All language subtitles for JAMES BROWN - Say It Loud - Documentary 1 [2024]

-"Black" is a thing that were
basically put on a man --

on an American Black man,
in America.

And, hey, I'm Black,
and I'm proud,

but I really don't want
to have to say

I'm Black and you have
to say you're White.

I want to say that we're people
and that we're brothers

and we got the same fight.
But now, if you step on my toe,

then I got to defend myself
as a man.

Same thing
you would have to do it.

Hit it!

♪

♪ Watch me

♪ I got it

♪ Watch me

♪ I got it, hey!

♪ I got something
that makes me want to shout ♪

♪ I've got that thing

♪ That tells me
what it's all about ♪

♪ I got the soul

♪ And I'm super bad

♪

♪ Got soul

♪ And I'm super bad

♪ I'm a lover,
love to do my thing ♪

-Without James Brown,

the whole trajectory of culture
just goes somewhere else.

-♪ Hit it

-Everybody wasn't that talented.

Everybody wasn't
exactly as driven.

That maniacal drive.

-It's hard for me
to think about my dad

as the most important
Black man in America,

because he was my dad.

-♪ Got soul

♪ And I'm super bad

♪ Yeah, now

♪

-I love that two things
that he brought to the table

were, like, two taboo words --
"funk" and "black."

-♪ Super bad

-What's undeniable
and consistently so

in James Brown's
presentation of self

is that he's a Black man.

He's authentically
and unapologetically Black.

-He found a rugged, ghetto way
of translating Black culture.

The energy was in the feeling.

You know, records didn't have
feelings back then like that.

-♪ Got to move, huh

-This is the closest you're
gonna be connected to the soul

where slavery happened
and you saw all this pain happen

and you saw this racism happen.

And you get the men
from the South

and having all those
different pressures

just squeezed out
James Brown out of it.

-My dad...

-♪ Super bad

-...he was hard.

-♪ Hey, I'm super bad

-He wasn't soft.

-♪ Good God, get it, huh

♪ Super bad

-A diamond knows
that it's a diamond.

-♪ Super bad

-And in order to rise to
the top of the Earth's surface,

it has to endure
an extreme amount

of pressure and temperature.

-He was brilliant.

He took all these influences
and combined them.

And then he created,

almost single-handedly,
this other group.

-He really believed
that he could do things

and overcome things.

He marched to the beat
of his own drum, literally.

-So it's all deeper than
how great he was with the music.

-Hey!

-James Brown is a reflection
of the Black experience

in the context of
the United States of America.

That's why James Brown's story
is an American story.

-My thing, I had to get
the way I felt,

and I thought that I would
be able to deliver better,

doing it the way I feel,
you know?

It's one thing
I've always tried to do

is be unlike anybody else.

Everybody over there!

[ Cheers and applause ]

You know,
former little shoeshine boy

from a very, very poor family.

My father had to work hard
all his life.

And we moved from pillar to post
is what the people used to say.

We never really had a home.

I could, as far back
as I can remember,

was always renting.

Paying another cat's bills

and never really paying our own.

-My father was born
in a shack in Barnwell County,

South Carolina.

There was no breathing.
There was no sound.

It didn't look like
he was gonna come through.

But then, all of a sudden...

Oww!

[ Laughs ]

...he was alive.

They basically
beat life into him.

He always used to say,
"I was born dead.

So I had to make
a life for myself."

♪

-Miracles just don't happen,
but in my case, it did.

Music was the only thing I had.

My father stopped
in the second grade.

My mother stopped
in the fourth grade.

And I only went
to the seventh grade.

No music, no eat, no food.
I was a janitor when I cut.

"Please, Please, Please."

♪ Please

♪

♪ Please

-He's growing up,
South Carolina,

Georgia, in the Black Belt,
as we call it,

being just two generations
removed from it,

the heart of slavery
and knowing people

who were the children
of enslaved folks.

♪

-Have you ever been broke
and hungry?

I have really been
broke and hungry.

Plenty of times in my life.

I raised up.

I-I come up through
that kind of thing, you know?

Broke and hungry.

-My grandmother
and grandfather grew up so poor,

Grandma Susie,
she was a caregiver,

like most of the people
during that time.

