Tells the Facts and Names the Names

Dec. 1-15, 2007 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 14, no. 21 James Brown: The Soul Will Find a Way By Kevin Alexander Gray t the start of the 1960s, my father prior to the mid-1970s can no doubt “Try Me” or “I Lost Someone”. Paul moved my mom Geneva, imagine what Gray’s Groceries was like. Brown was a constant presence in our A three older brothers, young- Most black communities had a similar store. He was the low country homeboy er sister and me from Boston to rural place. During the day it was the typical who made it big. The state of Georgia Spartanburg County in upstate South dry goods store. After the work day was and the city of Augusta claim him as their Carolina. He’d fled the South in the done, it was the place to get a beer before hometown hero, and he, too, claimed the 1940s, enlisting in the Navy. Twenty years heading home, exchange the gossip of the state and city. Yet he never moved more later, he returned to an inheritance of day, get the numbers, complain about than 40 miles from his family’s roots in eleven shotgun houses and a juke joint at white people, and talk about the Lincoln Barnwell County, South Carolina, along the foot of a hill in a tiny, segregated, one High School basketball team. On week- the Savannah River, establishing a home way in – one way out community called ends, it was the nightclub. My dad would on Beech Island in Aiken County, South Freyline. put brown paper bags over the light bulbs Carolina, adjacent to Strom Thurmond’s Gray’s Grocery was on the sign over that hung from the ceiling to discourage Edgefield County home. The earliest the front door between the two round, moths and dim the building. The place recorded account of Brown’s kin can be red Coca Cola logos, but everyone always had an old smell about it that was found in the 1860 census records of the called the gathering spot “the store”. a mixture of stale beer, the oily, vinegary James C. Brown plantation. Brown’s par- Gray’s Grocery was where all the maids, scent from the pickled products, coal ents and grandparents are included in the janitors, textile mill workers, field labor- and the burlap sack it came in, old petri- 1930 census records of Barnwell. He was ers, wannabe slicksters, young and old, fied wood, and the musk of people that born in South Carolina, jailed here, his sinners and saints met on weekends to worked in the fields, cotton plants or any last legally questionable marriage was li- dance, drink, gamble, talk, cuss, have an other job that was dirty. Field workers censed here, and his final resting place is occasional scuffle, fist, gun or knife fight, had a wet, sweaty scent. The “lint heads” here. Yet throughout his life, he publicly and generally let it all hang out. who worked at the mill would come dur- rejected South Carolina but maintained a If someone came by the house before ing the week covered in cotton dust from private connection to the place that was church needing something for Sunday head to toe, accompanied by a dry, dusty obviously his home. The conflicted rela- dinner like flour, lard or whatever, one of aroma. In the summer, the building was tionship with South Carolina is the story us kids would go down the road and open hot even with both doors open and the of Brown’s music and life. the store for them. Often my dad would two small fans running on high. It’s hard to bury James Brown. At any open after church. At night, a neon Colt On Wednesdays, the Collin’s Music moment in a day you’ll hear his voice, his 45 sign in one of the barred windows and man would come by to divide up the name, a beat or a song. A Brown phrase a yellow light over the front door were lit money from the jukebox and bring crystallizes a situation like when it’s time up. We not only had a front door – we new records. There was always a lot of to leave a room – “it’s too funky in here” had a back one as well. The door had Brown on the piccolo machine. A perk or when it’s time to go to work or party – ready access to the coal and bottle shed for our family was the extra copy of “you gotta get on the good foot,” or when in the back of the building and an escape “Lickin’ Stick” or “Night Train” that the hearing someone being deceitful or stu- route when a fight broke out or we had piccolo man would leave us. When a pid – “talking loud and saying nothing.” to quickly get rid of illegal contraband 45 record came off the machine, we got The substance that fed Brown’s music such as liquor or gambling items. It was it. He always had to bring an extra disc won’t decompose. For the sake of discus- standing room only on weekends. Folks for Brown’s hits because Brown’s songs, sion, let’s call it soul power. spilled out onto the steps or hung out even the ones released in the late 1950s Soul power is a connection to the peo- in the yard, depending on the weather. and early 1960s, were never stale or out ple and their experiences: good, bad and Dancing inside was close-up. of style. What could the man take