We’re back in town, and I’ll schedule some science stuff for later today, but first I want to take a moment to note the passing of the hardest working man in show business. Much as we’d like to see him shake the cape off and run back to the mike one more time, James Brown is dead.
It’s difficult to overstate Brown’s importance for modern music, though every media outlet in the country is going to give it a shot this week. He’s probably more important than Elvis, though it’d be a near thing. He more or less invented the sound that became the basis of modern soul, hip-hop, and rap, and whether you like those genres or not, that’s a pretty big accomplishment.
I can’t claim to be an expert on his music– I only own one best-of disc, the twenty-song edit of the Star Time box set– but his best stuff is both instantly recognizable and still vital. Forty years on, people are still recording stuff that sounds like “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine),” but you know the real deal the minute you hear it.
(As a side note, it’s remarkably difficult to find good pictures of him from his 60’s heyday on-line, as opposed to more recent mug shots from the numerous occasions when he got a little crazy in public. And really, why wouldn’t you illustrate your obit for the man with a picture of him at his vey best?)