Posted by On July 12th, 2001 I ventured just a few short blocks from my home to the Ottawa Bluesfest, where the legendary James Brown was holding court for the evening.
At the time Bluesfest was temporarily taking place on the barren LeBreton Flats, a prominent tract of land flanking Canada’s largest two provinces and set beautifully along the Ottawa River. This was before the (quite excellent, very informative, and appropriately reverential) War Museum was installed as the centrepiece of the flats, before the bike path was built along the jutting shoreline, and before a herculean amount of landscaping successfully transformed a dustbowl of an eyesore into one of Ottawa’s flagship tourist areas.
It was also just after the Bluesfest decided to welcome more pop(ular) acts into their roster of blues-based entertainment – guys like Sting and Blue Rodeo – which (of course) dramatically upped their crowd sizes (and their profile and their revenues) and allowed them to up the ante quite a bit on booking household names.
Which brings us to James Brown, the household name from the vast world of soul music and R&B. I mean, who doesn’t know the sound of James Brown (1933-2006)? Even if you only know I Feel Good, that’s enough; you know the sound of James Brown and the sound of the music he pioneered. But of course everyone knows more of James Brown than just I Feel Good. Legions of kids from the ’80’s remember Eddie Murphy’s unforgettable take on the Godfather of Soul (“Should I get in the hot tub?!?”), of course he is responsible for one of the flagship star cameos in that greatest music movie of all time, The Blues Brothers (“Can you see the light?!?!”), and of course there was the legal troubles that forever smeared Brown’s music to a lot of his fans (my friend Charles swore he would never listen to another James Brown record after the singer was arrested in 2004 – following a lifetime of bizarre run-ins with the law – for domestic violence).
So like I say, James Brown was pretty famous, maybe the most famous person to have played Bluesfest up to this point.
And despite the hit songs, the troubled past, and the excellent marketing the truth is that James Brown truly was The Hardest Working Man In Show Business (there’s more of that good marketing). He notoriously worked his bands harder than anyone else – the proof can be found on any of his records – and that whole shtick where he can’t go on anymore and his attendants come onstage to help the exhausted performer to the wings only to have Brown fling his cape from his back and launch back into his high-energy stage antics…well, when you see it you realize that whole scene must have come from someplace quite real, and there’s a fair chance that in some ways it still does, though it does get a bit old when he does it six times in a row.
In the end, the James Brown set was a lot of fun. His band was super-tight (of course) and in retrospect his oh-I-can’t-possibly-go-on-another-minute thing seemed all that more legit given that he was only five years from death at the time. This was probably the last time I saw him cast his glittering cape aside and launch into a reprise of one or another of his legendary hits before my very eyes and I was thankful for the opportunity.
And the fact that it was just a short stroll to my awesome apartment after the concert didn’t hurt one bit.
Todd Man Out 