I mean, my dad was born in 1933,

and she was born back
in the teens.

-My grandfather was a proud man.

He went without food,

and to keep from borrowing food
from a neighbor,

my grandfather
would walk 17 miles.

He saw that the life
he had as a sharecropper

wasn't going to be enough
to support the family,

so that's when he decided
he would move to Augusta.

-James's father
was extremely violent.

He beat her a lot.

She finally fled
to New York City.

There's a history
of Black and White men

who treated women like property
and beat them.

It'd be like, "Oh, he was,

you know, just putting
his wife straight."

-My grandfather was abusive
to my grandmother.

Not all the time,
but he saw it.

And then he was abusive
to my father.

So he saw that
heavy hand early on.

-That violence absolutely
can revisit itself

in interactions
that he has with other people.

-♪ I don't know how to sing
the blues ♪

♪ Like I used to sing them,
yeah ♪

-What you see growing up,

you think this is
how things are supposed to be.

You don't really see
a healthy relationship.

-It's one thing for
your father to not be there,

but I think it's a whole nother
set of obstacles

when you're dealing with
your mother abandoning you.

My Aunt Honey,
my grandfather's sister,

helped raise him as a man.

-My father
was a very poor man.

And then my mother,
she was a houseworker.

That's the early separation
of the things happening.

So I was kind of brought up
with my aunt

and caught a little hard.

So I did a lot of things to try

to be like the other guys,
you know?

I never had the chance
to experience

growing up as a kid.

-He grew up in a whorehouse.
That's really the reality of it.

And what he saw
at a young age was,

you wouldn't want any
of your children to see that.

May make you think
of women different,

treat women different.

-I was 9 years old

before I got my first pair
of underwear out of a store.

All of my clothes were made,
sacks and things like that.

You know, I remember
when I used to go

to Floyd School, man, jack.

You couldn't look at me no way.

-No, at us.
-Oh, okay.

You couldn't look at us no way.

-Me and you.
-And miss nothing.

And you always see the thing.
Yes, sir.

-You did.
-'Cause the patches

was hanging loose.

As a boy, I shined shoes.

I worked at the car lot.
I worked in a sawmill.

I picked cotton,
danced for nickels

and dimes to pay the rent.

Jack, anytime you can't eat

and don't know where you're
gonna get your next meal,

and if you don't
get there early,

you won't be able
to sleep in the bed,

you have to sleep on the floor
or on a pallet...

Well, we had to pay $5
for rent for a month.

18 people lived in a home.

They couldn't get it up
to save their life.

18 people.

And I danced
for the soldiers.

In 20 minutes, I had $19.

♪ Hey!
Hey, hey, pretty baby ♪

♪ With your fine old foxy self

♪

♪ Hey, pretty baby,
with your fine old foxy self ♪

♪

-Augusta being
a military town,

he spent a lot of time out
tap-dancing for soldiers.

-They would come
into the brothels,

so it's like, "How can
I make a little money?

So I'm going to do
my little buck dances,"

is what they call it.

-Buck dancing is one
of those traditions

that comes out
of the history of slavery,

connected to African dance.

But it gets brought over and
transmuted into this culture.

And it was a certain
kind of performance

that was expected to produce
entertainment for White folks

watching Black folks.

-I paid the rent
for three months

and put 4 in my pocket.

I went to a movie,
my daddy whupped me,

and I come back
and gave it to him,

and I went back
and made some more,

went back to the movie.
Come back and got me again.

-In this country,

particularly if we're talking
about Black people,

generational trauma
is often associated

with physical violence.

Mr. Brown's father
disciplining him, beating him,

I don't know if he thought that
he was doing anything wrong.

But now we know
through research

that that violence
that's inflicted upon children,

it changes them.

That trauma,
you carry with you.

-♪ Want to love you, baby

♪ Ease my misery

♪

-One night, we were riding
around in South Carolina.

He said, "Reverend,
you talk to your father?"

I said, "No, I don't know
where he is," and all that.

And I started
talking about it --

"He left, and they cut
the lights off,

and they took mama's Cadillac
and da da da da."

And he said, "Son, stop.
My mother and father left me."

And he said, "Son, stop.
My mother and father left me."

-And ever since that time,
I've been fighting,

trying to do it for myself.

