Why do girls scream at musicians they love? This is one of those questions that crops up over and over again for me, and it has twice in the last twenty-four hours. The first time occurred yesterday afternoon as I was watching the first half hour of the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It? (side note: very good film with amazing performances from Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne), in this example I agree it’s a film and so the behaviour of the women/girls shouldn’t be taken verbatim. The second time though was while I was listening to today’s album, James Brown’s Live At The Apollo. Whether it be through excitement or not it is still, as a guy, a very strange phenomenon to behold.I guess that the screaming of girls is just another one of those tell-tale signs that an artist has got charisma. This is a word that keeps cropping up as I do the write-ups for live albums, so I am guessing that this really is one of the keys behind the what makes one of these a great album that is therefore featured on such a list. There are of course exceptions to this rule, Ellington At Newport 1956, but in general this works out.
However, in the case of Live At The Apollo, I know that there is charisma. I can hear the screams and the cheers of the women in the audience. I can also hear it in his voice as he whips the crowd into a frenzy. Yet, it’s conveyance across the speakers and into the fibres of my being are zero. While I understand that this will also be because he danced around this a mute point as this is album achieved it’s place on it’s musical merit rather than by those of James Brown’s steps. If Live At The Apollo were to be solely judged against the other live albums so far encountered on the list it still lies somewhere near the bottom of the pack, still some way above Ellington at Newport 1956 but doesn’t match the majesty of At Mister Kelly’s or the sheer wow-factor of Live At The Harlem Square Club. That isn’t to say that this isn’t a good album, as it is. Ratings wise it places about the same as Sunday At The Village Vanguard which I did also enjoy.
The real highlight, aside from laughing at the reactions of the women in the audience, is the ten minute epic that is Lost Someone. This is not a track to match the sheer energy of Sex Machine but this is James Brown raw and unplugged. It feels that all of the funk artifice has been stripped away leaving behind this man bearing his soul to a sparse orchestration. If it wasn’t for the sheer power of his voice it would fall flat on it’s face, but in the hands of this professional it is perfectly executed. That is not to say that the energy of the closer Night Train isn’t at all welcome.
In the end Live At The Apollo comes to symbolise a lot of the problems of a live recording for a lot has become lost in the process of transferring it from the performance onto vinyl and now to mp3. I am sure that if I were there in person with the magnetic personality of James Brown at the helm of this show’s Night Train I would happily be in the snack cart buying a bag of pretzels as I enjoyed the ride of my life. However, without seeing him dancing around and without the atmosphere I am left a little bit cold which is a shame.
6.5/10
Fab Four:
I’ll Go Crazy
Think
Lost Someone
Night Train/Closing
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