Perhaps four years ago, I made sure my son, Anthony, would get to see some of the greats of rock 'n roll and soul before they left us. So, over the course of a year, he saw Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and James Brown. I really looked forward to Jerry Lee because he was the first artist Anthony heard--over and over again!--in utero and as a toddler. But, at the show, Lewis was a very sad shadow of himself. He mumbled unintelligibly, cracking himself up and no one else, and proceeding to sing Chuck Berry songs. Chuck Berry was awesome on guitar, but he ended up teasing the audience with starts and stops of his songs, rarely finishing one and appearing bored. Little Richard was frail, but in good voice and, in his words, "pretty" and he did look great. But among the four artists, it was James Brown who dazzled for nearly two hours. From his announcer heralding the arrival of "Mr. Please, Please, Please", "Soul Brother, No. 1", "The Godfather of Soul"--to the tighest band in music, the Soul Generals, who didn't play a note without Brown giving them the signal--to the "go-go dancers" in hot pants (a throwback to the '60s)--to the hits, many sounding alike, but all rockin' ("Sex Machine", "Hot Pants") and all ending up "takin' us to the bridge"--to a near-20 minute version of the mesmerizing "It's A Man's Man's World"--James Brown was probably the best live performer I've ever experienced. I think all of these artists gave Anthony a bit of a musical education, but the master teacher was James Brown, who once said, "I've outdone anyone you can name--Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes, but I wrote 5,500." That night, nobody could touch him.Porter Tubb
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