James Brown “Gravity”
If in 1985 you were designing an anthem for an American superhero to fight off a Cold War adversary, who better to perform it than James Brown? Brown was the national dream, having been born in poverty and worked, worked, worked his way to the top. He also was a prodigious talent, perhaps the America’s most important recording artist. So it made some sense when the producers of Rocky IV hired hot producer Dan Hartman to work with Brown on Apollo Creed’s theme song, “Living in America”. This is the song that the boxer prances around to before getting knocked dead by Ivan Drago. An auspicious beginning for a collaboration. Hartman and Brown delivered a retooled version of James Brown the brand, a smiling Halloween costume of the legend, played by the legend himself, backed with synths and handclaps. Brown even does a shout-out to Eddie Murphy’s famous impersonation of him. Yes, it is what you fear — James Brown for white people.
What’s it feel like to be the Godfather of Soul and the DNA of Funk when no one’s buying either? In 1985 James Brown has lost his footing. He had left his record company four years earlier and was still trying to find his place in the new world of Atari, Miami Vice, and the rise of Rap. Dan Hartman was a songwriter, singer and record producer. He had two big disco hits for Loretta Holloway, the Edgar Wright Group standout “Free Ride”, and the 1984 smash “I Can Dream About You”. He was like the B-rate Mark Ronson of his day, but he was, for a brief time, the holder of a secret sauce that would get James Brown back on the charts.
Rocky IV was a real powerhouse of a product, delivering exactly what the audience came for: America winning. The song “Living in America” was enough James Brown to celebrate him and enough Dan Hartman to become a #4 hit. This commercial success led Brown to give up the producer reins and embark on a full album with Hartman at the helm. This 1986 experiment became the album “Gravity”, a reframing of Brown for a new Pop landscape.
During the production of Rocky IV, co-star Dolph Lundgren reported that Brown, unfamiliar with having to lip synch to the playback used in film production, couldn’t get his moves quite right. Brown said he didn’t control the moves, they came out of his singing. He couldn’t just put them on top of the pre-recorded music like a robot. In a mismatch probably never bested, Sylvester Stallone had to show Brown his own moves, like Shrek teaching Fred Astaire how to dance. There is a similar push/pull going on in “Gravity” — is Hartman showing Brown how to move or the other way around?
The opening title track of “Gravity” has Brown dominating, but with programmed synth flourishes in the intro, and background blips and bloops that are cause for concern. They add nothing to a slightly above average cut of Funk. Can these new sounds get “on the one” — the trademark timing Brown would direct and berate his band to get on top of? Producer Hartman cut his teeth on Disco, which shares Funks’ chicken-scratch style of syncopated guitar, but differs from Funk with a regular “four on the floor” beat that makes an easy anchor for dancing. Disco also added string arrangements further smoothing off Funk’s corners. Hartman cut his teeth in this de-funked Disco and had by now softened further into extra light blue eyed soul.
Before Brown even starts singing on “Let’s Go Personal”, my whole body goes “no” at the programmed synth fiesta that starts the song. Calmly, I collect myself, and rephrase. “No, please”. The Fairlight CMI Series II was the newest sampler on the market. I wonder what Brown said when he saw this beast in the studio? This state of the art invention made some really cool sounds for artists from Michael Jackson to Kate Bush. But taking a master like JB and separating him from instruments and players was an artistic miscalculation.
In 1986 James Brown was being sampled all over the place in Hip-Hop, so it’s natural that he would be interested in poking around this new machine that was making money off of him. What if instead of Hartman cutting and pasting his work onto Brown, Hartman had instead sat down Brown and taught him the tool? Or what if Hartman had been Prince? There’s nothing inherently unfunky about a sampler or a synthesizer, but these are the touches on the album that don’t fit. Hartman’s stiff sonic updates T-bone against Brown’s more organic delivery, making him seem even more of a relic. The other modification from the Hartman collaboration is an increase in cleanly sculpted background singers pushing choruses on your ear. They bely an insecurity about letting music sound tough and raw. The wild and wonderful James Brown sounds caged and presented.
“How Do You Stop?,” the album’s second single, has Brown doing a 80’s ballad with some effective touches, like the “Valerie” toned Steve Winwood. “How Do You Stop” is a well produced slice of where the radio was in 1986. But it also sounds suspiciously like the Commodores 1985 hit “The Night Shift” where, until now, Brown never really sounded like anyone but himself. Still, it’s probably the most successful integration of Brown into a new milieu. Where “Living in America” is a costume party imitation, this is a believable role. The question is, on principle, should James Brown sound like Cory Hart?
Finally, on “Turn Me Loose, I’m Dr. Feelgood” James Brown is fully at the wheel. It’s a sprint of a workout, Maceo Parker dizzyingly frolicking on sax and a breakneck percussion track that keeps you breathless for its 3:09 running time. It’s easily the best three minutes on the album. The contribution James Brown made to all music was rescuing us from the “singer/songwriter as genius” worship of lyrics. You want a lyric?
Give it up, one time
Give it up, two times
Give it up, three times
Give it up, four times
That’s from “Turn me Loose, I’m Dr. Feelgood” and probably 35 other James Brown songs. Brown abstracted lyrics to short verbal instructions: give it up, get on up, get on the one, get on the good foot. Eventually, he reduced further to just barely intelligible sounds. But what sounds!: HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIY! OWWWWWW!
Brown’s message to us was: it’s not about the words, it’s the music — beat, beat, beat, body, body, body. Funk was a word invented for that rhythmic feeling that couldn’t be described, and then the newly invented word became the only lyric needed: “Ain’t it Funky?”, “Funky Side of Town”, “Funky Drummer” “It’s Too Funky in Here”, and not to leave behind political commentary “Funky President (People It’s Bad)”
Hartman’s approach doesn’t try to make Brown into Bob Dylan. But on “Repeat The Beat,” Hartman played all the instruments except drums and horns, which takes Brown away from the feel of a live band and his natural role as bandleader. Hartman is not unqualified — his funk guitar riff drives the song admirably. But Brown is constrained where he should erupt, and the lyrics are weighted down by a one-world for all message that may be well-intentioned, but doesn’t connect. It’s ironic that “Repeat the Beat” sags, because all Brown’s classic grooves ever do is repeat. The song is proof of what happens when you take away those little minute adjustments that happen when all eyes are on the band leader. When he’s in charge, JB can take the tempo wherever he feels — faster, slower, repeat it with a hammer until he wants to let you go. He could yell “please”, so many times you can’t believe you still wanted more. He was bigger than life. “Repeat the Beat” is James Brown to a click-track, chasing after “We are the World”.
As a saving grace and souvenir from the dip into the electronic world, James Brown toured for a short time with the robot from Rocky IV that carried around Paulie’s beers. This may have been a more useful adaptation of technology than the modernization of James Brown’s sound on this album. In Rocky IV, Ivan Drago was not scared of Apollo Creed but he was quite puzzled by James Brown.