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Rock/pop

James Brown: Love Power Peace

Love Power Peace
James Brown: Love Power Peace
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In 1971 James Brown recorded a concert at the Olympia in Paris. He planned to release a triple album of the event, and he got as far as a test pressing before the project was shelved. In 1992 a single CD of the show omitted some cuts and scrambled the track order. Mastered for the first time from the original mixdown reels, the new vinyl release of Love Power Peace duplicates the album James Brown envisioned down to the mid-song side breaks that make the listening experience unusually choppy as well as his studio version of “Who Am I” that’s slipped in as if it were part of the live performance. Odd choices initially, but I applaud the decision to follow the original script, as finally a lost album has come fully to life.

And considering the remarkable chemistry of this band, that’s no small thing. Here the list of veteran James Brown sidemen includes drummers John “Jabo” Starks and Clyde Stubblefield, trombonist Fred Wesley, and long-standing right-hand man Bobby Byrd (who, like Vicki Anderson, sings lead on a couple cuts). Three essential new members were from Cincinnati, home of King Records, where Brown went from an unknown to an icon. Although he was only 19, William “Bootsy” Collins was already an innovator on the bass; both he and his older brother, guitarist Phelps “Catfish” Collins, were pivotal in shaping the new sound of the group. A brilliant and innovative arranger, David Matthews was an ideal collaborator as James Brown’s music became more intricate, complex, and mind-blowing.

An amazing lineup—but it was also short-lived and under-recorded. James Brown must have thought something special was brewing if he decided to release what would have been his firstever triple LP, and I’d be hard-pressed to disagree. By the end of the first side the band is already crackling with an intensity that other groups would struggle to match during their encore. When Brown shouts encouragement during “Ain’t It Funky Now,” you sense the soloists being driven to new heights and feel the electricity of a band that’s completely in synch. Although the sound isn’t great, overall it has the impact you would want from a live album. The horns and strings seem submerged while the vocals are sometimes too forward. On the other hand, in spite of distant staging for the instruments in general the drums and the deep, dark, ominous bass lines come through clearly, revealing the energy and intricacy of a remarkable rhythm section.

On the high-energy material priority is given to new songs, the older hits receiving quick run-throughs or getting bundled into medleys. For this superbly paced set, however, James Brown is given all the time he needs to deliver dramatic performances of ballads that evoke early deep soul records on King, Federal, and dozens of other great labels. These renditions of “Georgia on My Mind,” “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” “Try Me,” “Bewildered,” and “Who Am I”—all songs where James Brown pours emotion into every line—make Love Power Peace even more memorable. On the last side of the record “Super Bad,” “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved,” and “Soul Power” return the energy level to its previous heights. 

By Jeff Wilson

This will take some explaining, but I can connect the dots between pawing through LPs at a headshop called Elysian Fields in Des Moines, Iowa, as a seventh grader, and becoming the Music Editor for The Absolute Sound. At that starting point—around 1970/71—Elysian Fields had more LPs than any other store in Des Moines. Staring at all the colorful covers was both tantalizing and frustrating. I had no idea who most of the artists were, because radio played only a fraction of what was current. To figure out what was going on, I realized that I needed to build a record collection—and as anyone who’s visited me since high school can testify, I succeeded. Record collecting was still in my blood when, starting in the late 1980s, the Cincinnati Public Library book sale suddenly had an Elysian Fields quantity of LPs from people who’d switched to CDs. That’s where I met fellow record hawk Mark Lehman, who preceded me as music editor of TAS. Mark introduced me to Jonathan Valin, whose 1993 detective novel The Music Lovers depicts the battles between record hawks at library sales. That the private eye in the book, Harry Stoner, would stumble upon a corpse or two while unraveling the mystery behind the disappearance of some rare Living Stereo platters made perfect sense to me. After all, record collecting is serious business. Mark knew my journalistic experience included concert reviews for The Cincinnati Enquirer and several long, sprawling feature articles in the online version of Crawdaddy. When he became TAS music editor in 2008, he contacted me about writing for the magazine. I came on board shortly after the latest set of obituaries had been written for vinyl—and, as fate had it, right when the LP started to make yet another unexpected comeback. Suddenly, I found myself scrambling to document all the record companies pressing vinyl. Small outfits were popping up world-wide, and many were audiophile-oriented, plus already existing record companies began embracing the format again. Trying to keep track of everything made me feel, again, like that overwhelmed seventh grader in Elysian Fields, and as Music Editor I’ve found that keeping my finger on the pulse of the music world also requires considerable detective work. I’ve never had a favorite genre, but when it comes time to sit down and do some quality listening, for me nothing beats a well-recorded small-group jazz recording on vinyl. If a stereo can give me warmth and intimacy, tonal accuracy, clear imaging, crisp-sounding cymbals, and deep, woody-sounding bass, then I’m a happy camper.

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