off? ugly. It means hearing what you feel and There are a few theories on how the “Think”, “Caldonia”? “Out of Sight” was feeling what you hear. It’s in the call and word funk was born, but I think it origi- hot well into the late 1960s. And there response like a preacher to the congrega- nated in places like our store. Those are no better “slow drag” songs (hip-hop- tion. It can be in one person singing their who lived in the rural South in the years pers call it the “bump and grind”) than story alone – like when Otis Redding december 1-15, 2007 sings “Sitting on the dock of the bay.” It’s coast to Edisto Island and traveled up the first six years of Brown’s life, his dad putting the blue note in a plea, a wail, a the Savannah River to Brown’s neck of left the fields to work in the tar plant. moan, a holler or a shout. It’s about the the woods. It is not surprising that two of From the turn of the century through the process of life with all its messiness. the most profound influences on modern 1960s, just about every county had a tar Now, this is not about who has or popular black music – James Brown and plant. It provided tar for roads, railroad doesn’t have soul. It’s about where Motown – can so clearly place their his- ties, house siding and a variety of other Brown got his supply. I believe, there is torical pedigrees from the same region. uses. The work was hot, black, hard, something cosmically black about South Edisto Island, one of the barrier islands in nasty, sticky, smelly, dirty and dangerous. Carolina. My belief arises from the fact the low country swamp area, is where es- Small, impoverished, black enclaves of that the vast majority of African slaves caped African slaves sought refuge from little tarpaper shotgun houses sprung up brought to the United States for life on their would-be masters. Edisto is where around these plants. Chain gang camps the plantation disembarked on Sullivan’s bass player and Motown Funk Brother were located close by so as to provide Island – the “black Ellis Island” – just off James Jamerson found the blue note. county road crews. Families of inmates the coast of Charleston. Brown picked Jamerson carried the bottom beat in just migrated to these communities. up from the vibes the Africans brought about every Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, These small black communities also off the slave ships and taken out into the served big white-owned farms, providing fields. He inherited what they sang about Throughout his life, the bulk of work in much the same way as and how they sang it. Plantation slaves when plantation owner James C. Brown subversively sang “Jackass rared, Jackass Brown publicly re- was alive. Every winter a couple of those pitch. Throwed ole Marsa in de ditch…,” tarpaper houses burned to the ground while Brown sang “you can’t tell me how jected South Carolina in a flash, often taking their occupants to be the boy when you know I’m grown.” but maintained a pri- with them. The tarpaper would raise the The Roma or black Gypsies also settled temperature of an already out of control among and intermixed with the Africans vate connection to the blaze, which took on a blue flame and in the low country region of South gave off an oily smell. This is what it was Carolina. Thus a context for Brown’s con- place that was obvi- like in Freyline. Jack Dobson’s big farm, stantly being on the road with his itiner- one of the three large farms in our area, ant band of musicians, all decked out in ously his home. The employed many of the men in Freyline. their ornate costumes, living free-wheel- conflicted relation- A tar and “criso” wood plant was within ing lives. smelling distance. Relatives would come The African beat and rhythm landed ships are the story of through with the county prison road crew on Sullivan’s Island. It rolled down the and were often allowed to visit with kin his music and life. while in the neighborhood. James Brown came from just such a community. Smokey Robinson or Motown tune. In With his mother gone and his father the movie “Standing in the Shadow of working, young James, as he recalled, Motown” Jamerson is quoted as telling “was pretty much left alone to roam the EDITORS a friend he made his first musical instru- backwoods of Barnwell to fend for him- Alexander Cockburn ment by stretching a rubber band on a self.” His childhood might have been as Jeffrey St. Clair stick and sticking it into an anthill so he idyllic as playing in the fields or running ASSISTANT EDITOR could “make the ants dance.” It is easy to barefoot behind the older kids, or “no Alevtina Rea imagine Brown, the young songwriter, telling” what a young kid alone might reminiscing on his childhood, recalling a have seen or experienced in the woods. BUSINESS day he sat on an anthill and wrote, “I got Now, I don’t know exactly why Susie Becky Grant ants in my pants and I need to dance.” ran, and I don’t know a lot about James Deva Wheeler Some of us wrote off Brown’s dissing Brown Sr. (James legally dropped the Jr.

