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BEYONDThe Godfather’sLive SalvationThe centerpiece of I Got The Feelin’: JamesBrown In The ’60s (Shout! Factory 826663)AAAA, a three-DVD box devoted to theGodfather of Soul’s performance powerand influence during 1968, is The NightJames Brown Saved Boston, a 75-minutedocumentary directed by David Leaf andnarrated by actor Dennis Haysbert that originallyaired on VH1.Brown had a concert scheduled for theBoston Garden on April 5 of that year, butone night prior Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., atragedy that turned the country upsidedown. Immediately, many American citieswere in flames, as pent-up frustrations andanger erupted in widespread rioting andlooting. Boston, a city with fierce racial tensions,was among them. Mayor KevinWhite initially planned to cancel the Brownconcert, certain it would cause trouble. AsDr. Cornel West notes in the documentary,it was one thing if blacks were rioting intheir own isolated neighborhoods, but itwould be something altogether different itthe violence moved downtown.Black city councilman Thomas Atkinsintervened and eventually convinced themayor that canceling the show would onlycreate more anger, and the city governmenthit upon a novel solution. It allowed theshow to go on, but it broadcast the concertlive on WGBH in hopes that folks would stayhome and watch rather than roam thestreets with barely contained rage.The gambit paid off. Although attendancewas low, Brown and the FamousFlames put on a brilliant performance thatwas introduced by Atkins and White urgingcitizens to respect the memory of King byembracing his non-violent ethos. Towardthe end of the concert, as amped-up audiencemembers started rushing the stage,Brown waved-off the heavy police presenceand took care of the issue himself.While other American cities continued toburn, Boston was calm. (The TV stationrebroadcast the entire concert again at midnight,extending the music’s balm-like qualitiesfor another 90 late-night minutes). Thesinger’s effectiveness at bringing order ledto a heightened involvement in politics; thenext night he was in Washington, D.C.,calming black residents there.Members of Brown’s band, Boston radiopersonality James “Early” Bird, and blackleaders like Al Sharpton and Andrew Youngare among the talking heads recalling thoseJames Brown:calming forceby Peter Margasakevents and assessing its impact. It’s a sharpand lively documentary, but like so manyfilms that examine music, the performancefootage gets short shrift.That’s where the rest of the box setcomes in. Most of the Boston Garden concertgets its own separate disc (some bits ofcomedy and space afforded to his bandmatesdidn’t make the cut here). Takenfrom the WGBH archives, the black-andwhiteconcert footage isn’t perfect; therewere some problems with the video feed,resulting in an old-fashioned “please standby” image while the music blared on, andat times the TV crew, used to shooting onlyclassical music, seems overwhelmed by thepower and excitement of Brown’s stageshow. Yet once you adjust to the technicallimitations, it’s hard not to be awed byBrown’s charisma and presence, his powerfulsinging and the well-oiled machine thatwas the Famous Flames.The final disc features a TV special called“James Brown: Man To Man” producedfrom a concert at Harlem’s Apollo Theatrejust one week before the Boston show. Thespecial is afflicted by quasi-psychedelic productioneffects in vogue at the time, andmuch of the footage is edited out. There’s ashort section where a camera followsBrown on the streets of Washington, D.C.,Harlem and Watts, where he utters thepowerful demand, “My fight now is for theblack American to become American.”Although it was shot in color, the transferis flawed; there’s even a hiccup in the earlyminutes where an imperfection in the tapedistorts the image and sound for a second.Ultimately, though, the power of the performancemakes such qualms irrelevant. Alsoincluded are single-song performancesfrom Paris concerts in 1967 and 1968 and aclassic clip of Brown performing “Out OfSight” on “The T.A.M.I. Show.” DBOrdering info: shoutfactory.comDOWNBEAT ARCHIVESNovember 2008 DOWNBEAT 83