Everyone seems to be commenting on Gerald Ford's death, but there are few who are talking about the loss of James Brown. Ford was the accidental president, and his legacy - Cheney and Rumsfeld - lives on in ways both pernicious and damaging. Brown, on the other hand, changed the way R&B was played, inventing a whole new musical grammar, and worked endlessly to be the best. From early songs - "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "I Feel Good" - to his later pride songs - "Black and Proud", "Sex Machine", "Bad Mother" - Brown not only wrote songs, but he wrote songs about and for the African-American community that spoke of them and to them in a way whites had a hard time hearing. Of course, music-lovers understood that something wonderful was happening when they heard the clipped horn parts, the choppy guitar work, and the intricate rhythm-work of Brown's band. His sound is still heard today, in samples on rap records, in the minimalism of contemporary R&B (think of Usher's song, "Yeah", or "Hey Ya" by Outkast), even in the disciplined way so many artists go about promoting themselves and their work (from Sean Combs to Beyonce Knowles).
Brown has left behind a vast legacy of music that is larger than many others, including the Beatles, and more influential than most except perhaps Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Bob Dylan. Brown taught the world how to shut up and dance. Brown reminded blacks that they were beautiful, powerful, sexy - and important to the life of the country. He will be missed precisely because he never gave up, he danced, threw himself around the stage, threw his microphone around the stage, sweat pouring off him in buckets, determined to give those who came to hear him a show they would never forget. We are fortunate that we never shall.
Virtual Tin Cup