DESIGN South Carolina as his not wanting the from his name). Yet before Brown’s birth, Tiffany Wardle world to think “the hardest working man through at least the 1960s and 1970s, the in show business” was a country bump- South was an extremely harsh place for COUNSELOR kin. He could justifiably claim Georgia, black women. Spousal violence was en- Ben Sonnenberg since his formative years were spent in demic. Black women didn’t have a rung urban Augusta which, despite the ob- on the social ladder. They were often on CounterPunch stacles he would face as a teen, was a the brutal receiving end of black male’s PO Box 228 slightly better environment than backwa- anger at his condition and treatment by Petrolia, CA 95558 ter Barnwell. Even 130 years after eman- white society. A black woman had very 1-800-840-3683 cipation, life in rural Barnwell was still little protection from abuse unless she [email protected] pretty much like it was on the plantation. had a special relationship with a white www.counterpunch.org Brown’s mother Susie ran away from it in patriarch. Or she could resort to the All rights reserved. 1936, leaving 3-year-old James with his dreaded “ten-cent pop pistol,” which was father, James Joseph Brown Sr. Within a mixture of hot grits and lye. Black chil-

 december 1-15, 2007 dren, too, were often victims of abuse and upside the head, a butt lickin’ – hand or formed a gospel quartet which performed a hard life at an early age. wooden paddle - a whipping or beating. for the local prison crowd and other Brown’s music came from a raucous Tree switches – the offense determined prisons around that area. During one of and oftentimes violent environment, the number – were used for whipping those performances, future band mate with all the emotions and contradic- and belts or barber straps for beatings. Bobby Byrd watched the show from out- tions carved into his psyche for better or Violence is still condoned today. The side of the prison gates. Brown later be- worse. Maybe Brown was saying some- threat of violence is often used as a came friends with Byrd when the prison thing about Susie’s life and his when he punch line in jokes. In a Bill Cosby comic baseball team played Byrd’s team. Brown sang, “when we did wrong papa beat the bit, Cosby chides his son for some trans- played pitcher, and Byrd played shortstop. hell out of us” in “Papa Don’t Take No gression saying, “I brought you into this Byrd promised to help Brown get out of Mess.” It surely says a lot about the world world and I can take you out.” The truth prison by offering to provide him with a I witnessed growing up in rural South of the matter is that the South where place to live. Byrd’s family then helped Carolina at a time when common law Brown and many others grew up in was a Brown gain an early release after serving marriages were the norm. Back then, a very violent place. about three years of his sentence, under man could kill a spouse or mate and was Brown continued to live with his father the condition that he would not return to protected by laws recognizing “crimes in and a host of live-in girlfriends until he Augusta or Richmond County, Georgia. the heat of passion.” Even a black man was six years old, when his father moved By all accounts, Brown failed to live up to who killed his wife or girlfriend, if he to Augusta. There he left the boy to live the “leave Georgia” terms of his release. was fortunate enough to own property After his release, he did brief stints as a or have money, sometimes could avoid Before Brown’s birth, semiprofessional boxer and a pitcher in jail time or a long sentence for murder. I semiprofessional baseball. After a career- had one uncle who only did four years on through at least the ending leg injury, Brown turned his full the chain gang for beating his first spouse attention to music. to death with a 2x4 stud. Another uncle 1960s and 1970s, In 1955, Brown and Byrd‘s sister Sarah served 12 years on the chain gang for kill- the South was an performed in a group called “The Gospel ing “the wrong man” over a woman. My Starlighters.” Eventually, Brown joined father on occasion would beat my moth- harsh place for black Bobby Byrd’s vocal group, the Avons, and er. My siblings and I would grab his legs Byrd switched the group’s sound from in her defense – two boys to a leg. It was women. Spousal vio- gospel to rhythm-and-blues. Brown’s often violent in our home, but he only name and story first spread by word of ran us out the house at gunpoint once or lence was endemic. mouth, from community to community. twice. Maybe Suzie Brown was escaping Black women didn’t The group changed their name to The such a life. Flames and began touring the Southern Still, there were some hard and fast have a rung on the so- “chitlin’ circuit,“ eventually signing a deal rules folks lived by. The rules dealing with the Cincinnati, Ohio-based