Happy Birthday (May 3) James Brown: Cold Sweat

By Wednesday May 4, 2011

There are better videos out there, but this is how I remember him from from a show in ’68. Michael Jackson who?



23 Comments
  1. John C Dvorak says:
    5/4/2011 at 9:32 am

    I was lucky enough to see Brown about 25 years ago in a small venue. Fantastic even when he was older.

    Reply
  2. bobbo, Republicans lie about everything all the time says:
    5/4/2011 at 9:35 am

    Yea, just way too funky for this piece of white bread. I always did like his riff on “getting on the good foot….”

    You know, white boys always criticized for copying/stealing the black mans music, and while that may be true for the English Invasion, Elvis was doing more moves than anyone else 10 years earlier. Made him the King.

    Reply
  3. TheMAXX says:
    5/4/2011 at 9:41 am

    I like how the drums in this sounds like jungle music from the mid 1990′s. That jungle music, so modern and cutting edge…

    Reply
  4. Skeptic says:
    5/4/2011 at 10:50 am

    I thoroughly enjoyed that. Thanks.

    Reply
  5. LDA says:
    5/4/2011 at 11:25 am

    Saw him in the 90′s, very entertaining.

    Reply
  6. ramuno says:
    5/4/2011 at 12:12 pm

    I saw him the night MLKing was killed. Just to show that innocence was still with us amid the political assassination era, I never hesitated to go, even though I was not black.

    Reply
  7. honeyman says:
    5/4/2011 at 12:41 pm

    Happy Birthday James!

    Love that man.

    Reply
  8. Sea Lawyer says:
    5/4/2011 at 1:25 pm

    He didn’t know karate, but he knew ka-razy

    Reply
  9. Tokyo Dan says:
    5/4/2011 at 2:26 pm

    Elvis’s dance moves were a white man’s ‘interpretation’ of a black man’s dance moves. Elvis could never dance like JB. Just watch JB’s foot work. Astonishing!

    Reply
  10. John E. Quantum says:
    5/4/2011 at 3:06 pm

    He ALWAYS had one of the tightest bands around. I heard from somebody that he would fine the musicians in his band for each and every note they missed. They seldom missed though.

    Reply
  11. bobbo, Republicans lie about everything all the time says:
    5/4/2011 at 3:09 pm

    Tokyo–how was Elvis interpreting ANY black man’s dance moves when he came 10 years before James Brown?

    the contemporaries of Elvis were Bo Diddly who had NO dance moves, just his shuffle and then a whole bunch of black guys who played piano, and then the true first black rock and roller-Little Richard who was famous for his face and voice-again NOT his dancing.

    Sorry. Elvis was the King. Took a few songs from some Black writers/singers who took the same from country/Irish Singers.

    True–America was built on the backs of poor people, both black and white, but that doesn’t mean the whites were “nothing but” leeches and appropriators. Everybody builds on and steals from everyone else. Roots go everywhere.

    Except maybe the Japanese. What are they but a derivative white sub-culture? If you fail in America–you can still be “Big in Japan.”

    Reply
  12. John E. Quantum says:
    5/4/2011 at 3:10 pm

    He did have his imitators-

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=oHqUipinDyw

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=X8Ow1nlafOg

    Reply
  13. bobbo, Republicans lie about everything all the time says:
    5/4/2011 at 3:22 pm

    Surely the best was Eddie Murphy, getting into the Hot Tub:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=jLY7Ry17C9A&feature=related

    Reply
  14. Grandpa says:
    5/4/2011 at 4:05 pm

    A lot of difference between him and Jackson. He was an original.

    Reply
  15. McCullough says:
    5/4/2011 at 6:40 pm

    #13. Yeah, he nailed it. But he nailed it even better in the movie Dreamgirls, an homage to the great….too bad Eddie lost it. He was a major talent.

    Reply
  16. Hi De Ho says:
    5/4/2011 at 6:41 pm

    # 11 how was Elvis interpreting ANY black man’s dance moves when he came 10 years before James Brown?

    You Tube has many videos of black performers dancing long before Elvis. Cab Calloway for example. These guys were doing the moon walk 30 years before Michael Jackson was born.
    I do agree with you, Elvis was the King.

    Reply
  17. McCullough says:
    5/4/2011 at 7:53 pm

    Elvis did not do Funk…..

    period.

    Reply
  18. bobbo, Republicans lie about everything all the time says:
    5/5/2011 at 2:06 am

    #16–HidetheHo==Cab was a tap/soft shoe dancer.

    If there are “many youtube videos” then link to one performer before Elvis doing any hip shaking.

    Then document how Elvis knew about that performer so that he could copy it.

    There is “imitation” as in 100% rip off, then there is “parallel evolution” where things all develop independently with minimal borrowing and influence.

    Nightline has an occasional spot highlighting a given musical performer where they interview the person for their inspiration/roots. Its telling that black and white performers “generally” have black and white artists that they took their inspiration from and from whom they currently respect. Music is a great uniter that way.

    I’ll buy that A followed in B’s tracks but not that a whole race followed another race’s tracks. People are more individualized and calling out “big group” dynamics is just a gross (ie=wrong) generalization.

    Reply
  19. HenryG says:
    5/5/2011 at 8:45 am

    Thanks for sharing and reminding us to celebrate the birthday of “The hardest working man in show business!”

    @McCullough… BTW Michael Jackson was inspired by JB to be all that he could be.

    Reply
  20. Hi De Ho says:
    5/5/2011 at 12:10 pm

    Bobbo What kind of dancer was Elvis?

    Reply

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