-Oww!

♪ Talk about love,
a doggone shame ♪

♪ Talk about love,
I hate that name ♪

-My first talent show I won

was the Holland Talent Review
in Augusta, Georgia.

That was the Lenox Theater.

The Lenox Theater
was on Ninth Street --

Campbell Street at that time.

Today, it's
James Brown Boulevard.

-He grew up in the South,
and he understood this notion

that your value to other people
is in what you can do.

-If you were on a plantation,

you weren't allowed
to read books.

You weren't allowed
to congregate in big numbers.

But what you could do
is perform.

-♪ Come on up here

-Plantation owners
and overseers,

they would allow slaves
to perform in limited,

circumscribed ways.

They wanted a certain
kind of performance from slaves.

-♪ Ooh, unh

♪ Come on

-James Brown's relationship
to buck dancing

is where you really
have to start.

It's about doing it rhythmically

and producing certain kinds
of sounds with your whole body

but especially
the lower half of your body.

You think of Sammy Davis Jr.

You think of that whole
Black entertainment tradition.

So much of that is about
the understanding

of what the feet have
to do in performance.

♪

♪

-That's exactly what art is.

We took our situation
and made it beautiful.

No matter how ugly it was meant
to be, we made it beautiful.

And that's what James Brown did.

And he took the history of that
and the perseverance therein,

and used this experience as
opportunity for him to blossom.

♪

-In Augusta, Georgia,

he would visit the house
of prayer as a young boy.

And in the house of prayer,
it's a lot of brass.

It's like jubilee.

He was attracted
as a young child to that music.

-At the end of World War II,

when the big band era
was starting to die,

they had what
they called jump bands,

sort of like compact big bands.

♪

-My influence was Louis Jordan.

Fella who recorded a song
by the name of "Caldonia"

and a lot of things that were
very, very big in the '50s

and the late '40s.

♪

-Louis Jordan's band
was the most popular one

in Black culture at that point.

His music was funny.
Absolutely funny.

-♪ Caldonia, Caldonia

♪ What make
your big head so hard? ♪

-♪ Oww!

♪

♪ Whoa

♪

1949, I was
a juvenile delinquent.

Broken home.

Five kids, you know,
underprivileged.

A low-income family and a lot
of things I just didn't have,

and a lot of knowledge
weren't there for my parents,

and they just didn't understand.

♪ Been a long time

♪ I acted like a clown

♪ I really don't know
what to do ♪

♪ What to do

-Well, unfortunately,
it was a situation

where there's a car theft
was involved,

and he was sent up
for car theft.

-I was 15 years old.

I was taken by the authorities,
the police.

Took me about
300 miles away from home

to a camp just like that,

where I had 8 to 16 years.

8 to 16 years.
That's a long time.

-James Brown being arrested
at such a young age,

being told that you have
minimum eight years

that you're going to serve,
for a young person,

that's their foreseeable future.

"You're taking my foreseeable
future away from me

for trying to boost
a car battery."

-One time, a reporter
asked him,

"Mr. Brown, you were stealing.

You were doing
these types of things. Why?"

And my father's response
was, "Survival."

[ Cell door slams ]

♪

-Along with Mr. Johnny Terry,
my father was an inmate

at Alto Correctional Institution
in Alto, Georgia,

and they became cellmates.
They entertained their self.

The two would dance
and sing in the cells.

Other inmates saw him, and they
were really attracted to the --

"What are these two guys
doing in this cell?

They're having so much fun."

At that time,
that's when the other inmates

started labeling my father
with the nickname "Music Box."

-Bobby Byrd, who was a
clean-cut, upstanding citizen,

was part of a gospel unit

that would often perform
at various functions

schools, churches,
and, in this case, prison.

-On one particular weekend,
Mr. Terry and my father

went to see
the gospel group perform,

and that was the beginning
of the magic

between my father
and Mr. Byrd,

because he saw what Mr. Byrd
was doing on stage

and he said, "This is great.
This is what I wanted to do."

-Uncle Bobby
became friendly with him,

and in order for him to get
out of the detention center,

he had to have a home.
And he didn't.

-Served almost four years.

But one day, I got wise
to myself and said,

"I want to get straight,"
and I sat down

and wrote a letter to the
parole board myself, you know?

