CREEMEDIA
PAPA’S GOT A BRAND NEW BOOK JAMES BROWN: THE GODFATHER OF SOUL by James Brown with Bruce Tucker (MacMillan) by Renaldo Migaldi Yes, this is another one of those “as-told-to” showbiz autobiographies. And, yes, it reads tike one: you can knock it off in a few hours.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
CREEMEDIA
PAPA’S GOT A BRAND NEW BOOK
JAMES BROWN: THE GODFATHER OF SOUL
by James Brown
with Bruce Tucker
(MacMillan)
by Renaldo Migaldi
Yes, this is another one of those “as-told-to” showbiz autobiographies. And, yes, it reads tike one: you can knock it off in a few hours. The book exactly tewsy, but list admit I was hoping fpr bit more of the casual, Kiive surrealism James Brown has long displayed PP*' LP liner notes (not to Mention in his music itsaf£ espeoiafly the ’70s sftjff oft; I ghost-writing process has jlpparentfy lowered the weirdness quotient of Brown's tea-1 tifying here, although weirdness does pop up from time
i On the 3m$0 James Brown: The Godfather of Soul just about jhtforward chronological int of Brown’s fits you juid imagine. As is the case with most biographies, the beet part df the book depicts its subject be form he was famous. Here we see dames Brown growing up dJrtjjMfA shoeshining and buckfan op the streetcorners of Augusta, Georgia, for nickels and dimes. One day, the cops nab James for stealing clothes from parked cars (he’d been sent home from school toj&$ “insufficient clothes”) and haul his ass to the state reformatory. Aii this after James has already begun his musical career at the age of 12 with a tittle junkband combo called (for no particular reason) the Cremona Trio.
Once he’s Out of prison, iBrown’s musical career bes in earnest. The book qxins how he gradually began a relentless workaholic succession of one-nighters with the Famous Flames, Grossing and recrossing an ever-widening geographical swath—a wearying tedit relieved only by Brown’s fre Iquent clashes with the he« fttLr King:?fftfeqrd*, Sy Nathan. Meanwhile, Brown’s wives and girlfriends always far, far away*
A few surprises are in store: Brown confesses he’s never liked blues music, calls Tommy Sands “super, super talented;” and reveals that most of the kids in the studio screaming “I’m black and I’m proud” on the record of the same name were actuaiiy white dr Asian. Most bizarre of all (here’s that naive surrealism creeping in) is Brown cheerfully describing a publicity stunt/rumor devised by Ms manager, Ben Bart, which had Brown getting a change operation so he cot marry his longtime sldeman, ZMmiftPmm
But my favorite anecdote in the hook concerns how in f968, just after the assassination of Dr, Martin Luther King, Brown helped forestall rioting in Boston byperforming a hastily-arranged fives television concert, keeping ghetto residents off the streets, and riveted to their TV sets. Brown had some sageadvlceforhisaudience: |,rwi't burn. Give kids a chance to learn. Go home. Look at TV. Listen to the radio. Listen to some James Brown recotds." BrownX cooled Boston down so wait that a pleased President! Johnson invited him to the. White House for dinner. Says Brown; “t didn’t talk to Mr. Johnson very much. He was eating a iot of food. That man .paJiungry.S I
Good God!
SraiSs VENGE!
by Chuck Eddy
Ippii^pas'uie noun rmplies, are the subcultural lUllfiipdiodi: outputofpeople i who write about roc*®’ roll jjjcuz they like it, not people like me who just want to get richFanzines are mostly sloppy, mostly unprofitable, mostly published on an irregular basis, mostly in j existence for a year or two at I beet* Arid md$^j®|jby?iea!so awful—lazy,insularp^^^S I redundant, predjCtabfe, poiit-1 ically pious, kiss-ass, or any, combination thereof. But the best such rags are produced by passionate individuals sincerely dedicated to their fandom. When they’re doing their job.they’resome three orfjduf years ’ahead commercial music press. | trend-wise, and they’re probIabiy pissing you off, A few worthwhile ones foliow;
Conflict (62 Ave. C #3, NYC, NY 10009)—Xeroxed sheets of ; caustic biFe coughed tip by Homestead Records headboy Gerard Cosloy. Oi Revival hints, quasi-tibeious Jonathon Richman reviews, insults strewn at Boston and New ■ York scene bigwigs, Madonna/Manson analogies, photos of Paul Westerberg wearing a Detroit News TV; shirt, lies labeled as such,inv portant info on obscure Beefheart-influenced Southernrock bands from England, sour grapes. Real neat.
W'iF&ped Exposure (POB 1611, Waltham, MA 02254}— -“Huge, cliquish, neo-decadent,not-quite-quarterly product of art-metal partisan , 'Jfyira; Johnson and beatnikwvannabe By/on Coley, e primarily for the | world's most expansive and decipherable review I section, and for the paranoid ■amblings of Big Black leadI rapper Steve Ripjdfc who '^jlitefjflen transcribes emKarrassing details about his | personal life
■I Kick-Ass Monthly (815 [Kings Parkway, Baldwin, NY 1151Q)—InWhieh Bob Muidowney interviews Montreal cavemen Vor Vod, rates on a I one-to-ten scale death-metal [records by bands named Lawsuit and Oral and Anvil Bitch’, and then slags an Intense Mutilation tape as ‘plain stupid ” Quite humorpus, though I bet that’s hardly te T>oint.
[Kicks (Box 646, CoM :ioh, NYC, NY 10003| As fat as Forced Exposure, almost, and way loonier.
■Repeat daddy-o Billy Miller’s basic concepts assert that post-1965 rock is worthless, and that trash isn’t. Lotsa stuff includes Wanda Jackson, Esquerita, Nervous Non vus. the Sonics, and other Sin Alley occupants, plus Whit© Castle, juvenile delinquent paperbacks, and why Shemp was a better Stooge than Curleyor Joe.
Pfudd! (714 Shady Ave., Sharon, PA 16146)—Chris Stigliano owns the most eccentric aesthetic of any fanzoon crit I’ve ever read: He pretty much just likes Detroit grunge circa ’69-’71 . Cleveland noise circa '75-79, and anything that, sounds similar—Amon Duuf I, the Seed©, Celibate Rifles, QxU pette Coleman, Motorhead.; Bill Shute prefers the Shadows of Krtight,, Ike pjlimer, '^dpl&b Wills Neither is fond ofy0b Biafra, Cleveland Plain Dealer pop scribe Anastasia Parrtsios, or hippies Fun, good-natured, hard-nosed, and totally leffrthe-wall. - .. ~
Other papers worth picking dp.if you spy ’em in the racks are Brave Bar, Bucketful! Of Brains, Fje$h & Bones, Kilter, Option (more than a fanzine, |f©aHy, but so great whSn it’s good that ignoring it would he silly), The Rox, Slam Book, and Your Flesh. None of which is cool enough to tall you news about John Cougar Mellencamp’s drummer, but for that you read GREEM, fight?
