Hard-working James Brown set soul standard

I think it was 1963. I know it was the seedy Boston Arena.

And I know it was my demented cousin Jerry with me. No other white boy I knew was crazy enough to go see James Brown, not when the entire audience was black. We were both demented and would go anywhere to see Brown, “the hardest working man in show business.”

I think we found one other white face that night in the sellout crowd.

When Brown finished his performance with the matchless “Please, Please, Please,” the floor audience stormed the stage, screaming and delirious. I had never seen this before, and I thanked all the gods that exist that we chose to sit in the balcony.

That was just the first time.

Of course, we had heard Ray Charles and other soul acts on the radio and bought their records. But seeing James Brown in person was something altogether different. The songs were one thing. But seeing Brown dance in impossible synchronization with his fabulous band was a mesmerizing experience. One of a kind. There is no substitute. Jaw dropping performances, every time out.

There is a show business legend that Mick Jagger, the front man for the Rolling Stones, almost quit “the business” after he saw James Brown perform. Then Jagger had to follow him to close a show.

No one ever, ever should follow James Brown.

The white boys that dared would go see Brown whenever and wherever he came to town. God forgive us, we tried to dance like he did in fraternity basements and the clubs in Boston and Revere Beach. No one could, of course, but the glory was in trying.

My right knee is still a little gimpy from my one and only attempt at a James Brown split, performed in just another lame attempt at impressing some coed.

No one in Boston on April 4, 1968, will ever forget the power of James Brown. Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. Detroit, Washington, D. C., and Chicago were in flames. Boston’s Roxbury district was smoldering. The Boston Globe reported that “By noon Friday it appeared that Boston’s black community of 80,000 was poised for a violent upheaval. Roving bands in Roxbury, North Dorchester, and the South End inflicted injuries on a dozen persons, set fire to one store, and looted seven others.”

The white community was so terrified that a scheduled James Brown concert was canceled at Boston Garden. Kevin White, mayor for only four months, stepped in with political aide Barney Frank and begged the promoter, then Brown to continue the concert.

The show had to go on and did, broadcast on public television across the city. Brown opened with a plea for peace in Boston in Dr. King’s memory. It worked.

I can remember sitting in a three-decker in Charlestown, watching the show on black and white television, waiting for the gunshots that never came.

Talk about power.

If memory serves, and it rarely does, the last live James Brown concert I saw was in a former bowling alley in Walpole, Mass., of all places.

He was his fabulous self and the audience was all white this time. At the end of each show, while the audience went berserk, Brown would peel off his gaudy cufflinks and fling them into the crowd.

One hit me in the chest. In a day when I still had reflexes, I caught the trinket before it hit the bowling alley floor. I held the bauble like it was manna from the gods.

This belonged to James Brown.

A very pretty girl witnessed this miracle and asked me for the cufflink. Fat chance. No one is that pretty. I still have it.

He spawned a million imitators including Prince, Michael Jackson and the entire rap industry. But there was only one James Brown and he died on Christmas day.

“He was dramatic to the end, dying on Christmas Day,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown’s since 1955. “Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He’ll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way.”