I used to see James Brown every year when I was a teen, either at the old LA Sports Arena, the Hollywood Bowl or the Shrine Auditorium. A group of us would go, KGFJ blasting on the car radio ("burn baby burn"). Primed by the incredible TAMI Show footage, we ate up the pure chitlin circuit spectacle. No matter how many times the cape was placed on JB's quaking shoulders, we knew he'd always toss it off at least once more. The exhilarating soul power of the whole thing was enough; we didn't really get the showbiz hooey of it, we just wanted to hear "Please Please Please" again and again. The incredible band - two bass players!, the protean Clyde Stubblefield pounding the unstoppable boogaloo.
When I finally got in a band that could actually play "Cold Sweat" it was a big deal. It was so important to get this right. You don't fuck with the sacred, revealed text. We were scribes, not illuminators. We were like the living books in "Fahrenheit 451" memorizing each word and punctuation mark. Faithful, slavish reproduction was our goal. Every grunt, every syncopated hit had to be in place; it had to be right. This was "Cold Sweat," after all.
There will never be another like JB, and the rest of us will never get "Cold Sweat" exactly right, but we'll keep trying.
When I finally got in a band that could actually play "Cold Sweat" it was a big deal. It was so important to get this right. You don't fuck with the sacred, revealed text. We were scribes, not illuminators. We were like the living books in "Fahrenheit 451" memorizing each word and punctuation mark. Faithful, slavish reproduction was our goal. Every grunt, every syncopated hit had to be in place; it had to be right. This was "Cold Sweat," after all.
There will never be another like JB, and the rest of us will never get "Cold Sweat" exactly right, but we'll keep trying.
