...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI...


..::OPIS::..

Syd Nathan never wanted this record made. The King Records founder had a long history of working with black performers, ever since the late 40s when he decided to get into "the race business" after initially only concentrating on "hillbilly accounts." This is a man who had not only started his own independent label, but also bankrolled his own recording studios, pressing plant and distribution network. He was keenly aware of talent, using A&R; reps (who would later be his scapegoats when pressed by the FCC during the payola hearings of the 50s) to snatch up big band singers and bandleaders, in the hopes of transforming them into viable sensations for what would one day be called "crossover" appeal. He tried country, blues, doo-wop and R&B--; he might not have capitalized on every opportunity (most notably letting The Platters go to Mercury in 1953, only to witness them become the most successful vocal group of the decade), but he was certainly willing to try.

Nathan signed Macon, Georgia performer James Brown in 1956 to his King subsidiary, Federal, despite a less than favorable view of the "Please, Please, Please" demo (in short, "That's the worst piece of crap I've heard in my life"). Brown and his band, The Famous Flames, had already toured the South when he was signed for $200 to Federal, but he had yet to convince Nathan and Federal to allow him to record with the band. It wouldn't happen until Brown and the Flames scored a hit called "Mashed Potatoes" under the pseudonym Nat Kendrick & The Swans for another label. After Brown hit regionally with "Please, Please, Please" in 1956 for Federal, Nathan's original appraisal appeared to have been off the mark. That is, until Brown's next nine singles in a row flopped. Badly.

Brown and the Flames finally scored a national hit with their eleventh single for Federal, "Try Me", which granted him further stay on the label. Nathan was rewarded, too, as over the next four years, the band earned its reputation as the best in the biz, performing as The James Brown Revue ("Star Time"), and saddling its frontman with several well-applied titles: "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" and ultimately, "The Godfather of Soul." By 1962, Brown intended to showcase his act with a live album, especially after seeing Ray Charles hit with In Person in 1959. He'd played Harlem's Apollo Theater several times, but when Nathan refused to pay for a live recording on the basis that he wouldn't have a single to promote it, Mr. Dynamite had to take matters into his own hands.

Brown personally funded the recording of his Wednesday night show at The Apollo on October 24th, 1962. He and the Flames had been there all week already, and Brown was counting on the raucous crowds who showed for amateur night to give him the kind of support he knew Nathan couldn't ignore. For his part, Nathan had reluctantly sent one of his people to supervise the recording, but could hardly have expected it to result in this album. It's more than a little strange to think King had originally issued Live at the Apollo with canned applause and screams because not only were the Apollo faithful in full "support" of Brown's revue, that night has gone down in rock and soul history as arguably the finest live performance ever captured on record. Not bad for a guy who'd been one flop away from failure only a few years earlier.

Live at the Apollo was issued in 1963 and became an instant hit. Not only did it satisfy Brown's small legion of diehard fans-- to the tune of being played in its entirety during the evenings on some R&B; radio stations-- for the first time, it brought the undeniably intense celebration of his live show to young audiences throughout the country. This might not have been very important in another era, but just as Live at the Apollo can be seen as a symbolic transformation of R&B; into Soul, for a myriad of events, 1963 marked the dawn of a decade when sharing experiences and points of view across an entire culture meant more than just crossover success. It was the true beginning of the 60s, and Brown's half-hour Wednesday night set figures no less prominently than Dylan bringing protest music to the masses or The Beatles arriving in America the following year as musical signposts for A New Day.

Dominique Leone


"Are you ready for Star Time?" exclaimed MC Lucas "Fats" Gonder from the stage of Harlem's Apollo on 24 October, 1962. The eager crowd of 1,500 yelled affirmatively and Fats launched into his now epochal introduction:

"Thank you and thank you very kindly. It's indeed a great pleasure to present to you at this particular time, nationally and internationally known as the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business, the man who sings I'll Go Crazy! Try Me! You've Got the Power! Think! If You Want Me! I Don't Mind! Bewildered! Million-dollar seller, Lost Someone! The very latest release, Night Train! Let's everybody shout and shimmy! Mr Dynamite, the amazing Mr Please Please himself, the star of the show, James Brown and the Famous Flames!"