And they accepted me.

-So Mr. Byrd and his family

orchestrated a way
to help my father

get paroled into
their household back in Toccoa.

-The Famous Flames.
-That's my group.

James, he wasn't
in the group at first.

-Bobby Byrd expressed
an interest in him and said,

"Let me help you,"
and took him in.

And that's where he met
his first wife and --

and just started
a life there.

-It was all written by,
by the Lord up front, you know?

And said, "You got to live
this out, James Brown,

and be an example to people
of what can be done

and the way you should
be going, you know?"

-My experience was --
was like a teaching,

but it was also luck,
you know?

People out there are pulling
in your corner,

and then somebody upstairs

who kind of gave you
that extra chance.

♪ Yeah, pretty baby

♪ This is what I say

♪ You can always pay my way

-How my parents met,

it all kind of goes back into
his friendship with Bobby Byrd.

Mr. Byrd wanted
to take my father out

to a basketball game
at a local high school.

Whitman Street High School.

And my mom, Velma Warren, was
a basketball player on the team.

She was very athletic,

and it was like instant magic
between the two.

Shortly after that,
when he married my mother,

he knew that,
"Hey, I have to find

something better
to really feed my family."

-But I know
that I had to make it.

I had to have a determination
to go on,

and my determination
was to be somebody.

-Most of the groups were nice,
smooth-singing people.

James came in with this
rowdy type of a idea,

up-tempo, gutsy stuff.

We'd start rehearsing,
and we had --

the porch
would be full of people

and everybody peeping
through the windows

and that kind of thing.

They didn't do that
for no other groups.

I knew we had something.

-♪ I grabbed what I had
in one hand ♪

♪ And my baby by the other

♪ A giant grabbed my coattail
and said ♪

♪ Don't you go another farther

-He and Bobby Byrd formed
what became the Famous Flames,

and they started playing

all those White colleges,
like Clemson,

the University of Georgia,
University of South Carolina,

building up their audience.

♪

James started getting booked

by all these White college
fraternities and their parties.

Southern frat groups
were hiring Black bands

because, man, they were
stirring up those women.

You know, they --
[ Laughing ] They --

they were getting
those women excited.

-He said when he first heard
the ladies scream,

he knew music was it.

[ Laughing ]

[ Women screaming ]

-Him and Mr. Byrd
would practice like

I don't know what
to become successful.

-♪ Da da la, da da la

♪ Da da la, da da la

-During that time,
a lot of Black entertainers

would perform at local clubs
in Alabama, Lower Georgia,

and they wanted
to see the impact

that they were having
on their crowds,

and I think that was
the first time they went down

and they met
and saw Little Richard.

-♪ Lucille

♪ You won't do
your sister's will ♪

-Little Richard was
already out there.

Little Richard
was doing his thing.

So at that time,
he was hotter than dad.

-In the 1950s, James Brown
borrowed a lot of his look

and sound and style
from Little Richard.

-They had the same manager,
Brown and Richard,

and Richard was double booked.

Wasn't nobody turning money
down in those days.

-James Brown would actually
fill in for Little Richard,

and people were kind of like,

"I don't know if that's
Little Richard or not,"

but for a while, James Brown
was able to pull it off.

-People sometimes forget
that Little Richard

was the direct influencer
of James Brown.

-That friendship lasts over
the course of 5 or 6 decades.

And they loved each other.

-Mr. Brown,
if we could get into

something of your background.

When did you first begin?

-Well, Brother Brown, I guess
we should bring this thing down

and start by just
calling me James, brother.

Okay?
-Right on.

-All righty.

I started
professionally in 1956,

the first of '56,

when we recorded
"Please, Please,"

the last of '55, and it was
released April of '56.

-♪ Please, please,
please, please ♪

-♪ Please, please, don't go

-♪ Please, please, please

-He recorded
"Please, Please, Please"

pretty much as an independent
recording in Macon.

-When I heard myself,
I just kept running around

and saying, "That's me.
You know that's me.

That's me, man!
You hear this cat singing?

That's me, man."

"Please, Please" was out about
a year being played on the air

just on a demo.

-The guy from King Records
heard it being played

and got James signed to King.

