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James Brown has become a
household
name all over the world for his influential workings on
the R&B, Soul and Funk scenes. The Godfather of Soul
is now 69 and is still working wonders.
The star is also famous for "breaking the
barrier"
into the white music scene with such huge hits as: I Feel
Good, Papa's Got a Brand New Bag and Sex Machine, these
tracks all feature on his latest release The Godfather
James
Brown.
Before the age of 20, James had already been arrested and
sent to prison on a drugs charge. This was later followed
by an incident in 1988 when "The godfather"
earned
himself a 6-year prison sentence. (Only 3 were served.)
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That was then. This is
now…
7.30, the doors opened into the venue for the night
ahead.
Fully expecting Mr. Brown to keep us waiting at least an
hour, it came as no surprise when he did!
With no support band for the evening, his implausible
band
were first to take the stage. All in all there were more
than 15 people on stage and every member remained tight
all evening, it was a great privilege to see so many
fantastic
musicians all-playing so well.
With a lot of "give it up for James Brown"
"he's
the man" and "soul brother number 1" going
on from the band to get the audience hyped, James finally
took to the stage showing incredible stamina for a old
man.
Jumping from conducting his band to playing the keyboard,
a little singing and a few rare moves I was amazed by his
energy.
.
Half way through the night James handed the stage over to
a lady. He announced her as " The new Janis
Joplin"
to be fair the only resemblance I could see between her
and Janis Joplin was that Janis was bullied a lot, this
happened to be the case with the audience.
James only sang 4 songs starting off with the spine
melting
This is A Mans World, this was what everyone was waiting
for and believe me it was worth the wait.
Other songs played during the night were Try Me, I Feel
Good and off course the minimalist funk classic Sex
Machine,
this was also sang by one of James's band. Whilst James
was not singing he kind of pulled his weight by playing
the keyboards. In this song there is a very high note
that
is held for a long period of time, this was also not sung
by James.
Unfortunately we were not blessed with an encore by the
star, but we got what we paid for and that was to see a
true master at work.
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