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James Brown, James Brown SoulDetails
Title: Soul On Top
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Tracklisting
1 That's My Desire
2 Your Cheatin' Heart
3 What Kind Of Fool Am I?
4 It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World
5 The Man In The Glass
6 It's Magic
7 September Song
8 For Once In My Life
9 Everyday I Have The Blues
10 I Need Your Key (To Turn Me On)
11 Papa's Got A Brand New Bag
12 There Was A Time
James Brown On Top - Soul On Top
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On Tuesday, July 17, 2004, Verve Records will reissue Soul on Top, the only jazz album that the one-and-only James Brown ever recorded.
The 12-track disc showcases the man known as the Godfather of Soul in a big band jazz mode along with some of the finest musicians of the genre.
The original LP on the King label has been a highly sought-after and costly prize for collectors for years. But now this important new CD reissue is available from Verve and includes previously unreleased material. Five unedited tracks are included here, four of which are previously unissued, and the final song, "There Was A Time" co-written by James Brown and Bud Hobgood, has never been issued before at all.
These 1969 sessions put the inimitable James Brown in a jazz setting, where he easily showed not only that he was comfortable, but that he was also having fun - especially on a track like band leader Louie Bellson's "I Need Your Key (To Turn Me On)." As Brown said to Leonard Feather, writer of the original liner notes: "At heart, I've always been a jazz man." Both the original liner notes and new ones composed by writer Francis Davis are included in the Soul on Top reissue.
Backing Brown on this recording was a first-class list of now-famed musicians of jazz. The Louie Bellson Orchestra formed the core of the group, including bass legend Ray Brown and Bellson on drums. The only member of James Brown's regular entourage included was the peerless Maceo Parker, Jr. on saxophone. The great saxophonist and composer Oliver Nelson contributed the arrangements and conducted the band.
Soul on Top begins with the sly and seductive "That's My Desire" before heading into a super funky take on Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart." Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's "It's Magic" and the classic "For Once In My Life" show that Brown's talents are comparable to any of the master interpreters of song, yet he puts a bump-and-grind spin on Kurt Weill's "September Song" that only James Brown could do.
The album also includes some of Brown's most famous songs; "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" are both featured here in fresh and exciting previously unissued renditions.
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