Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang

This 1996 compilation was part of a series that allowed fans to explore specific eras of James Brown’s career in more depth than the incredible Star Time box set. The first was Roots of a Revolution: 1956-1963, the second was Foundations of Funk – A Brand New Bag: 1964-1969, the fourth was Make It Funky (The Big Payback: 1971-1975), and the last was Dead On the Heavy Funk: 1975-1983. This one came third, and was the fiercest of the bunch. A single disc where all the others were doubles, it focused on the roughly 13-month period when Brown, having lost most of his road band in a dispute over pay, hired several members of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based funk band the Pacemakers, most notably guitarist Phelps “Catfish” Collins and his brother William “Bootsy” Collins, to form a new unit dubbed the J.B.’s. They quickly recorded what would become classic Brown tracks (and foundational hip-hop breakbeats) like “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” — included here in both five- and 10-minute versions — “Super Bad”, “Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose,” “Soul Power,” “Talkin’ Loud & Sayin’ Nothing” and more. The locked-in, seemingly endless groove on the nearly 15-minute(!) “Talkin’ Loud…” leaves Brown room for some lengthy monologues about Black self-reliance tinged with cynicism (“Guy wanna put his hand up in the air, you watch his fist go up and he put the other one in your pocket”), the bass-and-drum breakdown on “Give It Up…” will leave you breathless, and “Soul Power” is practically Afrobeat. The group dissolved (again, over money) in the spring of 1971, after recording the mind-destroying live album Love Power Peace. But while they existed, they were simultaneously the tightest and rawest band Brown ever led, and their relative youth, compared to the boss, led him in some killer directions that he’d continue to pursue until the mid ’70s.