I woke up Christmas morning and found out James Brown was dead. My first thought was, “What kind of irresistible force did it take to stop James Brown from moving?” Surely, I thought, at least one foot—the good foot—would twitch until the universe folded up and the cosmic lights went out once and for all. I couldn’t imagine James Brown not dancing, not sweating, not screaming. Not breathing. When I saw the pictures of James Brown lying in his coffin, in the Apollo Theater, I heard his band playing in my head, and all I could think was, “Get up. Get on up.” I figured if anybody could vault up out of a coffin and one-foot it across the stage, James Brown could. And James Brown surely would. In 1965, nine months before I got my first electric guitar, I heard James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” on the radio. When Brown’s guitarist, Jimmy Nolen, hit his 16th-note shangalang riff at the turnaround, I forgot all about The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I wanted to play guitar like that guy, the funky guy in James Brown’s band. Back in ’65, I didn’t know that James Brown lived in Augusta, Ga., right across the river from my house in Burnettown, S.C. I didn’t know that he was inventing a new musical style. I just knew that I liked what James Brown was doing. Brown and his band weren’t playing the blues, and they weren’t playing traditional rhythm & blues. They weren’t exactly playing soul music, either—at least not the kind of soul music that was coming out of Memphis. James Brown was making music that nobody had ever heard before. A while back, James Brown said that there were just two American originals—himself and Elvis. Well, at the risk of having pitchfork-toting Elvis groupies show up at my house, I can tell you that while Elvis was quite an innovator, he started as a rockabilly act, not much different from Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. It was exciting music, especially when Elvis was out front singing, but it wasn’t exactly brand-new. James Brown, though, invented a whole new style of American music—with a whole new syncopated rhythm and a whole new instrumentation. When Elvis was working with a drummer, guitarist and bass-fiddle player, Brown’s bands had a horn section, two drummers and two electric bass players. Brown invented his music in Augusta, which at the time wasn’t exactly a hotbed of musical creation. Simply put, Augusta was square. Or at least it was square until James Brown started selling records. Then, all of a sudden, white country club bands dropped their accordions, picked up guitars and electric basses and started dressing up in flashy tuxedos and patent leather shoes. By the middle of 1966, a lot of those bands had horn players. I was in one of those bands when I was in the seventh grade. I wore a shiny gold suit with a double-breasted jacket, a ruffle-front shirt and patent leather shoes. I did dance steps. I wrote horn charts. I played funky guitar, and made more money over a weekend than my daddy made all week. I had James Brown to thank for it. About nine years later, James Brown opened a nightclub in Augusta called The Third World. It was a remodeled warehouse building with a big concert hall in the back and a little chicken-wing joint in the front. I got hired to work with the four-piece house band. We played seven nights a week, four weeks a month. A couple days a week, James Brown would come in early and jam with us house-band guys. He liked to play the Hammond B-3 organ. Understand, he didn’t really know how to play the B-3, but the stuff he played ended up sounding pretty good. When Brown finished with the B-3, he started conducting the band. James Brown didn’t wave a baton, and he didn’t work with sheet music. He worked with his body. He’d point to each of us, he’d grunt, he’d stomp his feet and he’d make noises with his mouth. We hunted and pecked until we found the notes and rhythms he was looking for, and next thing we knew, our little four-piece band started sounding like James Brown’s band. It was at The Third World that I got my highest compliment as a guitar player. Legendary session man Cornell Dupree—also known as Uncle Funky—walked into the house band’s dressing room, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You are the funkiest-playing white boy that I ever heard.” I figure I’ve got James Brown and Jimmy Nolen to thank for that. James Brown was a force of nature. Nobody before him could do what he did. And the people who’ve tried since have never gotten close. Sure, you might see Al Sharpton doing Michael Jackson doing Prince doing Eddie Murphy doing James Brown. But you won’t see the likes of James Brown again. If there’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven, I guarantee you that James Brown walked straight to center stage, turned to the band and hollered, “Can I count it off?” Believe me when I tell you: nobody said no. For a little ironic James Brown reminiscence, look here: youtube.com/watch?v=nQcnTbFDVIM.