It was an apposite overture to perhaps the greatest live soul album ever recorded. Two days into the Cuban missile crisis, this equally sweat-inducing affair was rocking the Apollo. That night James Brown worked – harder than he'd worked in his life. In fact, the live album was a big gamble. Bankrolled by Brown himself, if it failed he risked financial ruin. Success, though, whispered sweet promises of escape from the gruelling chitlin' circuit and a wide open door into the lucrative white market.

In 1962, Brown's status was certainly impressive. From 1956, with Please Please Please, he'd recorded a string of million-selling singles for King Records. The sales figures for his LPs though were dramatically less; between 5,000 and 10,000. Performing about 300 gigs a year, Brown had forged a formidable following and by the very early 60s was anointed the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business. Quite simply, the man worked his show – the live performances were electric.

Subsequently Brown's logic was: capture the live magic on wax and sell it. Today, he remembers: "The songs were a lot different live. Any artist, if he's really got his act together, his live show will be twice as good as the record. And I tried to convince King Records." Concert albums, though, were a very rare breed at the time. Indeed, at King Records, boss Syd Nathan's preferred thinking was: if a live album is available in record stores, why go to the gigs?

So Nathan – also famously tight – vetoed the project. But Brown was adamant, stumping up the cash himself for the recording and also renting the Apollo, which cost $5,700, in the region of $70,000 in today's currency. Bobby Byrd of the Famous Flames recalls: "James was very intense because he was booking the Apollo himself. He had everyone in tuxedos." James Brown and the Famous Flames started their Apollo residency on 19 October but decided to record their performances on Wednesday 24. This was the raucous amateur night, as Byrd explains: "You got a crowd of people that's really ready to go."

Equipment was hired from Manhattan's A1 Sound, and microphones were dangled just above the crowd to catch their gasps and whoops. Then James Brown and band hit the stage. The resultant recording of their performances on that Wednesday night unquestionably shows Brown as a master of his art.

Switching from short, wild instrumental vamps to hot, sweaty ballads, the atmosphere is feverish. The extraordinary drama and pace of a James Brown show is caught as he exhausts his audience, preaching about the heights of passion or the depths of frustration and loss. The centrepiece of the concert is the 10-minute Lost Someone. Brilliantly stretching out this febrile ballad, he scorches it with a myriad of emotions. Brown's mesmerising relationship with the crowd is palpable: "I feel so good I wanna SCREAM!" he hollers, as they attempt to out-scream James Brown himself. The show finishes with a runaway version of Night Train, the track heavyweight champ Sonny Liston trained to.

The recording of that Wednesday's shows was not without its obstacles though. In one of the early performances an elderly woman, just below a microphone, repeatedly screamed: "Sing it, motherfucker!" Debating this dilemma between performances, the band realised she was actually an asset, encouraging the rest of the audience to shriek louder. So King's vice-president, Hal Neely, bribed her with popcorn into attending the other shows, although he discreetly moved the microphone out of cussing range. Bobby Byrd: "She brought the house down, she was a big part of the album."

As owner of the recordings, Brown forced Nathan to buy the tapes from him. But Nathan wasn't impressed. Brown: "He didn't like the way we went from one tune to another without stopping … I guess he was expecting exact copies of our earlier records, but with people politely applauding in between." Once Nathan finally agreed to press 5,000 copies of the album, both men argued about the promotional single. James Brown: "Mr Nathan was waiting to see which tune the radio stations were going to play from the album, and then he would shoot it out as a single. I said, 'We're not going to take any singles off it. Sell it the way it is.'"

Amazingly, the radio DJs, encouraged by the audience, started playing the whole album, dropping in commercials in between the first and second side. Bobby Byrd: "People were calling in, they really wanted to hear the whole thing, the excitement and everything." The recording was so palpably alive, the radio listeners could almost see the rapt crowd and yellow spotlight on James Brown as he knelt, head bowed, holding the microphone stand with both hands, and imploring, "I lost someone!"

