Live at the Apollo (1962)

James Brown

album cover

Hardest-Working Man Lives Up to His Billing

"Are you ready for Star Time?" emcee Lucas "Fats" Gonder asks the fifteen hundred fans assembled for the Apollo Theater's late show on October 24, 1962, the week of the Cuban missile crisis. The question is, of course, utterly academic: By the time Gonder, who also plays organ, finishes his list of James Brown's hits and begins introducing "Mr. Dynamite," "The Amazing Mr. Please Please Please Himself," Star Time is well under way. Brown enters during the third chorus of the scampering blues called "The Search" and, while the faithful are still screaming, launches a forty-minute assault that would go on to become one of the most thrilling live albums in pop history.

Brown was ready—in the liner notes to the deluxe edition he recalls weeks spent practicing every detail of his act for this engagement, his fifth at the Apollo as a headliner. (Like many R&B artists, he knew it as a place where even seasoned performers are tested, and knew, also, that positive word of mouth from the show would travel everywhere.) Starting with "I'll Go Crazy," Brown doesn't merely tame the notoriously fickle Apollo crowd, he blows them clear to the red-velvet back wall of the theater. In the two minutes of "Think," Brown and his agile Famous Flames create a rippling wave of raw emotion; whirling together love ballads including "I Found Someone" and "Please, Please, Please," he offers a pleading epic on the vicissitudes of romance.

Brown subsidized the Apollo recording himself, after King Records honcho Syd Nathan refused, arguing that no live record could sell without an accompanying single. After hearing the tapes, the executive relented and agreed to release Live at the Apollo, which has endured ever since as an indispensable primer on the fine points of live performance. Unexpectedly, the album became a monster hit, Brown's first million-seller. And it did get played on the radio—individual songs during the day, and longer stretches of it at night. Rocky G, the program director of New York's WWRL radio station, once said that "People were always calling in, asking us to play 'JamesBrown-LiveattheApollo'—one word, like it was the name of one of his songs."

Brown returned to the storied Harlem theater to record another live album in 1968, at a time when the band was hotter, and more tuned to the funk. He reprises several of the songs from the 1962 version ("Think" among them) and, listening back-to-back, you can hear how a few years of intense roadwork toughened up the tune. The highlight of this set is a medley of "Let Yourself Go," "There Was a Time," "I Feel All Right," and "Cold Sweat" that lasts twenty riveting minutes and could easily have gone twenty more.

Genre: R&B
Released: 1962, King
Key Tracks: "Please, Please, Please," "Think"
Catalog Choice: Revolution of the Mind
Next Stop: Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove
After That: D'Angelo: Voodoo

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Comments:

#1 from Paul, Bellevue, WA - 01/07/2010 3:27

Tom, you say that James Brown “...launches a forty-minute assault…” yet the actual tracks for the album total only 31m 36s (this doesn’t include the bonus tracks which were not recorded that night). Can you confirm that the album pictured is the correct one?

Thanks!

#2 from tom moon - 01/07/2010 10:23

great catch Paul!

sure enough the album pictured is correct—the text is unclear. apparently the actual show was over 40 mins, in part owing to the reaction etc., but what’s on the release is only 31 mins.

the subsequent Apollo show is longer, and that may explain the mixup in my factchecking.

thank you for writing!

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