Tales from the Tour Bus - The Vickery Family

James Brown Part 2

Vernon Gibbs: If there were a Mount Rushmore for funk, James Brown would have his own mountain. You know, he might have his own mountain and his own valley. I mean, he was that much of a dominant force.

Narrator: Vernon Gibbs got to see James Brown at the peak of his powers as a writer for music publications like Zoo World, Creem, and Crawdaddy.

Vernon: One of my first big writing assignments, I interviewed him, uh, backstage at The Johnny Carson Show. It was the beginning of black nationalism, and James didn't have to make any reservations about his blackness. He was the pioneer in that respect. You know, already owning his own businesses, his radio stations, he was showing, uh, black people the way forward. So I interviewed him backstage, and this guy barges into the room and he insisted that he had to see James Brown right now, because he had been pursuing him for weeks and James Brown hadn't given him an answer. It was a Hollywood producer. It wasn't anybody well known, but it was for a real movie deal. James Brown basically told him, "Take a hike. "You see I'm here being interviewed by this brother. "You come in here disrespecting me, you can't do that." And the interesting thing that he said was that, "Nobody can make a movie about me "that would be better than my real life." If you want me to do a movie, "I'm gonna be the director, "you know, I'm gonna make the movie, so don't even bother." And, basically, he was right.

Narrator: He was a boy from a broken home, raised in violence and poverty inside a brothel, who became a frequent guest at the White House.

Alan: It started in the early '70s with Richard Nixon, and it really didn't matter Republican or Democrat. He visited Reagan. He visited Clinton. He visited Bush, both of them. It was just part of being president, at some point you're gonna receive James Brown in the White House, damn it. In a sense, I kind of felt like I had gone to work for a mafia don. You go from, like, riding a bus with no money in your pocket, and then on a Learjet to a hotel suite next to his. Go figure.

Vernon: He hit a peak from about '67 to '72. He had some of the greatest records of all-time. Make It Funky, Hot Pants, Funky Goodtime, which is also called Doing It to Death, Soul Power, Sex Machine. He was the king, and everyone else was just part of his kingdom.

Narrator: His entire career from the Chitlin' Circuit to the biggest venues, James Brown never took anything for granted.

Alan: We had a show in Philadelphia, and for whatever reason, the local promoter said to add The Dells to the show. The Dells were a Temptations type group that were very, very, very big in the early '70s. Amazing singers. They went on stage and just killed. Girls were standing on the seats and hollering and screaming, and throwing panties at the lead singer. They were tearing the place apart. In the middle of their act, I go downstairs to the dressing rooms, and I see James outside his dressing room with Danny Ray.

Narrator: Danny Ray was Mr. Brown's personal valet and master of ceremonies, the man with the cape.

Alan: James is with Danny, smoking a cigarette, pacing across the floor outside this hallway. This is totally out of character. Normally, he would be in the dressing room, under a hair dryer with a robe, just chillin'. But he's dressed and pacing, and he was just muttering, "Fucking Dells, goddamn Dells! "They had 'em. They had 'em in the palm of their hand, "and fucking idiots! "That's why I don't want this shit on my show! "They didn't know when to quit. They did what they came for and now they still up there singing that shit. Danny, go up there and pull 'em off the stage. They been on too long. Get 'em off the stage, get 'em off the stage, Danny. Go get 'em off. Get 'em off!" Danny looked at me, I looked at him, we walked over towards the stage area, and I said, "Danny, you can't You can't do this. This place will riot." So we Dan and I just disappeared, just got the hell out of Dodge. The Dells finally finished and came up, and it's time for James Brown. He was fit to be tied. Actually, he had to go through the crowd on the floor to get to the stage, so security would create a a lane, just like a boxer has to go through the crowd to get to the ring. Despite all the security, by the time he got to the stage, girls had already tore the collar of his shirt. He went out like Mike Tyson. It was the best show I've ever seen him do. He had a way of coming off stage the way a victorious boxer would leave the ring. He'd be drenched with sweat, like, "I went to war and I won. Still champ!" His whole career he was like that. He always felt that all the odds were against him. And they were. It's not a lie, they were.