label with whites boiled down to staying out cial ladder. Federal Records, a sister label of King of their business beyond work. The worse Records. place a black person could be was in the with his Aunt Honey on Twiggs Street. The Flames’ first recording in 1956 middle of white folks’ business or to have Aunt Honey, like Richard Pryor’s grand- was the single “Please, Please, Please,“ them in the middle of yours. But rule mother, ran a whore house. Living with which became a number 5 R&B hit, sell- number one within our own community his aunt no doubt provided Brown with ing over a million copies. Five years later, was “stay out of married or grown folks’ an abundant array of grunts, groans, in 1961, “Please, Please, Please“ was still business” or fights between a man and a squeals, and sexual repartee for his on my father’s jukebox, and folks were woman. My dad warned us early, “When songs. In Augusta, he spent more time still slow dragging to it. Hearing some- you jump in the middle of a quarrelling on his own, hanging out on the streets one repeat Brown’s plea – “Good God couple, they’ll end up turning on you.” and hustling to get by. Brown managed Almighty” – was almost as common as This rule came from the widely held be- to stay in school until he dropped out in “good morning.” The Flames went on to lief that you had to apply violence to get the 7th grade. He earned money by pick- become “James Brown and The Famous another person to do what you wanted ing cotton, racking pool balls, shining Flames.” Their music spread from juke- them to do, that physical and psychologi- shoes, sweeping out stores, washing cars box to jukebox and on to the airwaves. cal violence, fundamental to both slav- and dishes, singing in talent contests, Brown’s black-and-white photo on bold ery and Puritanism, was acceptable and and buck dancing for change to entertain lettered black, orange and white live even sometimes encouraged in society. troops from Camp Gordon. show announcement posters popped up The second rule – don’t interfere with a In 1948, at around age 16, Brown was on telephone polls or were tacked to the parent whipping their child – often gave sentenced to 8 to 18 years for burglary sides of black country stores, including relatives, friends, neighbors and school and armed robbery. He was sent to a ju- ours, a couple of weeks before a local gig. officials the go ahead to physically “cor- venile detention center in Toccoa, located Through the posters, we followed and rect” their child. The words “I’m gonna in northeast Georgia just over the state mimicked Brown’s hairstyles from pro- beat some sense into you” came right be- line from South Carolina. While in pris- cess to Afro to process. fore a whack or slap across the face, a lick on, Brown, who played the harmonica, Our store was always jumpin’ in the

 december 1-15, 2007 early 1960s, especially since most south- games and the dances afterward. Big- Brown was the go-to guy after Martin ern blacks got their first taste of new thigh drum majorettes bounced down Luther King Jr. was killed. Brown went music on the neighborhood jukebox. If Main Street in the local Christmas pa- on stage in front of thousands of black the weather was clear, you could hear rade to the beat of “Papa’s Got a Brand kids at the Boston Gardens on April 5, black artists late night on any AM tran- New Bag.” 1968, the night after King delivered his sistor radio beamed in from Randy Radio Sometimes, like a gypsy, be it on the “Mountaintop” speech to hundreds at out of Tennessee. We either bought Southern “chitlin’ circuit” or playing Las Mason Temple in Memphis. As word our records locally from Collin’s (the Vegas, New York or Europe, Brown en- spread across the country of King’s mur- white-owned amusement company) tered the theater through the backdoor, der, instead of canceling his concert, or downtown Spartanburg at Oliver’s got his money up front and in cash, put Brown arranged to televize it with the black-owned drug store. If you had pa- on a show, sold some records, left out the belief that people would rather watch tience and a mailbox, you could mail back door, and split town on the “night him perform than riot. From the stage, order from Randy or Ernie Record’s out train.” At other times, he mingled with he counseled his fans not to destroy their of Tennessee. If you were old enough or the people and occasionally took some own community in anger and to respect knew somebody, you could get in to see along with him. Brown worked with King’s memory. Brown at the municipal auditorium or his hundreds of local musicians and workers King preached against the Vietnam live club show. Wherever he performed, War in life, and Brown stepped into the his records were on sale. Seeing a live In a Bill Cosby comic breach after his death. In June 1968, two show meant going to the XL 100 Club in months after