Word: rock
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...early eulogizers have limned Brown?s contribution to rock (in his shift from the 2-4 upbeat to the 1-3 downbeat), to rap (his riffs sampled in maybe a thousand songs), to dance (his moves influencing Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and countless club hoppers and frat boys), to racial consciousness in the '60s (his anthemic ?Say It Loud, I?m Black and I?m Proud?). Others will itemize Brown?s rap sheet and jail time - for larceny as a teenager, then the two police chases (unlike O.J.?s, J.B.?s were naturally high-speed) and the assault complaints lodged...
...screen. Fans cherish his too-brief appearances in the Blues Brothers movies, and his demolishing of the all-star competition (the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye) in the T.A.M.I. Show concert film of 1965. Remember, too, the prissy fury that Shrevie, the obsessive rock-LP collector in Diner, summons when he realizes the extent of his bride?s musical ignorance - ?How could you file my James Brown record under J?? Right now, Soul Brother No. 1 is being impersonated by Eddie Murphy in the movie version of Dreamgirls. If the Academy Award for supporting actor goes...
...Brown?s importance went beyond movies, or even music. He was a prime pop showman, who brought the notions of melodrama and irony to his performances. You couldn?t help noticing this in the first years of rock ?n roll, the mid- to late 50s, when a singer?s physical exuberance was as radical as the raucous sound he was selling. The revolution was televised, so it had to be musical and visual...
...Elvis shimmied, Little Richard wailed, Jerry Lee Lewis smashed the piano stool and played the keys with his feet, and all helped liberate pop culture from the straitjacket of propriety. Rock ?n roll made them move like that. But those three had a guitar or piano to play or play with or hide behind. Brown had played the piano and other instruments, but onstage they?d just slow him down. He needed his hands and legs free to prowl, keep the band pumped up, work the crowd into a practiced frenzy. For 50 years, he was a full-service entertainer...
...imploring audience was in on the act. But who cared? It had the gaudy theatricality that would become the norm in pop culture: orchestrated hysteria that was either fake-real or real-fake. On this level, Brown was the godfather, not of soul, but of heavy metal and glam rock, of Rocky Horror and Dreamgirls, of the WWF and Jerry Springer...