-One night, it was --
it was raining,

and a fella come through,
and he was sitting

in a restaurant,
and he heard the record,

and he said, "Who's this guy?"

He said, "Well, you know, that's
a local group round here."

And I was in Florida, and they
called me from Georgia.

And I drove up 500-some miles
and got the okay

and drove another 500
to record it.

-It was an interesting label
that culturally was living

in hillbilly and country music.

Syd Nathan had the presence
of mind to see a marketplace,

certainly among
the Black community

for a music like
James Brown's.

-Syd Nathan was not sold
on James Brown immediately.

When he first heard
"Please, Please, Please,"

he was like,
"Well, where's the lyrics?

Like, where's the...?

Is 'please' the only word
you're gonna say?"

-♪ Please, please,
please, please ♪

♪ Please, please,
please, please ♪

-And my first record,
"Please, please,"

went right to the top.

-♪ I love you so

♪

-♪ Try me

♪ Just try me

♪ And your love

♪ Your love will always
be true ♪

♪ Whoa

♪ I need you

♪ I, I

♪ Alright

♪ Whoa-oh

♪ I

-My records were a cross
of R&B and race music.

-That's right. You never got
played on stations

Elvis got played on.
-That's right.

-You never got --
I never worked at a station

that played your records.
-That's right.

-Lot of what we called
White stations never played you.

-Mine was underground.

-James Brown not being
on his first album

is just a typical
expression of erasure,

of Black bodies and Blackness

that we're on the other side
of, in some respects,

but that we still
have to negotiate today.

-If you were Black in the '50s,

and you wanted to make it
in show business,

you needed to be tall,
light-skinned --

as he'd say,
"light-skinneded" --

wavy hair,
and a certain polish.

♪

-So, here you have this
shorter man who's dark-skinned,

and he has something to prove.

♪

-James Brown
is stepping into himself

as he is presenting himself,
this beautiful,

dark-skinned Black man
who's screaming at you,

talking about, "Please,
please, please, please."

-First, "Please, Please, Please"
had the Famous Flames on it.

Just the Famous Flames.

Then it became James Brown
with the Famous Flames.

Now, all that was done
unbeknownst to us.

You know, we didn't know
this was about to happen

until that record came out.

Then it had James Brown
and his Famous Flames.

That's where the problems
started right there.

-Well, dad being dad --
[ Laughs ] --

being James Brown
before he was "James Brown,"

kind of took over.

♪

-It's always trouble
when you single someone out.

Naturally,
it's gonna be tension,

so the Famous Flames quit
and moved back to Toccoa

to get, like, regular day jobs.

-A lot of people think
that when James recorded

"Please, Please, Please"
that...

that shot his career
into high gear and everything.

It was another two years
before James had another hit.

-♪ I need you

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪

♪ Oh, oh,
walk with me ♪

-♪ Walk with me

-His second successful hit,
which was "Try Me,"

wound up selling a million units

and became
James Brown's saving grace.

The power of James Brown is,

he somehow got the Flames
back into the fold.

-He literally
built himself from scratch.

I mean, this was
one of those guys

who just felt every inch
of the soul that he gave people.

-Soul is a man finding his way
into something

that he don't have a theory for.

He's singing just what he feels.

♪

-♪ Aaaaaaah

-We're talking about
an artist/audience relationship.

If you didn't represent
excellence,

they would let you know.

James Brown is a performer

who cut his teeth
in the Chitlin' Circuit, right?

He had to become
the hardest-working man

in show business.

That wasn't just a title.

That was something
he really was invested in.

♪

The Chitlin' Circuit
was a run of venues,

primarily in
the 1940s, '50s, and '60s,

where African-American
performers could play.

They had these small spaces
in these kind of sundown towns

or even in bigger markets,

where Black performers could
literally go entertain the crowd

and really build themselves up
and build their brands.

-You had the Uptown Theater
in Philly,

the Regal Theater in Chicago,

the Howard Theatre
in Washington, D.C.,

the Fox Theatre in Detroit,

and the Apollo Theater
in New York.

These were like a tour.

-But one thing
you better not do...

you better not be wack
and take Black people's money.

Ain't got no money
for you to waste

by me spending my time
and what little money I got

on you being a terrible-ass act.