Memphis, Brown took downtown Spartanburg or driving the 35 bit, Cosby chides his an integrated band featuring Marva miles over to The Ghana in Greenville. son for some transgres- Whitney, Tim Drummond, Clyde The Ghana’s house band – Moses Dillard Stubblefield, Jimmy Nolen, Maceo Parker and the Textown Display, featuring a sion saying, “I brought and Waymond Reed to Vietnam to help young crooner named Peabo Bryson you into this world and ease the still raw racial tension among (now a Disney voice artist) – would the troops over King’s death. He origi- often open the show. When grown folks I can take you out.” The nally offered to go at his own expense to wanted to make a weekend out of it, they head off the Lyndon B. Johnson-led gov- drove up to The Bird Cage in Charlotte, truth of the matter is ernment from using cost as an excuse for or the El Matador down in Columbia, that the South where denying his trip. Even though the govern- or over to Augusta to Brown’s The Third ment ultimately picked up travel expens- World which he opened in 1962 with Brown and many oth- es, Brown lost hundreds of thousands co-owner Charlie Reid Sr., whose fu- ers grew up was a of dollars in canceled stateside shows neral home ended up doing Brown’s last to make room for a predictably danger- rites. In Atlanta, they could see him at Le very violent place. ous trip. Brown and his crew performed Carousel which was located at Pascal’s, a deep “in country” where Bob Hope dared restaurant frequented by Martin Luther during his years on stage. Every kid who not go. When Brown arrived in Saigon, King Jr. and his cohort, or The Royal played a horn dreamed of being on stage my elementary school bus driver Eugene Peacock about four blocks from King’s with the James Brown band. “Maceo, “Blue” Boyce, drafted right after high church Ebenezer Baptist on Auburn blow your horn” and “Play it, Fred” were school, was alive to greet Brown and his Avenue. as much a part of the slang of the day as band. Yet “Blue,” like so many young men, Back then (as now), you heard James Brown’s “hit me” or “good God.” Boys never made it out of Southeast Asia as he Brown every day. Families scheduled either wanted to play the trombone like was killed in September later that year. Sunday evening television time around Fred Wesley or the sax like Maceo Parker. Brown’s prominence in the aftermath seeing him on The Ed Sullivan Show. Kids Wesley and Parker probably influenced of King’s death did not go unnoticed, as would suffer through Frankie Avalon and more kids to join their local high school his face appeared on the cover of Look Annette Funicello’s 1965 movie Ski Party bands than any one else during that era. magazine in 1968, with the captions – “Is just to see him and The Famous Flames The 1960s are when Brown is credited this the most important black man in dancing and singing “I Feel Good” by the with creating the music genre now called America?” fireplace in ski sweaters. We joked that “funk.” Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” For the most part, public school de- James and the Flames were “the only ne- which came out in 1965 was followed by segregation in the late 1960s meant the groes on the slopes” or they were “danc- “Money Won’t Change You” and “Cold closing of black facilities and the lay- ing to stay warm.” Still, a whole lot of Sweat.” Yet songs like “Don’t be a Drop off of scores of black teachers. It meant black boys in the South couldn’t wait for Out” and “Money Won’t Change You” black kids entering a system and culture winter so they could wear their thick ski revealed Brown’s social consciousness. that was universally assumed to be better sweaters and pistol-legged, shiny, creased He followed up the anti-dropout song than what they were coming from. Blacks “sharkskin” pants. Brown’s music was the by touring schools, sponsored by then integrated a white situation, not vice soundtrack to the black South through- Vice President Hubert Humphrey, donat- versa. Yet, as the official policy of seg- out the 1960s and much of the 1970s. ing scholarship money and performing a regation ended, the black children that Kids danced “to the rhythm of the James benefit concert in Mississippi in 1966 for walked through the schoolhouse doors Brown band” at high school basketball the wounded activist, James Meredith. weren’t serenely humming “We Shall

 december 1-15, 2007

