Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
"Many people just believe that I can't get sick, or they refuse to accept the fact that my body gets tired like everyone else. Well, I do sometimes, but there are so many people who depend on me for inspiration and support that if I wanted to get sick or slow down...I just can't. I just can't afford to slow down."
James Brown
James Brown's body finally gave in and he died today of pneumonia at the age of 73. It is safe to say that there will never be another one like him. Brown was a legendary performer and one of the most influencial musicians of the past fifty years.
Unlike nearly everyone else in the greater soul community for whom the success of any soul artist was another rung up the ladder...James Brown was a Solo Man who forged ahead on his own, who, far from negotiating any kind of compromise solution to reach a broader audience, demanded that that very audience sit up and listen to what he had to say. There is no question he was ill mannered in his insistence, and that he was resented for it. Solomon Burke dismissed him as not a proper soul singer at all, and his own all-black band referred to him privately as "that greasy nigger," but he was not to be denied. Long after Ray Charles had left the parochial world of sould and Sam Cooke was on the verge of Las Vegas bookings and Hollywood success, James Brown alone, a contemporary of both Charles and Cooke, was still out there toiling in the vineyards, singing self-created music that increasingly left both the idea of accommodation and the old tired formulations of r&b behind. Perhaps this is why he was called 'our number one black poet' by LeRoi Jones and hailed in 1969 as possibly 'the most important black man in America' by Look magazine (as well as gaining attention from SNCC leaders Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown). His music reached out with revolutionary fervor to a New Breed audience of blacks and whites. It was a militant culturally as any Black Panter political manifesto, without ever abandoning the past or its original audience. For James Brown remained firmly rooted in a sense of self and a sense of tradition that Black America had not always known that it had.Peter Guralnick from, "Sweet Soul Music"
The Godfather of Soul is gone. Rest in Peace. Then get up off that thing, and shake your ass. It's what the old man would want.
https://bronxbanter.baseballtoaster.com/archives/574382.html
When Fireball Roberts died, someone said something to the extent of "it's like waking up, and finding a mountain gone." This is the same thing.
Also something that seemed to be overlooked, the death of Mike Evans, who played Lionel Jefferson on both All in the Family & The Jeffersons.
Both will be missed.
I think Method Man is probably more sampled than James Brown since that time, but it's important to note that Brown had an impact on American culture for the better part of 5 decades and perhaps should be remembered in the same breath as the Beatles in terms of transforming American culture.
But as death goes, hows aboud the obit on Cecil Travis. Neva heard of him. On the ballot for the Hall this year. Finished between Ted and Joe D in 1941. Had 218 hits and batted .359. One of only two players to have had a five hit debut. More importantly, he gave up his talent in the war, or so it was said. Christy did too.
They don't make the players fight anymore, do they? The Mick claimed he had osteo/something to stay out of Korea. Willie and Ted went. Joe played ball at the front, while MM entertained the troops. Whood ya rather see?
A-Rod should book a trip to the Emerald city. Do great things for his rep.
For JB, I be black and proud.
But what he did was take a one-bar loop and extend it. I mean, all of those records are what, 6-9 minutes long, right? He understood that we, as listeners, love repetition, understood the hypnotic effect of it. He also turned every instrument into a percussive tool. And as simple or minimal as the instrumentation on his records may seem, if you take away one element--the guitar or the horns, the records fall apart. I mean, he really knew what he was doing.
And lookit, it's not only Hip Hop, but virtually all music today that is based on looping one bar of music. Heck, once technology caught up in the eighties, the equiptment became geared towards it.
And that all goes back to James Brown. Nobody made an artform out of that stripped-down thinking until he did it. And it wasn't a combination of direct influences (as you get when Ray Charles mixed Latin rhythms over blues chord changes, or where the Beatles later took r&b and rock and roll in the studio with George Martin)--it was something he developed himself. Which is why you can argue that he's the MOST influencial musician today.
Mantle did have osteomyelitis and failed three Army physicals because of it. That was not enough to satisfy his critics who said "you don't have to kick anyone in the army". You do have to be ready to hike 15-20 miles a day.
As for The Mick failing the physical, I wouldn't believe anything from the Webb/Topping team doctors. He could have sat in some office on the paralell or drank with the guys in the officer's mess.
The link below is to a James Brown concert at Boston Garden on April 5th, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. (It requires the divx plug in, which is worthless and should be removed after you watch the video, but this is the only video on earth I would ask this for) The concert is an amazing document of James Brown's power. It is essential viewing for any music fan.
http://tinyurl.com/yzurdb
(8:16 is mindbending)
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