There are two sides to the man we know as James Brown: there's his bad as hell funky side and his sweet n' soulful side. With this single piece of plastic we symbolically get the duality of JB. One side is a hard hitting tight-groove funk instrumental, "The Drunk," and the other side is probably one of my all time favorite JB songs and one of the most soulful songs I've heard to date, "A Man Has Got to Go Back to the Crossroads." For me the song is near perfect: the arpeggiated guitar, the subtle and sweet strings, the dynamic shift between the quiet verses and heavy as hell choruses with horns blaring and above all JB's untouchable vocal performance. You should probably question your humanity if this song doesn't affect you even a teeny-tiny bit. I think the philosophy embodied in this ballad applies to the state of mankind collectively now more than ever. Sometimes we need to go back and rethink where we've been to figure out where we are going.
I got this record from a chill dude in Richmond named Lenny aka Chew La Rock, he's hooked me up a couple times so he deserves a shout out.
"A Man Has Got to Go Back to the Crossroads"
"The Drunk"
No comments:
Post a Comment