Overcome.” “I’m Black and I’m Proud” (We’re all gonna go).” Brown went from Richard Nixon in late 1960s, we forgave was their anthem. It was everywhere. It cementing racial identity to promoting them both. At least I did. My mother was at our store. It was in the streets. It racial uplift to leading the black sexual had a copy of Davis’ biography Yes I Can was on the jukebox and radio. It was in revolution with songs like “Sexy, Sexy, that I read as a boy. The title said it all. A the air, as my sister Valerie and I entered Sexy” and “Sex Machine” with its re- few blacks heckled Brown at a couple of all-white Fairforest Elementary School in frain – “shake your money maker.” Before concerts with the chant, “James Brown – 1969. Saying it was often accompanied there was Tone Loc’s nineties’ hit “Baby’s Nixon’s clown,” but it wasn’t widespread, by a clinched, pumped fist – down low, Got Back,” there was Brown’s “Hot Pants! it didn’t last long, and it didn’t stick. subtle, yet subversive, or up high, defiant (Smoking)” Brown’s flirtations with Nixon may and proud. Brown made bad good and then de- have had something to do with how the For some, “I’m Black and I’m Proud” clared himself “Superbad.” He was “Soul democrats treated Fannie Lou Hamer was an announcement of newfound black Brother Number One” even as black and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic pride. It straightened out those who “peace and love” groups like Frankie Party back in 1964 at the Democratic confused the demand for equal rights Beverly and Maze, Kool and the Gang, National Convention in New Jersey and as whites with a desire to be white. Not Earth, Wind and Fire came on the scene the years after, when she ran for office. that I ever heard any black wishing out with a more laid back sound. Sly and But most believe that it had more to do loud to be white. For those like me, it was the Family Stone, The Ohio Players with him and other blacks getting the op- simply calling ourselves what we were and George Clinton and Parliament portunity to buy up AM radio stations in already calling ourselves. We were say- Funkadelic built on the funk founda- the late-1960s. With greater access to the ing to white people that there was noth- tion of Brown’s “Give it Up or Turn It airwaves, Brown’s music, along with Gaye, ing wrong with being black. Brown knew Loose”, “Can’t Stand It” and a host of hits. Mayfield, and The Staple Singers – played the difference between “I’m black and As Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye on black-owned stations – helped set the I’m proud” and “I’m black but I’m proud.” smoothly laid out the politics of war and mood of the 1970s. And the stations did Neither “Negro” nor “Colored” were race in their music, Brown shouted, “Get more than play music. They were life- terms ever in contention to be the re- on the Goodfoot” and “Papa Don’t Take lines. They informed their listeners on sponse to Brown’s call. The African slaves No Mess!” issues, mobilized them around election were called black. Even as Negro became When Aretha was crowned the time, and connected them to black folks’ Colored, became Negro again, and white “Queen of Soul,” Elvis the “King of Rock doings outside their communities. southerners mangled nigger and Negro and Roll,” and Frank Sinatra was named The 1980s were tough on Brown. Like to come up with their acidic “nigra,” black the “Chairman of the Board,” Brown pro- many, I took his presence for granted al- was and remains the only term accepted claimed himself the both the “King” and though, when he appeared in The Blue with little argument on any side. Without “Godfather of Soul,” and we accepted it Brothers film in 1980, I went to the the- a doubt, “I’m Black and I’m Proud” settled without a fuss. ater to see him as the Reverend Cleotis the self-identification debate for many. Brown didn’t let anyone, including the Even in the era of the African-American black nationalists, tell him who to be. tag, there’s no shaking black – because He was often labeled a “black capital- Subscription Information Brown made it cool to be black. ist”, but it was deeper than that. Brown Subscription information can be found The 1970s were my pubescent, teenage believed he and other blacks had a stake at www.counterpunch.org or call years. Things where changing for me and in America through the dues his parents toll-free inside the U.S. the folks around me. Tension around full- and grandparents paid through years of 1-800-840-3683 scale school desegregation and busing toil. That’s what songs like “Say It Loud,” Published twice monthly occupied our minds. The protest against “Open Up the Door,” “Payback” and except July and August, the Vietnam War was having an effect. “Funky President” spoke too. King spoke 22 issues a year. You could be a part of either the “peace of a “promissory note” and a “bounced 1- year hardcopy edition $45 and love,” the Black Panther movements, check.” Brown sang, “I don’t want nobody 2- year hardcopy edition $80 or both. The heroin epidemic hit the to give me nothing. Open up the door 1- year email edition $35 black community. My oldest brother, who and I’ll get it myself.” And, “you can’t tell 2- year email edition $60 had volunteered for the army in the early me how to run my life down and you 1- year email & hardcopy edition $50 1970s at the tail end of the Vietnam War, can’t