The year was December 1970. James Brown came to the Southern African country of Zambia. He performed in the Capital city of Lusaka and the Dag Hammarskjold Stadium in Ndola on the Copper belt. What followed the next three years was incredible. Zambia was gripped by the James Brown mania. Students who had spent school holidays in the city took to rural boarding schools the James Brown and his Famous Flames dance. People were wearing tailor made James Brown suits. Many buttons and records were sold. The radio stations were buzzing with his music. James Brown, the great black American singer and stage performer, commanded great respect, awe, and enthusiasm among millions in America, Africa, and the rest of the world. This was also the time when the black Civil Rights movement was at its peak in the USA and Africans were gaining independence from European colonialism.
“James Brown: The Godfather of Soul” by James Brown with Bruce Tucker is Brown’s autobiography. Reading the book quenches the burning curiosity about this famous black man. Who is he? Where and when was he born? How was his childhood? How did American racism affect him? How did he become famous? The autobiography answers most of these questions. He was born of very poor parents in the Southern part of America in rural Augusta in the State of Georgia. His parents separated when Brown was four years old. He was subsequently raised by an aunt in a very bad social environment of poverty, hunger, prostitution, squalor, lack of job and educational opportunities for blacks, and racism. As a young teenager, he dropped out of school, got involved in delinquent behavior and spent some of his teenage years behind bars. It was during this time that he was attracted to and interested in church gospel singing, playing the piano, music and dancing.
After his release from prison, he was on his way to national and international fame as the most creative, energetic, and entertaining pioneer in soul music and funk. From the autobiography, the reader gathers that Brown was a very ambitious and determined man driven by his desire to succeed, be a proud pioneering black man, and be the best stage performer while always being on the cutting edge. The long list or “discography” at the end of the book of his known recordings over three decades is testimony that James Brown is indeed the God Father of Soul.
The epilogue to the autobiography is somewhat disappointing. James Brown was jailed in 1988 for driving away from the police. Other charges of wife and drug abuse are apparently mere concoctions, unsubstantiated allegations, and rumors meant to unjustly crucify this famous and uncompromising black man by the Southern racist judicial system.
For the reader who heard about, enjoyed and danced to James Brown music, and was there at the peak of his career and international fame, the book is simply a joy. It confirms some of the seemingly exaggerated anecdotes at the time that frequently filtered through the international grapevine. ,For example, that when he performed live on American television, the rioting in black ghettoes in America stopped. That when he performed before a sellout crowd of 90% white in England, Brown screeched: “Say it loud!!” The huge crowd responded and yelled: “I’m black and proud!!!” For how else could they have responded? His performance was so electrifying that crowds often tore up James Brown’s clothes. In perhaps the only recorded James Brown’s performance in the Capital city of Lusaka, I saw a man in the front row of the audience at Mulungushi Hall tear his own shirt to shreds due to sheer ecstasy at seeing James Brown perform.
International readers might be disappointed because the performances in Europe and African countries like Nigeria, Zambia, and Zaire only get a few paragraphs in the book.
Otherwise the book is an inspiration as James Brown had a less than a seventh grade education, grew up in poverty and racism, and yet defied all the adversity to become the most famous man in soul music, the hardest working man in show business, and The God Father of Soul.
I recommend this book for scholars of black American history, contemporary race relations, history of American popular music, soul, and Rhythm and Blues, and the relationship between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and evolution of popular music in America.
********* James Brown with Bruce Tucker, The God Father of Soul, New York, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1986 and 1990. 352 pp. 13.95 US dollars Paper Back.