“You know what you did”: when James Brown fined bassist Fred Thomas for a mistake
It’s hard to ignore the comforting embrace of nostalgia when the modern-day outlook is simply so bleak. It’s why the great music of yesteryear is seemingly yearned for more than ever, with tickets for legacy tours flying out of the blocks at a quicker rate than any contemporary artist.
But I realise I will never be satisfied in my retrospective endeavour, because it’s simply impossible to see my number one live artist, James Brown.
Feasting on whatever clips of his live shows I can, I have come to realise that he may have just been the pinnacle of music performance. Wildly energetic yet brutally precise at the same time, his shows were the embodiment of charisma and talent.
But while the wide-eyed smile and infectious showmanship may have painted a somewhat easy performative picture, Brown’s approach was anything but. His greatness was painstakingly carved out through an intense management of his own music and, more importantly, his band.
The trade-off for his giving absolutely everything to his performance was his band following suit with musical perfection, barely missing a note or delivering anything out of time. In fact, if they did slip up in that regard, Brown would be on hand to dish out relevant fines as a means of deterring these petrified youngsters from sabotaging his show ever again.
“He believed in perfection and that the audience should get what they paid for,” his son Larry Brown explained. “He was willing to do whatever it took to make sure perfection was there,” adding, “He demanded it – and he got it.”
His band members corroborated this theory by outlining the strict fine process that Brown laid out for them should they mess up. “I got fined $50 one time, for one note,” Fred Thomas, his bass player, says. “He’s playing ‘If I Ruled the World’ and I almost missed a note – I just kind of slid into it, it wasn’t a train wreck, but it was a little rough” – Thomas then recalled that despite his best efforts, he couldn’t fool Brown, who came up to him after the show and said, “You know what you did.”
His iron-fisted ruling within the band may have struck fear into the hearts of those within it, but ultimately inspired a generation of burgeoning musicians who admired his uncompromising pursuit of greatness.
Famously, Mick Jagger’s wild performance style was built on the back of Brown’s live show, but it was Prince who made note of his autocratic approach to band leading. Celebrating Brown’s career, Prince said he “inspired me”, before explaining it was, “because of the control he had over his band, and because of the beautiful dancing girls that he had. I wanted both.”
Intra-band respect was the price both artists paid for the undeniable sense of greatness they achieved. Particularly Brown, who will forever be remembered as one of the greatest performers in history and in becoming such, proved that natural talent can only get you so far in this industry.
