James Brown
Star Time - 4 CD Box Set

LA RECENSIONE

This review is for you, Mr. M**** R****.

For you, you damn alternative, who in the mid-'80s, in the prime of your very, very silly youth, felt like vomiting when you saw that jet-black mop of hair swinging around in circus-like costumes—maybe a guest on TeleMike—and that waxy black face with a sixty-four-toothed grin plastered on it, thinking of him as the culprit of that mess called "Living in America," the theme of the even more dreadful "Rocky IV." And you summed it all up, saying to yourself: “What kind of clown is this James Brown? To think that in the role of the Reverend in the "Blues Brothers" I almost liked him... well...”

For you, two-bit snob, who gradually appreciated—what the heck, let's take it slow, you were raised on punk rock and new wave—rap, without knowing that an infinity of samples upon which countless hip-hop bases rotated were all the black flour from the bag of the aforementioned clown.

For you, arrogant pseudo-intellectual, who shortly after heard some enlightened DJ, between a Nirvana and a Public Enemy, set the dance floor on fire with the relentless repetitive fixity—three chords and a change!—of "Sex Machine." You told yourself that yes, that stuff wasn't bad at all, that that groove, skillful blend of bass and drums had its reason (years later you would have to admit that none were ever created as effective); that damn lascivious and funky guitar (you did not yet know that in African American slang "funk" was synonymous with "bodily fluid," yes, those fluids, the product of sexual activity...) and that piano that seemed twenty years ahead of acid-jazz... well, they didn’t seem dated and yes, they could deserve deeper exploration.

For you, frugal music collector, who in 1991, when "Star Time" was released, Altare della Patria Nera and encyclopedic as well as the definitive collection of James Brown's work in four CDs, prudently limited yourself, in the pre-internet era, to "rent it" (yes, you could back then!) to transfer it into two economical audiotapes, so as not to wipe out your measly monthly budget as a student-worker in one go.

For you, and may someone up there forgive you, who shortly afterwards had to go to Canossa and yet—as a sacred punishment—to own "Star Time" you had to wait for a reissue, because in the world others weren’t so foolish, they grabbed it immediately and it sold out fast. And maybe agreeing with those who considered this monumental box the greatest album of all time, a useful paradox to demonstrate an impossible truth. How else to define almost five full hours within which seventy-one songs rewrite the history of stomp-blues and brass-laden R&B, of soul indiscriminately jump or ballad, of funk tinged here with jazz veins, there psychedelically and rock-inspired, passing through raw, uncompromising blaxploitation, the gritty proto-disco to finally reach rap and hip-hop? Five hours of which not even a millisecond can be thrown away. Five hours that in just under thirty years, from "Please please please" to "Unity," bring together Robert Johnson and Louis Jordan, the Five Royals and Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Jackie Wilson, Miles Davis and Sly Stone, George Clinton and the Sugarhill Gang, Afrikaa Bambataa and Prince. In between are the cornerstones that built the myth of the Godfather of Soul, no need to list them. They’re all there. This to stick with the music, a music that with barely four chords per song could open the world to you nonetheless. Then there's the rest. And in that rest, we will find an ineffable greatness capable of translating hard work (The hardest working man in showbusiness: on this point, ask confirmation from various members of the Famous Flames first and then JB’s), spectacle, love, sweat, sex, and charisma into a unique lifestyle. A reference point for the African American nation, like Martin Luther King and Cassius Clay. But unintentional, because the former shoe shiner from South Carolina can be considered anything but a revolutionary subverter of the system. Yet, in his own way, he was a hero of his times.

For you, if it is true as it is true that, starting from the knowledge of this gentleman, you then made black music a reason for living, then you can finally shout it loudly (I’m black and proud...): put this box next to Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Robert Johnson, Elvis, Hendrix, and the Velvet. The essential is all there. The rest will be just pleasant luxuries.

PS: It's pointless, Mr. M**** R****, to hide behind pompous nicknames like Imasoulman... you’re just and will continue to be a poor (ex)white boy.