tell me how to keep my business 1- year institutions/supporters $100 narrowly escaped be sent to Southeast sound…, you can’t tell me how to use my 1- year student/low income, $35 Asia. What he didn’t escape was the voice...” – all lines in “Talkin’ Loud and Renew by telephone, mail or on our heroin addiction he picked up while sta- Saying Nothing.” In that song, Brown was website. For mailed orders please tioned in Germany. Brown’s 1972 song talking to black nationalists, white rac- include name, address and email “King Heroin” spoke to my brother’s and ists, politicians and the person next door. address (if applicable) with payment. many others predicament. But the message was the same – James To renew by phone 1-800-840-3683 or Many of the artists of the 1970s took Brown called his own shots, and if you 1-707-629 3683. Add $17.50 per year for on the turbulent times. The Temptations can’t tend to your own business, don’t try subscriptions mailed outside the U.S.A. sang it was “A Ball of Confusion.” Curtis to tend to his. Make checks or money orders payable to: Mayfield sang “Mighty, Mighty (Shade When he and Sammy Davis Jr. en- CounterPunch and Whitey)” and “If There’s Hell Below dorsed and had their pictures taken with

 december 1-15, 2007

Brown – shouting, sliding and dancing with Brown after his body had been pre- Brown would express it. And however it behind a pulpit, with an inspired con- pared for the next day’s trip downtown. comes out, it always translates to, “No, gregation to match his energy and Chaka Upon seeing Brown in repose, Jackson damn it! I will not be extinguished.” Khan leading the choir. And, for me, softly quipped, “He didn’t wear his hair Thank goodness, there’s a statue of the only part of the 1985 movie Rocky IV like that.” He then, according to a couple Brown in his adopted hometown of worth seeing is Brown singing “Living in of workers, proceeded to fix Brown’s coif- Augusta, Georgia. His home – South America.” Yet, beyond a couple of bright fure, taking his fingers poofing out his Carolina – ought to erect a statue, monu- spots in the 1980s, many of us moved bangs so that Brown’s new hairdo was ment, or memorial to Brown. But if it away from Brown’s music. a bit freer and parting his hair the way never happens, Brown will still always In 1988, Brown was convicted and sen- he remembered. The workers fretted as be around. His bottom beats will always tenced to six years in a South Carolina Michael mussed up the Godfather’s newly drive R&B and Hip-hop. Even though his prison for carrying an unlicensed pistol, pressed “process,” one man saying to the body rests in South Carolina, his pres- assaulting a police officer, along with var- other, “We cannot let James go out with ence is everywhere there’s music. His ious drug-related and driving offenses. his hair looking like that.” After Jackson presence is in the middle of the field at From what I have been able to gather, no left, the beautician was called back in. halftime at a high school or college foot- drugs were found on Brown’s person – Later that night, Jackson returned to the ball game or in the stands with the bas- only what was alleged to be in his blood funeral home to spend a little more time ketball teams pep band. It’s in George system – at the time of his arrest. So, alone with Brown. Clinton’s beats and Prince’s feet. You his conviction amounted to a “blue-light When you’re listening to Brown, and can’t escape Brown. Nor do you want to. violation” – refusing to pull over for the all that funk – it’s an assertion of domi- “You know you want – Soul Power. You cops. A 19-year-old white man, in court nance, mastery, cool and an absolutely gotta have some – Soul Power. What you on the same day as Brown, charged with fierce expression of need, satisfied and need – Soul Power. Give it to me – Soul a second offense of the same violation, arising again, over and over as long as Power.” CP received a suspended sentence. we’re alive. Freedom is connecting with Brown died on Christmas day, the life force – soul, and the struggle Kevin Gray is a civil rights orga- December 25, 2006, at the age of 73. The to keep it glowing, keep the coals or nizer in South Carolina. CounterPunch night before the Augusta funeral, Michael “Bodyheat” hot, when everything in the Books will shortly be publishing his new Jackson made a late night visit to C.A. world seems determined to extinguish book, Waiting for Lightning to Strike; the Reid’s Funeral Home. The “King of Pop” the embers. Freedom is let loose with a Fundamentals of Black Politics. He can spent a little more than an hour alone big howl, a scream, or “Eeeee Yowlll!” as be reached at [email protected].

1st Class PO Box 228 Presort U.S. Postage Petrolia, CA 95558 PAID Permit No. 269 Renew subscriptions, order Skokie, IL books and t-shirts and read new articles daily at First Class www.counterpunch.org.