Premiered on HBO. I DVR’d it and watched it yesterday. Not the recent movie Get on Up. This is a documentary, with Mick Jagger involved as a producer and interviews with a ton of people involved.
EXCELLENT documentary - touches on his history, his music innovations, his difficult drivenness and abuse of his band, women and others, his political activism and influence. Really complex and layered - and Brown as a personality more than stands up to that scrutiny. Some of the stories - wow; Maceo Parker’s brother Melvin tells one about confronting Brown that will drop your jaw. And his performances are just electric - watching him come onstage for the TAMI show is still one of the most explosive openings ever.
A wonderful way to get an overview of the man, his music and the times.
Thanks for letting me know about this. Amazing documentary, with great sources and an astonishing range of interview subjects. The definitive work on the subject.
From the sound of that story and one of Martha High’s, one gets the impression that they pretty much all were packing heat all the time in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Which I suppose makes sense given the venues they came up in as a band. But still seems kind of astonishing in retrospect for such prominent and successful musicians. Today’s gangsta rappers had nothing on that crew.
ETA: Considering he produced it, I was tickled that Mick Jagger went out of his way to bring and then dismiss the legend about how he was devastated about having to follow a stunning James Brown performance :D. At least he laughed at himself some and resisted the urge to insert himself too much as a talking head. Did a fine job with the doc, really.
True on both counts. There was enough racist segregation and down n’ dirty-ness on the music circuit back then that yeah, carrying a gun was likely common. But pulling it on the Godfather of Soul - that takes some stones!
As for Mick - yeah, very cool. His deep respect for James Brown is clear, but hearing him share what really went down was interesting. Having said that, when you see JB’s entrance on the TAMI show, it is so explosive it is easy to see how the legend came about. The Stones do a fine job, but anyone watching the clips can’t help but wonder how they followed James Brown.
Hey - thanks for that! Really appreciate that helpful post.
The documentary makes NO apologies for who James Brown was - all of that is discussed in full. James Brown didn’t just beat up women - he was an asshole on a number of levels and to all types of people, men and women alike.
He also championed Black Power at a time when his leadership made a big difference, and was a calming influence when MLK was assassinated. He was complex and messed up - and his place in the history of music is clear and huge - that is worthy of understanding, with all the complexities intact and openly discussed.
Brown was a gigantic asshole, but the film does a far better job of helping us understand how he got that way than the fictional film did. Al Sharpton talks about telling Brown that he understood - that his father abandoned his family as well. Brown replied that both his mother and his father abandoned him, that he wound up being raised by an aunt who ran a whorehouse, about how he would see the “church ladies” come in and work, leaving at 4:30 to get home to make supper for their families.
This obviously does not excuse his being an abuser, but it helps to understand that he grew up in a world where you could trust and rely on no one for anything.
Yeah I thought the doc was very fair to its subject. His enormous talent and work ethic is quite rightfully lionized, as is some of his public service. But it also makes it very clear that he was shitty businessman and a grade-A prick who trusted no one and essentially had no friends. Just ( very expendable in his mind and very underpaid in everybody else’s ) employees and perhaps for a few years a solitary quasi-friend/mentor.
It speaks to the quality of the production that it is very upfront about all his failings, yet you still can’t help but be blown away by his ability, charisma and showmanship. It’s a pretty solid example of a ‘warts and all’ documentary done right.