esrosedotblog

THE GODFATHER

James Brown is dead but he still rocks in my head and heart.

There are film clips of him all over the web.

He invented so many forms of music.

I loved his great finalés; encores where they would have to 'drag him' off the stage and put his huge cape on.

It was so great.

Of course they could not restrain him and he would manage at least one more riff than you expected.

A great showman. Innovator. Sex machine!

I stole this whole from the on-line WSJ newsletter including the link to a loving New Yorker piece in 2002.

James Brown Dies at 73
The soul-stirring power of James Brown's music could perhaps be measured by just how difficult it is to keep still when the likes of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" come on the radio. The secret behind his longevity and dominance in the American music scene may have been that whatever the genre -- and he helped originate so many -- Mr. Brown was rhythm personified. And he even looked the part. Philip Gourevitch, writing in the New Yorker in 2002, said Mr. Brown "makes the stage look small, and wears his years with a survivor's defiant pride." He was, "after all, pretty universally recognized as the dominant song-and-dance man of the past half century in black-American music, perhaps in American popular music as a whole: he is the source of more hits than anyone of any color after Elvis Presley," Mr. Gourevitch wrote. Mr. Brown died Christmas morning in Atlanta after being hospitalized with pneumonia. He was 73 years old.

Look at him dance in this clip.

Michael Jackson stole it for the moonwalk stuff. Couldn't hold a candle.

James Brown, ladies and gentlemen, James Brown!