♪

-Black people gravitated
to a James Brown concert

because James Brown
was a phenomenon.

He was unprecedented.

♪

-Well, that's James Brown.

Dancing, singing, entertaining,

falling to the floor with,

you know, the theatrics
and everything.

It was enhancing everything else
that was going on musically.

The totality of it
was an experience,

the ultimate experience,

that people are still --

such as Bruno Mars
or Janelle Monáe.

Like, there are
so many artists out today

who are still coming
from this --

this influence
of the great James Brown.

-You move around a lot,
don't you?

-Yes, I do a lot of dancing.
-You get down on the floor?

-Yes. Splits, knee drops.

I can make the mike stand
just stand there,

and I can spin around
three or four times.

Triple spins and everything.

-Did you plan that or
did that just start happening?

-It happened.

Along with the cape act,
as well,

where I throw the cape
and run off and come back.

That was --
It happened extemporaneous,

right off -- to impulse.

And then it became --
it was so great,

it had to become part of my act.

-My mom loved
all my father's music.

And my father was performing.

I mean, he was throwing
watches, necklaces,

taking his shirt off,
throwing it in the audience.

And the audience was going wild.

♪

-He had the most exciting
stage show in the business,

and logic tells you,
"We should release this,

make a record out of this."

-[ Singing ]
♪ Alright

-James Brown saw the connection

between him
and his audience live.

People falling out,
trying to jump on stage.

They're screaming before
he even get a note out.

And the Apollo at the time

is the hottest venue
in the world.

It's Harlem.

It's the epicenter
of Black culture.

To be the king of that,

you got to get that
on that real.

-In 1962, I had a planned show
at the Apollo Theater

to give the public
what they want.

-The show was --
It was exciting.

Him doing this as a live album
and expecting people to buy it,

his record company didn't think
it was a good idea.

And then James said,
"I'm going to do it anyway."

-He went to the labels and
whatnot, and they was giving --

You know, they didn't think it
would work or whatnot.

"It's fine. I'll take
my own money and I'll do it."

He paid for it himself.

He produced that thing
with his own cash.

-We're used to live albums now,

but at that time,
what are you, crazy?

-♪ Hey, come on, hey, hey

♪ I'm feelin' alright, huh

-They said it couldn't be done.

I've always been a man
to do my own thing

and control my own destiny.

-♪ I'm feeling alright, get it

♪ Uh, uh, uh

-So, now, ladies and gentlemen,
it is star time.

Are you ready for star time?!
[ Audience cheers ]

-"Live at the Apollo" is one
of the most important albums

in the history of recorded music

because it captures James Brown
and his band

at a very specific time
in the evolution of his career.

He had figured out
how to perform in such a way

that was going to
win people over.

-It is indeed a great pleasure
to present to you

at this particular time --

national and international known

as the hardest-working man
in show business.

Here to sing "I'll Go Crazy."

-The emcee famously did
the big introduction.

"The hardest-working man
in show business. Mr. Dynamite."

Bah-bah-bah. And the band
is wailing. It's like...

-James Brown
and the Famous Flames!

-Then everybody in the place
just lost it!

-The record company
didn't believe in it.

The record person said,

"You can't sing the same thing
over and over."

And I said, "Well, I can because

when you sing it live,
it's different."

-Well, you know in the studio
recordings, they can fix it.

They can -- They're gonna,
"Take two. Take three."

What he was thinking is,
"Well, I'm going to give them

the feeling of being there,"

which you still get
when you listen to it now.

Put it on now, you feel like
you're at the show.

-He and his band
had gone through so much,

and he had gone through so much
to get to where he was.

It's an album
that actually confirms its title

because it is all the way live.

♪

-It's one of the earliest
examples of being viral.

Every household had to have

"James Brown:
Live at the Apollo, Volume 1."

He revolutionized
the live album.

Deejays,
they're playing the entire album

from start to finish.

And it's a hit,
but not only that,

but this album is also
making its way overseas.

♪

-"James Brown:
Live at the Apollo"

was a big hit album.

Collecting records in those
early days was quite expensive.

-♪ Believe me

♪ I'll go crazy

-Not all these records were
readily available in England

and not easy to get.

But that one was,
and we all shared it around.

