Last night Booty Collins and his band of merry men (and women) performed at the 2008 Milwaukee Summerfest, where they paid tribute to the Godfather of Soul. Yeah, James Brown passed over a year ago, but the concert series is Bootsy Collins way of acknowledging the man that taught him the basics of funk. "Bootsy Collins joined the James Brown band at a ripe old age of 17. After the Godfather taught him to play on 'the One', he let Bootsy loose to do his thang. As long as it was James Brown tight, he could play all night.. Bootsy, and the original JB's will play along with Catfish Collins, Jabo 'on the one' Starks, Clyde 'the funky drummer' Stubblefield, and Johnny 'the Afrikan Groove-ulator' Griggs." I'll stop there because very few people know any of those names. However, with this ghostly picture of Vicki Anderson.. I couldn't resist this clip. more..

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Quotes o' plenty from artists about James Brown's death. This morning Harry Allen, a hip-hop journalist, Public Enemy's "media assassin" was interviewed on Democracy Now! He chopped it up with the host, Amy Goodman. Coming from the hip-hop side of the table he gives a good look at James Brown's influence on the music. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how he really helped create funk, how he influenced hip-hop? HARRY ALLEN: Well, hip-hop is a music that relies to a great extent on using preexisting musical ideas expressed through recordings. And James Brown put together some of the densest ideas in black music ever made. more..

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Last night when reporting on James Brown's death, one of the news reporters gave a little smirk when he mentioned that Al Sharpton thought of James brown as his father. In his thought bubble you could see the words.. "There he goes again, jumping on the hot 'black' event." The thing is, Al Sharpton is very closely connected to James Brown. He knew James Brown before anyone knew Al Sharpton existed. Yesterday outside of the National Action Network's House of Justice Sharpton explained that he was close friends with James Brown's son, Teddy. more..

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With any and everybody proclaiming themselves the leader of this, the best at that, chest-thumping and ball hugging, when you state that a man is the Godfather of Soul the weight of those words just don't have the impact desired, sounds like just another tag line. Father Time is also a factor; as an artist's prime years pass, the spirit of their creations and performances lose impact to those who didn't witness or experience the music on a first hand basis. Not a BET Award Show appearance, it's those who were in the small packed clubs and theatres, sweaty house parties, picked up the needle on the scratched groove of a vinyl record, heard "Say it Loud/ I'm Black I'm Proud" in the revolutionary and pride pumping way that it was intended. They hold the true definition. more..

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