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R.I.P. James Brown


aeon

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In the early 80's an older musician friend took me to one of his shows. I really didn't want to go, not being interested in older burned out performers don't cha know...

 

;)

 

...I was floored. The man slayed me and everyone else in the 400 or so capacity room. I'd never seen anything like him before. I'd seen the old footage, but to be 10 feet from the man and be spellbound by his funky self was truely mind expanding.

 

I went on to see him 5 other times through the years. He never failed to amaze me.

 

Stay funky James.

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I posted this yesterday on a message board I host for a friend's bar here in Augusta, "The Soul Bar"... It's a place with a JB theme, and it jump started the revitalization of the downtown Augusta area (where Mr. Brown grew up) - and essentially was the first time he was given any kind of recognition here, believe it or not. He was cool about it, would drop by now and then.....

 

There's references people here won't get (just about everyone around here have a JB story or two... and I have friends that play/played with Mr. Brown), but anyhow for what it's worth:

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

"I stayed at my parent's house last night. I get my insomnia-habit from my mother, who I stayed up with until about 2:00 a.m. watching Comcast Connect (a local On-Demand cable service).

 

I hadn't seen the 12 Bands one with Coco and Joe, so we watched that, and of course James Brown was on it. It was a little surreal, seeing Deke (...mayor of Augusta) - someone I remember from school - get the blessing from him.... I remarked to my mother "I remember waiting after school with Deanna" at Augusta Christian (local grade school); my parents worked late and she was about the only other kid who didn't ride the bus...

 

Made me remember meeting him with his wife at a restaurant at the Omni (in Atlanta - used to be like a mall somewhat) when I was a little kid. Asked me a bunch of questions about music, talked to my parents a bit, gave me an autograph (basically the only autograph I've ever had) with the de rigeur "stay in school!" on it...

 

Then (on Comcast) more surreality with him talking about Coco and the bar, and I talked with my mother about how that's something that conducively went both ways. Coco made him more visible in Augusta, stapled that pin to the map as it were, and it seemed he knew it. Coco's comments on his segment, regarding his importance to Augusta, are now very poignant....

 

 

... and then my mother commented on his cough:

 

"oooh, he's got emphysema really bad!".

 

I said nah, it's probably just a cold, he'll probably be off to do a two hour set next week. Although I thought about how frail he looked, and the care with which his daughter was placing her hand on his back.

 

About an hour later after my mother went to bed, half-asleep on my parent's sofa I saw on some channel the report that he had just passed away. Which was very, very strange, having just watched him on tv; I didn't say anything about it to my parents this morning - but they just called to ask me if I knew about it the moment I started this post.

 

A sad start to Christmas day. RIP Mr. Brown...

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------

 

 

We used to joke about a friend that plays guitar in his band, basically his band leader, "yeah, Brown will probably outlive Keith *and* the roaches of a nuclear war".... if you'd seen the guy live even just recently, he still gave long shows and jumped around like someone in his 30's. Living in Augusta you just took it for granted that JAMES BROWN was always going to be there, doing "something" or another...

 

In essence, while Augusta is known for the Augusta National, Mr. Brown was the soul of it. It's sort of weird thinking that Augusta now doesn't really have an ambassador anymore; part of the great thing about Mr. Brown was that he never, ever denied being from here. There's been others - but they always seem to cite somewhere else "cooler" when asked.... He was supposed to be at a performance I played at saturday night, I don't know if he made it or not - but he was the guy in our town that was the Big Deal to be there, and it's a shame it took the town so long to start to officially recognize

him as a presence, when it was so obvious he was really the only one.

 

Here's what his statue on Broad Street in downtown Augusta looks like right now:

 

182348.jpg

 

http://www.soulbarmessages.com/board/viewforum.php?f=1

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