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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Georgia's vocalist James Brown and his band (featuring Jimmy Nolen on guitar, the inventor of the 16-note strumming style that defined funk music once and for all, Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis on alto sax, Maceo Parker on tenor sax, Fred Wesley on trombone, and, in the 1970s, William "Bootsy" Collins on bass),
clarified the relation between sexual lust and religious fervor
via Please Please Please (1956),
Try Me (1958) and I'll Go Crazy (1960).
It took several years for the rest
of soul music to catch up with his intuition, but eventually
his monotonous and anti-virtuoso style created a new kind of music.
Brown coined a frenzied style of choppy rhythms and jazzy horns, coupled with
stage histrionics and a grotesquely choreographed show,
first documented on Live At The Apollo (1962) and in his cover of
Jimmy Forrest's Night Train (1962).
At the same time, his visceral falsetto shrieks amid guttural lascivious wails (and lyrics full of sexual innuendos) invented a new narrative form.
With Out Of Sight (1964), Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (1965),
I Got You (1965) and Cold Sweat (1967),
Brown coined a purely-percussive style of soul, the predecessor of "funk".
and associated himself with black nationalism starting with
Say It Aloud I'm Black and Proud (1968).
The novelties Give It Up (1969),
Mother Popcorn (1969) and Superbad (1970)
further streamlined the idea and led to the quintessential Brown-ian funk songs,
Sex Machine (1970), with Bootsy Collins on bass (and a piano figure that virtually invented house-music), and King Heroin (1972).
The deadly combination of psychotic falsetto, metallic guitar strumming,
fractured bass lines, noisy horn section and pulsing polyrhythm
was dance-music to the square.
Brown died in 2006 at 73.
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