Excellent post! I was going to a lot of clubs when "Living in America" was released. It was a pretty exhilarating song to dance to! I never had the 12-inch but I did play the 45 a lot. Great energy!
Thanks for reading & reacting Dan. I agree the song/version has got great energy. You only have to listen to Dan Hartman's version to see the difference. Part of it is James' unique style but the mix is also quite good. Enjoy your weekend !
Thanks for reading & reacting Lorrie. I grew up in the eighties without parents or older brothers being fan so I did not know his repertoire that well before starting to work in the music industry. I did catalogue at Universal and Polydor is one of their labels. His repertoire is groundbreaking and timeless.
Brown was even more commercially unsuccessful in Britain. I was quite shocked to find that none of his albums troubled the UK charts until Gravity peaked at a lowly 85 in 1986. I know there was a real problem marketing albums by black artists in Britain (apart from the "superstar" performers like Stevie Wonder or Diana Ross) due to the institutional racism of the industry. However, Brown's singles hardly fared any better, with Get Up Offa That Thing the only Top 30 hit for nearly two decades between 1966 and Living In America in 1985. His role as a pioneer and influencer is undeniable, but I guess the lack of melody was always a barrier to mainstream white pop success
He got the same problem in the US. What I found odd, researching James Brown was the difference between the number of hits he had in the R&B charts and in the Pop Charts. He scored 13 number 1's in the R&B charts but not a single Hot 100 n°1. In one of the video's I've included, the answer was given by one of the interviewee's : he's too black, as in his music has little crossover potential. Thanks for reading & reacting Paul. Enjoy your weekend !
Damn! This is as solid as a James Brown funk work-out and accordingly, it keeps coming back to the 1 as you start a new segment. I will endeavor to watch some of these videos but will absolutely listen to your latest mix. It's an excellent piece.
I wrote a biography of Wilson Pickett, who was Soul Brother in Number 2 in Africa and to my mind, the only person who could scream better than JB himself. Indeed, that's a picture of Pickett himself you have there in black and white. Pickett's career took even more of a nose-dive during disco, his own attempt to enter that genre is close to unlistenable, and this from a man who did not release a single bum track while on Atlantic. Pickett was also produced by Brad Shapiro for much of the 1970s, though the relationship hit a commercial nadir as they increasingly went through the motions over at RCA. I got to interview Brad for the book in TN, he was lovely but his memory was starting to slip on details, more about him here:
The one thing I think you miss here is that by 1985 hip-hop was surely starting to enter the funky (ass opposed to disco) sampling age on record and Brown's backbeats were integral. He attended the New Music Seminar as early as 1984 to promote a record he had just made with Afrika Bambaataa on Tommy Boy, called Unity https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/05/arts/the-pop-life-the-presence-and-aims-of-a-star-james-brown.html
So, having ridden out disco reluctantly, like PIckett and so many others who couldn't adapt to it and became old news as a result, he was definitely ripe for a more high-profile comeback.
Also, Brown was a patriot. He grew up in a racist society that imprisoned him early on and yet he always believed in and loved his country. He was considerably more patriotic than much of his audience! So the song appealed to him in that sense too.
Thanks for a wonderful article - and for those who don't know the musical terms, it's great that you provided YouTube primers. Cheers!
Thanks Tony. And you are right about Afrika Bambaata. I kept it out because Afrika is very important as well in the subject I'm writing about 😁. I've got at least 4 tracks if him on my list so I kept the connection for one of those. But I should've mentioned it at least because Unity came before Living In America. And thanks for reacting to the picture of Wilson Pickett. It should've been a picture of Brad Shapiro. I selected the wrong one and I didn't notice it before publishing. Anyway I've changed it now. I didn't know about his love for the country. It makes sense off course. The great thing about writing this newsletter is that you do deep dives into the artists and you discover plenty of things you didn't know. Have a great weekend !
James’ appearance was the only good thing in the movie. I duly bought the 12”. It was pure America. 🇺🇸
I can imagine. I never saw the movie myself. Never was a big fan of the franchise. Thanks for reading and reacting Trey ! Have a great weekend
Excellent post! I was going to a lot of clubs when "Living in America" was released. It was a pretty exhilarating song to dance to! I never had the 12-inch but I did play the 45 a lot. Great energy!