I just loved
the tone of his voice,

and it's so raspy
and so powerful

and doing those high screams,
and, yeah, it was amazing.

♪

♪ Try me

-♪ Try me

-♪ Try me

-♪ Try me

-♪ Darlin', tell me

♪ I need you

-I write and arrange
all my tunes with my records,

and I've never taken music
in my life.

I write all the lyrics,
all the music,

record the record
and everything.

So when the record come out,
it's James Brown.

It's not somebody else.

♪

♪ Hey

♪ Yeah

♪

-"Live at the Apollo"
peaked at number two

on the Billboard charts.

It was on the charts
for 66 weeks.

So that's, what,
a year and 14 more weeks.

So -- Wow.
That says quite a lot.

Especially at that time.

-It's the opposite of the way
the label was thinking.

That's genius thinking.

He's knowing
the power of the show.

He's seeing
the power of the show.

He's seeing the power
of how people feel,

and they're crying
and falling out every night.

I do feel like the live album
gives you a different feeling

when you listen to it. That's
the whole purpose of them,

is that you do feel like
you're there,

and they do feel like
the little --

the little imperfections
are great.

♪

[ Audience cheers ]

♪

-♪ Ohh

♪ Ohh-ohh

♪

-♪ I don't mind

-♪ I don't mind

-♪ Your love

♪ I don't mind

-♪ I don't mind

-♪ The one you thinking of

-James Brown
was an amazing singer.

He comes out of
a Black church tradition

where you know how to sing.

You imbue a song
with a certain kind of power.

You're able to tell
your own story

by kind of pulling your voice
out of your body

in such a way
that it enters into your music.

-♪ I found someone
to love me ♪

♪

-James Brown.
He appealed to everybody.

I get visitors at the Apollo
from France,

Germany, Japan, Italy,
Australia, Belgium, Israel.

And they all talk about
James Brown.

-I'm a religious man
because a man must believe

in something, you know?

I know
I believe in myself, too.

I'm religious that way, too.

I'm religiously believing
in James Brown.

-♪ I said I lost someone

♪ But I know where
I'm gonna find them ♪

♪ All aboard!
-♪ Yeah!

-♪ All aboard!
-♪ Yeah!

-♪ The night train

♪

-The success of
"Live at the Apollo"

woke up another part
of James Brown,

which is the business acumen.

-To bootstrap if you were Black

is Booker T. Washington theory.

Work hard. Have a trade.

You utilize what skill you have

to bring yourself up
in the American fabric,

and those will be the things
that were earned profit

that helped to make you
more self-sufficient,

which is really something
that James Brown

was really, really big on.

-This is a man who was fierce
in his self-determination

and his desire to also have

that kind of autonomy
and sovereignty.

He was determined to do that.

-Having a whole lot
of creativity about yourself

and no place to exercise it,
it's very bad.

-The tension between
James Brown and Syd Nathan

was almost necessary for Brown's

"I have to do it myself"
character.

-Hold it. That was a good start,
man. We're rolling.

-Tell him
not to holler that much.

-Mr. Nathan said cool the melody
a little bit, you know.

I mean, make it more of
a melodic thing.

Because you're singing
the hell out of it,

but, you know,
just a little more melody

like you did on the --
-Trying to sing too hard.

Tell him --
-Yeah, don't sing too hard.

-♪ Get away from me

-♪ Get away, get away

-Well, one would easily say
that being in jail

is a far cry more difficult
than speaking truth to power

to a White man
who holds purse strings.

Throughout all of his
difficult upbringing,

James Brown was able to adapt
and was able to be ingenious.

♪

-♪ Why

♪ Does everything
have to happen to me? ♪

-James Brown felt
that he wasn't going to

get the kind of money

that he wanted
from King Records.

He knew exactly what he wanted.
He knew exactly how to do it.

-I don't want
to be totally programmed.

I want to be able to think
for myself to some degree.

I think one thing
that makes a Black man

that's more heavier for the soul

is because of the fact
that he had extra-hard knocks,

and he's lived with
the word "can't" for so long.

-W.E.B. Du Bois talks about
the way in which the slave song

is the one great gift
that came from slavery.

Everything else is crazy,

but the song and the sound

illuminates this truth
about the nature of freedom.

