CD of instrumentals originally scattered haphazardly over many out-of-print singles and albums. Brown acts as bandleader, occasional organist and vocalizes on a mix of blues, funk and soul. This collection brings together some of his best instrumentals into one package albeit with a few notable omissions. This one is out of print but worth tracking down.

-Brown, James. I Feel Good: A Memoir of Life In Soul, New American Library, New York, 2005.

-White, Cliff & Weinger, Harry. Notes accompanying Messing With The Blues, 1990, Polydor.

-Brown, James. James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, Thunder's Mouth, New York, 1990.

-White, Cliff. Notes accompanying Roots of a Revolution, 1989, PolyGram.

-Esape-Ism Website: www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/jb-escape/index-e.html.

-Funky 16 Corners Website - JB On The B3 By Larry Grogan: http://funky16corners.tripod.com/4_jbb3_1.htm.