James Brown’s ‘Live At the Apollo’: the night rock ‘n’ roll changed forever
It’s late October 1962, and the Cuban Missile Crisis sets the apocalyptic backdrop. For all most American citizens know, the big red buttons have been pressed, and in a matter of moments, their final night alive will erupt in flames until Satan stands impressed. Shows are being cancelled, and people fearfully shelter in their living rooms as though a few inches of mortar and perhaps the mere notion of domesticity might ward off the warheads. But James Brown is backstage at the Apollo unmoved.
He’s approaching ten years in the business, and things haven’t gone overly great. Locally, he’s a renowned performer, but there’s one of those in every town. So far, he’s released five albums, and none of them have charted anywhere. He’s struggling to break the 10,000 sales mark because the albums are lacking a certain vitality. His live shows are so incendiary that wearing a shell suit and standing in the front row is an act carried out by combustion fetishists. So far, that has never translated to the studio.
The solution was staring him in the face: a live album. Thus, the savvy Brown decides to book Harlem’s Apollo Theatre for a live run of shows that will ultimately become his live album. Now, he stands backstage, insistent that he’s put too much into this gamble to let some pesky a-bombs get in the way. Doomsday won’t come to Harlem.
It’s a self-funded enterprise because label bosses have, understandably, informed him that if his studio albums are lucky to fetch 9,000 sales, then what use is it booking out an expensive theatre for a live record? Brown is now faced with both the burden of impending debt and having to ward off the audience’s trepidation that comes with the threat of doomsday.
His call sounds out: “It’s indeed a great pleasure to present to you at this particular time, the performer nationally and internationally known as the Hardest Working Man In Show Business, Mr. Dynamite, the amazing Mr. Please Please himself, the star of the show, James Brown and the Famous Flames!”
What follows is akin to the old Pete Townshend quote: “Rock ‘n’ Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them.” He electrifies the crowd with a set so pulsating that they leave uttering, “The Cuban what?” to concerned citizens on the street. Brown has defined the purpose of the counterculture revolution in one single 30-minute set, a frenzy that would be considered a flash in the pan by today’s drawn-out standards. The times were a-changing, and Brown took dominion over them on the bleakest of nights and set off a flare of hope through rock ‘n’ roll.
Bands would read the reports and know that they had to up their game a little. Most importantly, the record sold too. It was reluctantly issued by label bosses but soon found itself second only to Andy Williams on the US albums chart. Previously, live records had been opulent jazz affairs where aficionados would nerd out over the perfect double-kick of Buddy Rich, the occasional chink of a fine crystal glass adding a modicum of atmosphere. Brown’s was the first where the sweat on the walls seemed audible.
It provided a healthy dose of exultation in a time of great worry and despair. So, radio stations began playing it in full, cramming in ads between sides one and two. This most peculiar of records, full of adrenalised bravura, was now being heard by the masses. Williams’ beloved, stately ways might be respected, but it was clear that Brown’s punk viscera illuminated the future. The starting pistol for punk had just sounded.