-For James Brown,
the dollar is freedom and power.

So he cuts a side deal
on Smash Records,

doing what he felt
was best for his future.

-Let's make a record.
One take. Here we go.

♪

-♪ You've got your
high-heeled sneakers on ♪

-Smash Records.
They turned me loose.

I wrote "Out of Sight"
and "Maybe the Last Time."

Had a two-sided hit.

-"Out of Sight" represents

a major tempo shift
in James Brown's music.

"Out of Sight" had a slower,

slinkier, sexier,

syncopated groove,

and the slower that funk gets,

the nastier funk gets.

-You know, if you get
a good James Brown "Huh,"

you felt it!

-♪ Ho!

♪ Hey, hey

-He used an alias
for "Out of Sight."

"Ted Wright"
is actually James Brown.

Syd Nathan has an injunction
slapped on him

to stop all future pressings.

-Fortunately, at that moment,
it was a hit record.

-In this sort of arm-wrestling
game that they had,

James Brown had the upper hand

because he comes back
to King Records

on his own terms
with a bigger percentage.

-Business is a part that
you've got to adapt yourself to

so you can be prepared
for whatever might come up.

-From one minute to another,

you can't tell how this guy
James Brown is going to act,

and we respect the fact
that he has made it.

And he will fight with me

and say,
"Mr. Nathan, you are wrong."

♪

-As an olive branch.

Syd Nathan gave James Brown
his own imprint,

which was Try Me Records.

-Even when I was coming up
in the industry,

myself or Puff or Jay-Z
or anybody in that era

was always like, "Okay, well,
once we get a record big,

then how do we get
our own record label?

How do we get our own this?
How do we get our own that?"

And he was really the first one
to show you

that all that could happen.

-James Brown was really setting

the standard of excellence,

having a crystallized vision
for himself

where he wanted to be,

always creating a "yes."

And this is something
that I saw with Beyoncé.

-♪ Alright tonight

♪ And I do just
what I want, ow ♪

-He wouldn't take no
for an answer.

And he was fearless.
His music was fearless.

His sound, sonically,
was fearless.

-He decided that he wanted
to not only draw his own people,

but he wanted
to draw White audiences.

♪

-He got on the "T.A.M.I. Show,"

and everybody said,

"Well, he's not gonna fit,"
and this and that.

James Brown definitely
was a showman, and he proves it.

-The stakes were high
in the "T.A.M.I. Show."

Those were probably
the highest stakes

that James Brown
had gone up against

in terms of other artists.

-The greatest of the great,
including such kings

of rock entertainment as...

♪

...and today's hottest exponents

of the Merseybeat from England,

The Rolling Stones!

-Steve Binder.
He was the producer.

And Binder said,
"Well, you go on last."

You kind of did what
you were asked to do.

You're not gonna go,
"I'm not going to go on.

I want to go on here.
I want to go there."

If you're asked to go on
at the end, you go on at the end

and you do your thing, you know?

And then James came to me
and he said,

"Well, I'm not comfortable
with this."

And I said,
"Well, it's gonna be edited

and you could end up
as the final act."

In 50 years of hindsight,

should have said
to Steve Binder,

"I'd prefer to go on
before James."

[ Laughs ]
But, you know, I didn't.

-If you've been around
most entertainers,

you know they do not like

somebody taking away
that thunder away from them.

And I'll say this about

Mick Jagger
and the Rolling Stones.

They had that "T.A.M.I. Show"
taken away from them

by James Brown
and the Famous Flames.

-♪ All aboard!
-♪ Yeah!

-♪ All aboard!
-♪ Yeah!

-♪ The night train

♪

[ Crowd cheering ]

♪ Miami, Florida

♪

♪ Atlanta, Georgia

♪ Atlanta, Georgia, ah!

♪

-The "T.A.M.I. Show"
was the first time

you really got to see him
in front of a mixed crowd

doing this amazing,
electrifying set.

-Oh! Oh, God!
When he did "Night Train"?

Oh, man! Yo! Come on. Come on

-♪ Night...
♪ Train!

-♪ Train

♪

-It really signaled
that Black music

was a predominant force
in music.

James Brown was literally
on his way to take over.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪ Yeah

♪

♪

♪