James Brown’s New Doc: 9 Things We Learned From ‘Mr. Dynamite’
While James Brown fans already got the opportunity to see Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul in this summer’s Get on Up, Alex Gibney (Finding Fela, Taxi to the Dark Side) tackled the real thing in HBO’s Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown, a new documentary on the singer that premiered Monday night.
More hagiography than warts-and-all bio — the film omits Brown’s arrests on weapons charges and only mentions one instance of many domestic abuse allegations in passing — the Mick Jagger-produced film still enlists many of Brown’s former musicians, including John “Jabo” Starks, Clyde Stubblefield, Bobby Byrd, Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo and Melvin Parker, to recall pivotal moments in the funk and soul pioneer’s life.
Mainly covering the time between Brown’s joining of the Famous Flames in 1954 to what Questlove calls the “mustache period” of the mid-Seventies, the film showcases Brown’s legendary performances at the Apollo and on Ed Sullivan and The T.A.M.I. Show alongside his work as a humanitarian and civil-rights activist. While Brown’s life could easily be the subject of a marathon-length Ken Burns-directed series, Mr. Dynamite deftly encapsulates why Brown’s music was so innovative and groundbreaking, giving proper credit to his all-star band and not shying away from the bandleader’s quasi-tyrannical, yet tireless, working style. Here are nine things we learned from the documentary.
1. His definition of “soul music” wasn’t just musical
Asked to define soul music early in the film, Brown responds, “It’s the word ‘Can’t’ that makes you a soul singer. A black man…has had extra hard knocks and he’s lived with the word ‘Can’t’ for so long, so every time he can sing about it, it comes out a little bit stronger.” Later on, Brown will expand on this definition as it related to the civil rights movement to which he was so closely tied. “Soul is when a man has to struggle all his life to be equal to another man,” said the singer. “Soul is when a man pays taxes and still he comes up second. Soul is when a man is judged not for what they do, but what color they are.”
2. He was the antithesis to what was considered “beautiful”
According to friend Al Sharpton, who knew the singer for decades, Brown told him how not fitting into a traditional leading man role forced him to work harder at his craft. “James said, ‘You have to remember, Reverend, when I was coming up, you had to be tall, light-skinned [and with] long, wavy hair like Jackie [Wilson] or Smokey Robinson,'” said Al Sharpton. “‘I was short, had African features and I didn’t have any of what was considered beautiful at that time. I was determined I was going to out-dance and out-sing everybody out there and I was going to work every night.'”
3. Brown’s support for Nixon was hardly mutual
Despite backing Hubert Humphrey in his failed 1968 bid for presidency against Richard Nixon, Brown openly campaigned for and endorsed Nixon in the 1972 presidential election. Many in the black community turned against Brown — “Has James Brown Sold Black People Out or Sold Them In?,” reads one headline in the film — with some going so far as to burn his albums. In one scene, Brown is heard asking Nixon to support a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. “We’re examining what could be appropriate,” replied Nixon. “Good luck and much success to you.” In private, though, Nixon was less cordial. “No more black stuff,” the president can be heard saying via vintage audio tapes. “Too much black stuff. No more blacks from now on; just don’t bring them in here. James Brown apparently is very popular amongst young people; he is black. Well, what am I supposed to do, just sit and talk to him or what?”