Lil funkey huhu

James brown is a funky dude... over 3 records and 100 sales later he releases this... Get it if ur a fan cuz itll compllete ur collection

Nice, but more is needed

The funky people series is great, but there are still great JB and JB Production selections worthy of release. May I suggest the following (amongst many others):

James Brown - Popcorn With A Feeling

The Dapps Feat Alfred Ellis - Bringing Up The Guitar

Steve Soul - Shades Of Brown

Hank Ballard - Blackenized

Hank Ballard - Come On With It

Bill Doggett - Honky Tonk Popcorn

James Brown - America Is My Home (parts 1 & 2)

These items are long overdue for release and should be considered for future release.

Not bad at all.. fills in historical gaps in JB catalog

You will love this CD if you love James Brown, the JBs, Maceo, Bobby Byrd, Hank Ballard or any of the incredible musicians in their orbit during their late 1960s-early '70s heyday.



Bottom line: It fills in gaps left in previous comps. It includes some rare historic moments. A few of the most notable:



It starts with an oddly slowed, "rock" original version of "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'" that evokes the stoned, slovenly funk crawl later adopted by Sly Stone in his "Riot" era. It's not especially good, but it's an intriguing opener to this lovably obscure odd-lot compilation.



Hank Ballard telling fellow Blacks that they won't get any respect if they don't get rid of their "processed," or straightened (usually with lye) hairstyle, a remnant from the just-past "Negro" days. Hank says he used to wear a process but now has chosen, as a political statement, to wear a "natural" Afro, one more suitable for a beautiful Black brother or sister. (In a delicious touch of irony, backing vocals for this black empowerment anthem are provided by The Dapps, the lone all-white group signed to James Brown Productions.)



Then you have Brother Bobby Byrd "Doin' The Do," a long jam that is essentially a predecessor (recorded at the Olympia Theatre in Paris!) of the JB's mesmerizing and legendary 16-minute "Escape-ism"/"Make It Funky" jam on the ridiculously essential 1971 Apollo live disc, A Revolution Of The Mind. "Catfish" Collins, brother of Bootsy, works overtime on the funky guitar.



You also have a pissed-off JB, feeling robbed by a few Average White Band songs, trying to outdo The Man at his own game once again. In trying to create a Top 40 instrumental over the backing track of an old song ("Hot Pants Road"), he fails, but instead he creates a funky, almost "Superfly" soundtrack vibe that could have come from the opening music for a Quinn Martin Productions TV cop show of the '70s.



And you've some of the great, criminally underrated female vocalists in the JB stable: Lyn Collins (in a fiery "Giveit Up") and Vicki Anderson. You have just about every great musician of JB's funk era represented here as well.



Maybe this isn't the most essential JB compilation ever, but don't dismiss it so quickly. More than just another CD, this album is a powerful reminder of one undisputed fact. Social historians, musical archivists, scholars and others will spend the next 150 years just listening to and cataloguing the records the Hardest Working Man in Show Business was at one time able to make as easily and effortlessly as paper airplanes on a lazy afternoon.



Instead of these piecemeal comps, Polydor needs to just drop a 95-disc box set of every known JB recording, with maybe a holographic soul sister research archivist (wearing HOT PANTS, no doubt) to help you sort through it all.



This would be one of the discs on that set; it's not the most incendiary of them, but it is another piece of the vast and beautiful mosaic created for us by James Brown and these amazing musicians over a period of decades.