Live at the Apollo subsequently sold millions of copies by word of mouth, climbing to No 2 on the pop album charts, just behind Andy Williams's Days of Wine and Roses. It catapulted Brown out of the chitlin' circuit and attracted those much-coveted white fans. Also, as Bobby Byrd remembers: "Everybody started doing live albums, everybody jumped on the bandwagon." James Brown went on to perform in a multitude of arenas and stadiums, in Vietnam and Africa, for presidents, and on television shows beamed to millions. But on a cold night in October 1962, in front of 1,500 hungry Harlemites, he really ripped the roof off the sucker.

James Maycock



..::TRACK-LIST::..

All Live ... Includes His Famous Hits:
1. Introduction To James Brown 1:48
Written By James Brown

2. I'll Go Crazy 2:05
Written By James Brown

3. Try Me 2:26
Written By James Brown

4. Think 1:58
Soloist, Tenor Saxophone - St. Clair Pinckney
Written By Lowman Pauling

5. I Don't Mind 2:39
Written By James Brown

6. Lost Someone 10:43
Organ - Bobby Byrd
Written By Lloyd Stallworth, Bobby Byrd, James Brown

Medley (6:26)
a) Please, Please, Please
Written By James Brown, Johnny Terry

b) You've Got The Power
Written By James Brown, Johnny Terry

c) I Found Someone
Written By James Brown, Bobby Byrd, Lloyd Stallworth

d) Why Do You Do Me
Written By Bobby Byrd, Sylvester Keels

e) I Want You So Bad
Written By James Brown

f) I Love You, Yes I Do
Written By Sol Marcus, Guy Wood, Sally Nix, Henry Glover, Eddie Seiler

g) Strange Things Happen
Written By James Brown

h) Bewildered
Written By Leonard Whitcup, Teddy Powell

i) Please, Please, Please
Written By James Brown, Johnny Terry

8. Night Train 3:28
Written By Jimmy Forrest, Oscar Washington


Bonus Tracks: Single Mixes
9. Think 2:00
Soloist, Tenor Saxophone - St. Clair Pinckney
Written By Lowman Pauling

Medley (2:09)
a) I Found Someone
Written By Bobby Byrd, James Brown, Lloyd Stallworth

b) Why Do You Do Me
Written By Bobby Byrd, Sylvester Keels

c) I Want You So Bad
Written By James Brown

11. Lost Someone 2:41
Organ - Bobby Byrd
Written By Lloyd Stallworth, Bobby Byrd, James Brown

12. I'll Go Crazy 2:18
Written By James Brown


Recorded live at the Apollo Theater, New York City, October 24, 1962.
Remastered & expanded edition includes 20 page booklet with photos, essays, & full credits.

1 to 8 originally issued, with overdubbed applause and an edited version of the intro, as King 826, May 1963. The original LP ending was a fade-out during the vamp of "Night Train". Later blue label stereo pressings included the full intro. A 1968 re-pressing included the final theme.

Tracks 9 to 12 are bonus single mixes:‎ (sleeve notes indicate)
#9 - This slowed down version issued only as radio promo version of single King 5952, September 1964
#11 - Issued as single King K6020, January 1966 (#94 Pop)
#12 - Issued as single King K6020, B-side of "Lost Someone", January 1966 (#38 R&B, #73 Pop)

(#10 would appear to be King 5956, 1964)

Digitally remastered at Universal Mastering Studios-East.



..::OBSADA::..

Vocals - James Brown
Alto Saxophone - William 'Po' Devil' Burgess
Tenor Saxophone - Clifford 'Ace King' MacMillan
Tenor Saxophone [Principal Tenor Saxophone] - St. Clair Pinckney
Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone - Al 'Brisco' Clark
Trombone - Dickie Wells
Trumpet - Roscoe Patrick, Teddy Washington
Backing Vocals - 'Baby' Lloyd Stallworth, Bobby Bennett, Bobby Byrd
Bass - Hubert Perry
Drums [Principal Drums] - Clayton Fillyau
Drums [Probably] - George Sims
Guitar, Tour Manager [Acting Tour Manager] - Les Buie




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5RMlX9NVws



SEED 15:00-22:00.
POLECAM!!!