James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, 1962 is a masterclass in showmanship and musicianship that transcends genre. From the Rolling Stones to Anderson .Paak, you can see the influence that The Hardest Working Man in Show Business has left with this album, this performance, and so many of his other albums and recorded performances (many of them back at The Apollo!).
This pioneering record is a sizzling cauldron of soul, funk, blues, and something electric and ineffable. It’s perfect in almost every way, but it almost didn’t come to be…
This record was a hair away from not being produced at all. Syd Nathan, the “king” of King Records at the time, saw James Brown as more of a single artist and refused to finance the making of a full album, nonetheless a live one. Nathan signed Brown and put out “Please, Please, Please,” which sold quite well. Unfortunately, Brown’s next nine singles were complete flops.
Brown even had to record a new song under a completely different, fake name — Nat Kendrick and the Swans’ “Mashed Potatoes,” for a different label entirely — just to get Nathan to reconsider.
Luckily, their 11th song they recorded with Nathan was, “Try Me,” which renewed the label’s faith in the band, James Brown and his Famous Flames.
You can hear how popular this song really was in Live at the Apollo by listening to how bonkers the crowd goes during that track. But while their faith may have been restored, they still didn’t see Brown as anything more than a single artist, inconsistent at best.
James Brown thus had to finance the album himself to get it made, which today isn’t so rare but during the time this was virtually unheard of. James Brown knew that a live album was the best way to showcase his music, and his incredible band, to the world after seeing the success of Ray Charles’s 1960 live record, In Person. It may have seemed like a risky move, but Mr. Brown was completely confident in his band and his ability to move an audience. It’s just that… well, Brown had to make very clear to his band that he would triple any fines they got that night for messing up. You know, normal band stuff.
Brown proved he was a different typeof entertainer with this album. Although he isn’t doing anything new, yet, the way he directed the band and interacted with the audience felt revolutionary. He took what other band leaders were doing and upped the ante, upped the energy, and all-around raised the bar to set a new normal for how flamboyant and confident an entertainer should be. His exuberance can be heard throughout the performance.