James Brown – Live At Home With His Bad Self (Remastered – 2019 Mix) (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

James Brown - Live At Home With His Bad Self (Remastered - 2019 Mix) (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

October 1, 1969, in Augusta, GA, was a homecoming for James Brown. His and his band’s smoking performance at the city’s Bell Auditorium was captured on tape, with an intention to make an album of the show the cornerstone of a move back to his roots. Live at Home With His Bad Self was scheduled as a lucrative holiday release. But JB and that band broke up. Soul Brother No. 1 called in a new, young band, featuring Bootsy Collins, and within a few weeks they recorded the funk anthem ‘Sex Machine.’ With the single flying up the charts and no album to promote along with it, JB scrapped the planned Live at Home album. He instead doubled down on a Sex Machine album, a part-live 2LP set that included a portion of the Augusta show. Now, finally, as James Brown intended: the full show with his celebrated ’60s band. Live at Home With His Bad Self arrives on its 50th anniversary newly mixed with seven unreleased performances that even include two actual live instrumentals, ‘Lowdown Popcorn’ and ‘Spinning Wheel,’ that were on the original LP in studio recordings with fake applause. The package includes an essay by former James Brown tour manager and publicist Alan Leeds, a Grammy-winner who is also the co-producer of the album.

Live at Home with His Bad Self is the first-ever release of the complete homecoming concert James Brown held at Augusta, Georgia’s Bell Auditorium on October 1, 1969. The performance was intended as a live album for that holiday season, but those plans were scrapped once his band walked out on him. Roughly a year later, the Sex Machine double album arrived bearing some of the recordings from this concert. The full show didn’t materialize until 2019, when the album was released for its would-be 50th anniversary. Considering how so many members of Brown’s band left in the months that followed, the concert turned out to be as valedictory as it was victorious; this was the last time Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Jimmy Nolen, Sweet Charles Sherrell, and Clyde Stubblefield shared the stage with Soul Brother Number One. The great thing about Live at Home with His Bad Self is that it carries no air of being a major statement: Brown simply whipped the group into shape to deliver a show that he could be proud to deliver to a hometown crowd. The performance contains a few period oddities — the J.B.’s jamming to Blood Sweat & Tears’ “Spinning Wheel” fares a little bit better than James crooning through the show tune “If I Ruled the World,” and both are better than Brown performing to a pre-recorded track for “World” — but complaining about these cuts amounts to nitpicking. Every cut, including the old-fashioned numbers, finds James Brown and the J.B.’s in prime shape, tearing through their hits and extending “There Was a Time,” “Lowdown Popcorn,” and “Mother Popcorn” to the point that they’re about to burst. As a sheer performance, it’s giddy and intoxicating, but it’s also a useful document of one of Brown’s best bands at their live peak. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:

1. James Brown – Say It Loud I’m Black And I’m Proud (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (05:05)
2. James Brown – James Brown Thanks And Introduction To World (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (02:18)
3. James Brown – World (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (03:27)
4. James Brown – Stage Dialogue (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (01:15)
5. James Brown – Lowdown Popcorn (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (06:50)
6. James Brown – Spinning Wheel (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (04:46)
7. James Brown – If I Ruled The World (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (04:01)
8. James Brown – Kansas City (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (04:01)
9. James Brown – Introduction To Startime (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (00:16)
10. James Brown – I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door I’ll Get It Myself) (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (04:08)
11. James Brown – I Got The Feelin’ / Licking Stick-Licking Stick (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (02:24)
12. James Brown – Try Me (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (02:38)
13. James Brown – There Was A Time (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (07:04)
14. James Brown – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (04:50)
15. James Brown – It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (03:41)
16. James Brown – Please, Please, Please (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (02:21)
17. James Brown – I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me) (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (01:23)
18. James Brown – Mother Popcorn (Live From Augusta, GA., 1969 / 2019 Mix) (09:03)
19. James Brown – Tour Date Promo (2019 Mix) (00:21)