James Brown – I got you
“What?” I asked. “The newspaper says it starts in ten minutes.”
“Don’t start for an hour,” she said. “You come back in an hour.”
The cab was gone. My escape route into the theater was gone. I was stranded on the corner in the middle of a “bad” black neighborhood on a hot summer night.
Then I heard the music. In my anxiety to get inside the theater I hadn’t really been paying attention, but now that I needed to survive on the street for another hour, all my native New Yorker big-city rules kicked in, and the most important of those rules is the one that says: Pay Attention. As I did so, I heard the most incredible music coming from the sidewalk loudspeakers of the record store diagonally across the intersection. I had no idea who it was, but it was amazingly soulful with great bluesy piano, a lead singer who was off the charts, and a backup chorus that was kicking my ass.
Looking back on it now, it’s a bit strange to me that I would not have recognized the singer — James Brown, of course. James had been making records for six years, and had had huge hits such as “Think”, “Night Train”, “Try Me”, and “Prisoner Of Love”. But at the time my knowledge of music was…I don’t know, how would I describe it? Spotty? Uneven? Narrow? I was deeply knowledgeable in categories such as old-timey music, Mississippi blues, bluegrass, country, jazz — but I was fairly ignorant of more commercial genres such as rock ‘n’ roll and R&B. I had only recently discovered Motown, and had fallen in love with Chuck Berry (I scorned him initially because he was so popular). But until this moment in 1965, on that street corner in Miami, I don’t believe I had heard even one song by James Brown.
Not only that. The song they were playing (I discovered later) was James’ first hit, one of the greatest R&B masterworks ever recorded: the unspeakably, irresistibly, unbearably funky “Please Please Please”.
I was transfixed. My fear vanished. I was prepared to die, if need be, to get my hands on a copy of that record. Helplessly, almost mindlessly (in the Zen sense of no-mind, of course), I stepped off the sidewalk and into the crowd of people swirling in the intersection. I moved easily through the crush, stepped up on the opposite curb, and slipped through the open door into the record store. Black faces turned, but I still didn’t feel the slightest sense of danger or anxiety. I might well have been the first white person to enter that store in its entire history; I think the patrons were so surprised to see me that they cut me an automatic pass. I felt curiosity, but no menace.
The guy behind the counter lifted the arm of the phonograph, the music stopped, and he handed the 45 he’d been playing to a waiting customer. I moved closer. “Excuse me,” I said.
“Yes?” asked the record store man. He looked wary, uneasy.
“What was that record you were just playing? It was fantastic.”
The guy’s expression changed, just a bit. “You don’t know who that was?” he asked.
“Please!” I said, inspired by some spirit that might even have been Papa Legba for all I know, “Please! Please! Please!”
That got me a smile. “That was James Brown, son,” the guy said.
“Wow!” I smiled back. “Would you sell me one too?”
“Absolutely,” he said, reaching down and pulling out a copy for me. “And what bring you to this neighborhood?”
“I’m gonna go see the movie across the street,” I said, pointing.
“You are?” he asked, still bemused seeing this white kid standing across the counter.
“I’m a big Godzilla fan,” I explained.
“OK…”
Another patron came over and pushed in next to me. “Charlie, can I hear ‘We’re Gonna Make It?'”
“Here you go, bro,” said the record store guy, and he put on a 45 that rocked me to my socks.
“Damn!” I exclaimed. “Who’s that?”
“Little Milton,” said Charlie, his smile widening. “You want one of those too?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I said.