James Brown says it loud: Chonnie on Chon & I Feel That Old Feeling

It's difficult to say much original about an artist as revered and well documented as JB, but maybe we can reshuffle some old elements and come up with something "new", that in and of itself being a classic James Brown technique.

In addition to James Brown the soul man and James Brown the minister of the new new super heavy funk, James Brown the balladeer and James Brown the smooth jazz organist, James Brown the pop crooner and James Brown the spoken word poet, all of whom I'm sure will show up here in one form or another over the course of the month, there's also James Brown, maker of a totally crazy loud racket, or, until something better comes along, James Brown: Rock and Roller.

Brown got a lot of his impulse to sheer frantic rhythmic excitement from Little Richard (he also got his hair, his first manager, and one of his first bands from Little Richard) so it's only fitting that we start pursuing this vein in the Brown mines with this crazed melding of Little Richard and Roy Brown from 1956, "Chonnie-On-Chon".

Near as I can tell, "Chonnie-On-Chon" is supposed to be roughly the equivalent of "Bama-Lama-Bama-Lou" or "Whop Bop a Lu Bop a Whop Bam Boom", while the verses of the song recall the events of "Good Rockin' Tonight".  

Soul Brother #1's soul brother number one, Bobby Byrd, georgia peaches the keys.

And speaking of way out takes on Brown's influences, his very first session for Federal produced this spectacularly wild version of Wynonie Harris's "I Feel That Old Age Coming On".  The title is tweaked to better reflect the fact that James was disinclined to feel old age (because that would require getting tired).  But, really, the song should have almost been called "I, James Brown" because in his wild shrieks at the beginning of each verse he announces his unprecedented ego to the world by shrieking "I . . . I . . I  . . . I-I-I-I" over and over again.  He's so far gone by the end of the song that he forgets to say "I feel that old feeling coming on" at the end of the song and reverts back to the original lyric.  

Second link from ike ike ike ike ikedyson71's indispensable all JB youtube channel

JOE TEX on KING: 1955 - 1957

It took Joe about 10 years and half a dozen labels before he truly found his voice. He doesn't really start preaching (on record, anyway) until a couple of magnificent 45s he cut for Anna in the early 60s. And although his good humor is always present, he doesn't really start incorporating the folksy wisdom that makes him so unique until he gets to Dial and Nashville knob-twiddler Buddy Killen starts producing him.

But even on his earliest hits for his first label, King, you can hear some of his later writing and performing tics loud and clear.

On "Pneumonia" for instance, we get to hear his love for the one-upping "answer record" (in this case to "Fever", obviously), his fondness for writing songs about funny diseases, and his strange and slightly uncomfortable tendency to use comedic domestic violence as a, uhm, punchline.

On "Davey, You Upset My Home" we can hear his skill with funny social commentary, a little bit of his country influence, and . . . his strange and slightly uncomfortable tendency to use comedic domestic violence as a, uhm, punchline.