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Ecw Press - Damon Wood

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156 pages

English

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In this unvarnished account of toiling under one of popular music's most notorious bosses, Damon Wood details his six years spent playing guitar for James Brown's Soul Generals. In a memoir certain to fascinate Mr. Dynamite's millions of fans, as well as musicians and industry insiders, Wood recalls how a chance encounter with James Brown led him to embrace soul and funk music under the tutelage of its greatest progenitor. Numerous interviews with bandmates provide multiple perspectives on James Brown's complex character, his leadership of his band, the nature of soul and funk, and insights and sometimes harsh lessons learned along the way. This is a sideman's story of the gritty reality of working close to the spotlight but rarely in it. Damon Wood describes life on the road - often on James Brown's infamous tour bus - with one guitar, a change of clothes, and two dozen comrades-in-arms as they brought the funk to clubs, theatres, and the biggest music festivals on earth. Working for

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Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	03 mai 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773051642
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Working for the Man, Playing in the Band
My Years with James Brown
Damon Wood with Phil Carson

Contents
Preface
ACT ONE Trial by Funk
ACT TWO Getting to Know “The Man”
ACT THREE On the Road Again
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright

To James Brown and The Soul Generals

“He could be charming, hilarious, kind, thoughtful, scary, intimidating — all at the same time. Plus, he was my boss.”

Preface
More than a decade after I left James Brown’s band, he still appears in my dreams. Sometimes he’s brooding and I’m not sure whether I’ll get to play the show. Other times he’s welcoming me back. At first, I’m elated. Then I’m not sure what the hell is going on. When I awake I realize then he’s no longer with us. Yet, he still lives inside me. And I wonder about my former bandmates and whether Mr. Brown lives inside them and occupies their dreams, too.
Racing around the world, playing guitar for James Brown turned out to be the hardest work I’d ever done in my life. And playing music was only part of it. For nearly eight years, when my phone rang, I jumped on a plane and spent anywhere from one night to six weeks on the road with the Godfather of Soul and my bandmates. The business of getting funky took us across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, Russia — you name it. The Man was in demand everywhere . By the time I worked for him, Mr. Brown had long since become an international ambassador of soul. To millions of people all over the world, James Brown represented the very best American export: a funky good time.
I wanted a piece of that and, with a lot of hard work, I got it. Of course, it’s well known that working for Mr. Brown could be a tough gig. That was no less true in his later years, when I worked for him. He could be charming, hilarious, kind, thoughtful, scary, intimidating — all at the same time. That was the nature of the gig. You had to want that job just to get it. And you had to work doubly hard to keep it. Working for Mr. Brown meant recognizing that he ruled the center of the universe. On stage that was easy, because it was true. Off stage, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But I wanted that gig, badly. So did my bandmates. They were all amazing musicians and fun-loving people with the ability to survive and even thrive on the road, despite its rigors. I call on them often in the pages ahead to help tell my story.
Let’s be clear from the get-go on my role. I’m not a star. My relationship to James Brown was simple: I worked as a guitarist, a sideman, in the Soul Generals. I was an employee of James Brown Enterprises. I was far from green when my path crossed his, but I’d never been involved with music performance at that level of professionalism until I worked for Mr. Brown. As my bandmates will testify, playing music in that setting produced a pure, exhilarating high. The good times made us swear allegiance to Mr. Brown and his mission regardless of the inevitable drama. Whether it was flying in and out of European and Asian capitals, backing Mr. Brown and Michael Jackson in L.A., or jamming after hours in Paris, we had more than our fair share of fun. The highs far outweighed the lows, until, one day, they didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I was fortunate to land a role in James Brown’s band, and I knew it. I understood that I came at the end of a long line of highly distinguished artists who’d held that chair before me. I toiled in the shadows of giants. I could not allow myself to be intimidated by the continuum of great players who came before me and still do my job, but I felt its weight just the same. And I had to come to terms with working closely with this individual who was not just another human being. Think of the profound impact James Brown and his hits, his dancing, his attitude , and his message had on America and the entire world. The sheer force of Mr. Brown’s personality permeated the very air around us. In fact, when we traveled, we had to be constantly on guard. Mr. Brown could be anywhere and everywhere, as I would learn to my everlasting chagrin.
From what I could see, James Brown never gave less than 110 percent, even in his later years. By 1998, when I met him, Mr. Brown was in his late 60s. The man had made his mark. His place in popular music, his impact on global culture, had long been assured. The years had released him from the need for more hits. By that time, the rap and hip-hop crowd constantly sampled his music, bringing it to new, younger audiences. I should point out, on behalf of sidemen everywhere and Mr. Brown’s alumni in particular, that that sampling frequently showcased the genius of his kickass drummers, bassists, guitarists, singers, and those who composed and arranged for him, rather than the star himself. But they all toiled under the James Brown brand. Despite his musicians’ often astounding abilities, only a handful of them really stepped out of his shadow. Even though Mr. Brown was a modest five-foot-six, he cast a long shadow. He could have put his feet up or gone out occasionally for marquee gigs. Instead, he headed out on the road in every season, often on punishing schedules, making music, making money and, not incidentally, providing jobs for nearly two dozen musicians, singers, and dancers. Working musicians need to work. That’s the deal. So hitching your wagon to a global brand who lives to work makes a lot of sense. And it goes a long way to explain why we all endured the difficulties. A musician could make a living by working for James Brown. And he worked and worked until he passed from this Earth because, as trumpeter Hollie Farris says in the pages ahead, music was his life. Spending too much time at home really wasn’t good for him, as a number of troubling headlines in his day attested. The title, “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” was for real, even in his later years. Few artists have created their very own genre of music and then personally put their band through its paces every night on stage for decades on end, as he did. James Brown was fearless and his energy exceeded that of men half his age. The man was — and is — worthy of our loyalty. I hung on for as long as I could.
Working for Mr. Brown meant that your emotions had more power than your reason. His star power was contagious. Once I experienced the world from a stage dominated by James Brown, once I felt the respect of other, famous musicians because I worked for James Brown , once I raced in and out of the world’s capitals as a member of his team, I wanted to be part of that bigger world. Once I tasted that life, there was no going back. I wanted to get funky and feel the audience’s energy flowing back in return. When the night was right and the band was tight, we forgave the man for anything and everything that had happened that day, and we gave it our all. On certain nights, in our heart of hearts, we knew we were the hottest band on this planet.
I hope the James Brown I knew comes across in these pages. The world may have known him as “The Godfather of Soul” or “Soul Brother No. 1” or “Mr. Dynamite,” but I knew him as an actual human being, my mentor, and my boss. I tell this story because I loved that man and all that he did for me, and I still do. Working for James Brown was the hardest thing I ever had to do but it was, and still is, the greatest thing that ever happened to me . . . so far.
Damon Wood Denver, 2018