Thanks for reading & reacting Dan. I agree the song/version has got great energy. You only have to listen to Dan Hartman's version to see the difference. Part of it is James' unique style but the mix is also quite good. Enjoy your weekend !
I grew up listening to James Brown as a child in the 60s because my older brothers and my father were fans, and played his music often.
Thanks for reading & reacting Lorrie. I grew up in the eighties without parents or older brothers being fan so I did not know his repertoire that well before starting to work in the music industry. I did catalogue at Universal and Polydor is one of their labels. His repertoire is groundbreaking and timeless.
I forwarded your post to one of my brothers. He said it was a comprehensive and well-researched article. He also writes about music.
Brown was even more commercially unsuccessful in Britain. I was quite shocked to find that none of his albums troubled the UK charts until Gravity peaked at a lowly 85 in 1986. I know there was a real problem marketing albums by black artists in Britain (apart from the "superstar" performers like Stevie Wonder or Diana Ross) due to the institutional racism of the industry. However, Brown's singles hardly fared any better, with Get Up Offa That Thing the only Top 30 hit for nearly two decades between 1966 and Living In America in 1985. His role as a pioneer and influencer is undeniable, but I guess the lack of melody was always a barrier to mainstream white pop success
He got the same problem in the US. What I found odd, researching James Brown was the difference between the number of hits he had in the R&B charts and in the Pop Charts. He scored 13 number 1's in the R&B charts but not a single Hot 100 n°1. In one of the video's I've included, the answer was given by one of the interviewee's : he's too black, as in his music has little crossover potential. Thanks for reading & reacting Paul. Enjoy your weekend !
Damn! This is as solid as a James Brown funk work-out and accordingly, it keeps coming back to the 1 as you start a new segment. I will endeavor to watch some of these videos but will absolutely listen to your latest mix. It's an excellent piece.
I wrote a biography of Wilson Pickett, who was Soul Brother in Number 2 in Africa and to my mind, the only person who could scream better than JB himself. Indeed, that's a picture of Pickett himself you have there in black and white. Pickett's career took even more of a nose-dive during disco, his own attempt to enter that genre is close to unlistenable, and this from a man who did not release a single bum track while on Atlantic. Pickett was also produced by Brad Shapiro for much of the 1970s, though the relationship hit a commercial nadir as they increasingly went through the motions over at RCA. I got to interview Brad for the book in TN, he was lovely but his memory was starting to slip on details, more about him here:
https://mainstreetmediatn.com/articles/thewilsonpost/brad-shapiro-helped-james-brown-millie-jackson-wilson-pickett-become-music-legends/
The one thing I think you miss here is that by 1985 hip-hop was surely starting to enter the funky (ass opposed to disco) sampling age on record and Brown's backbeats were integral. He attended the New Music Seminar as early as 1984 to promote a record he had just made with Afrika Bambaataa on Tommy Boy, called Unity https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/05/arts/the-pop-life-the-presence-and-aims-of-a-star-james-brown.html
So, having ridden out disco reluctantly, like PIckett and so many others who couldn't adapt to it and became old news as a result, he was definitely ripe for a more high-profile comeback.
Also, Brown was a patriot. He grew up in a racist society that imprisoned him early on and yet he always believed in and loved his country. He was considerably more patriotic than much of his audience! So the song appealed to him in that sense too.
Thanks for a wonderful article - and for those who don't know the musical terms, it's great that you provided YouTube primers. Cheers!
Thanks Tony. And you are right about Afrika Bambaata. I kept it out because Afrika is very important as well in the subject I'm writing about 😁. I've got at least 4 tracks if him on my list so I kept the connection for one of those. But I should've mentioned it at least because Unity came before Living In America. And thanks for reacting to the picture of Wilson Pickett. It should've been a picture of Brad Shapiro. I selected the wrong one and I didn't notice it before publishing. Anyway I've changed it now. I didn't know about his love for the country. It makes sense off course. The great thing about writing this newsletter is that you do deep dives into the artists and you discover plenty of things you didn't know. Have a great weekend !