Live albums aren’t usually a good idea. Usually, if a band puts out a live album and it turns out to be a reminder of a good time, that’s good enough. But James Brown’s Live At The Apollo doesn’t just capture the skill of Mr. Dynamite and his band The Flames, it also captures the hardcore energy of his audiences.
The idea for a live album came from James Brown himself after he heard Ray Charles’ In Person. This idea wasn’t recieved well by his record label’s founder Syd Nathan, because there wasn’t an opportunity for the company to try to promote a single from the album. Not to mention live albums were very unusual at that time and many of Brown’s previous singles had been flops on the charts. So Brown decided to take on the project financially.
After everything was paid for, it ended up costing “The Hardest Working Man In Showbusiness” about six grand of his own cash, but it also gave him the kind of creative freedom, which was almost as unusual as live albums themselves. Brown decided to have the show at the renown Apollo Theatre, in front of the Amateur Night crowd. The crowd tended to be very rowdy and hard on the artist performing, and Brown knew this, because he had played there before.
But James Brown seemed to have a great relationship with crowds, he knew how to unify them, and he understood this. He said “Sometimes I feel like I’m a preacher as well [as a singer], ’cause I can really get into an audience.” The audience was mic’d up, to make sure that all the screams and gossip of the crowd made it onto the record. And it worked
James Brown had the audience in the palm of his hand and to Nathan’s suprise, the album was a huge success. Not only did it please and satisfy his longtime followers, it also got Brown on the radio consistently for the first time. It stayed on the charts for 66 weeks and peaked at #2. The album has since ended up as #24 on Rolling Stones’ 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album is more than just a masterpiece though, it shows an artist at the peak of his career. Even though I posted the 11 minute epic Lost Someone, doesn’t mean that this is the only high point of the album, the whole album is nothing but a high point.