Act One
Trial by Funk
“Welcome, son! We’re gonna have a good time tonight!”
James Brown called out to me as he approached from across the stage. I’d known him professionally for a little over a year, but I hadn’t seen him for eight months. We were on a multi-level stage in the open-air Earth Theatre in Thessaloniki, Greece. Mr. Brown had arrived several days earlier without his two “go-to” guitarists, prompting him to call me to fill in. Mr. Brown, as he preferred to be called, seemed genuinely glad to see me, and he was his usual smartly dressed, perfectly coifed self. In contrast, I wore faded jeans and a nice set of bloodshot eyes, having just flown halfway ’round the world on a moment’s notice. I knew that Mr. Brown did not like jeans, but he diplomatically ignored my appearance. He was aware that I’d just spent the better part of a day flying through multiple time zones with only a change of clothes and a guitar to answer his call — “the call” I’d been working for and waiting for all my life.
“We’ll tell you what key we’re in,” Mr. Brown assured me. “We’ll give you a few solos. The guys will show you the stuff. You’ll be fine , son. Don’t worry about a thing .”
Mr. Brown was smiling, clearly at ease, and now he had a guitarist who could deliver the trademark “chank” sound so integral to his funky grooves. Mr. Brown knew I didn’t know his whole show. But I’d been on stage with him half a dozen times in the past year or so, and he knew I’d been studying his music. I’d seen several of his shows by then and opened shows for him, backing his protégé and current companion, Tomi Rae Hynie. I’d met most of the band and most of them knew me. They also knew I couldn’t be truly familiar with the James Brown show because of how complex and ever-changing it was, even for them. But I was welcome to give it my best, and everyone made me feel like I could pull it off. Mr. Brown radiated so much confidence that I undoubtedly absorbed some. Perhaps he could see that I was a crazy mix of fatigue and nerves. At this point, I knew enough not to ask him what had happened to his two guitarists. Within 24 hours I’d know the story, and over the next seven years I would live my own version of it. But right now I had to get through a sound check. Then I’d clean up, grab a bite to eat, and learn whatever m