Post by erik on Sept 25, 2021 12:33:57 GMT -5
The man called "The Hardest Working Man In Show Business" is back in the Pop Music Hits Spotlight with a devious dance record from the sweltering hot summer of 1969.
MOTHER POPCORN (James Brown; King; 1969)—Truth in advertising is not something that American popular music is necessarily known for. In the case of James Brown, however, that was for decades quite literally true. From 1958 until his death in 2006, Brown was deemed the “Godfather Of Soul” and “The Hardest Working Man In Show Business”. If such claims would have been deemed hyperbole with anyone else, they certainly weren’t with him. With hits like “Night Train”, “I Got You (I Feel Good)”, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, and “Say It Loud (I’m Black And I’m Proud)”, and stage performances that saw him sweat like he was a walking Niagara Falls, Brown set a standard that only a handful of other African-American pop performers, past or present, had ever come close to. Sometimes, however, Brown could even outdo himself. One such way he had was the series of dance steps that came to be known as The Popcorn. The dance steps inspired four hits of his in 1969 that were based around it, including “The Popcorn” (a funky instrumental); “Lowdown Popcorn”; and “Let A Man Come In And Do The Popcorn”. The biggest of these, in the end, turned out to be “Mother Popcorn”, which had a similar beat and structure to Brown’s big 1967 hit “Cold Sweat”, “Mother Popcorn” ended up being released as a two-sided hit, with Part 1 (running at two minutes and fifty-five seconds) as the A-side, and Part 2 (at a length of three minutes) as the B-side. The record’s energy, led off naturally by Brown’s uncontained swagger, features great horn work, including a searing sax solo from main man Maceo Parker. With this on hand, “Mother Popcorn” not only topped the Billboard R&B chart in mid-July 1969, but also managed to find its way to #11 on the Hot 100 for the week ending July 26th. Brown’s success was maintained on the R&B charts, but much of his pop success fizzled out after 1974, until he roared back in late 1985/early 1986 with “Living In America” (from the soundtrack of the film Rocky IV).
MOTHER POPCORN (James Brown; King; 1969)—Truth in advertising is not something that American popular music is necessarily known for. In the case of James Brown, however, that was for decades quite literally true. From 1958 until his death in 2006, Brown was deemed the “Godfather Of Soul” and “The Hardest Working Man In Show Business”. If such claims would have been deemed hyperbole with anyone else, they certainly weren’t with him. With hits like “Night Train”, “I Got You (I Feel Good)”, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, and “Say It Loud (I’m Black And I’m Proud)”, and stage performances that saw him sweat like he was a walking Niagara Falls, Brown set a standard that only a handful of other African-American pop performers, past or present, had ever come close to. Sometimes, however, Brown could even outdo himself. One such way he had was the series of dance steps that came to be known as The Popcorn. The dance steps inspired four hits of his in 1969 that were based around it, including “The Popcorn” (a funky instrumental); “Lowdown Popcorn”; and “Let A Man Come In And Do The Popcorn”. The biggest of these, in the end, turned out to be “Mother Popcorn”, which had a similar beat and structure to Brown’s big 1967 hit “Cold Sweat”, “Mother Popcorn” ended up being released as a two-sided hit, with Part 1 (running at two minutes and fifty-five seconds) as the A-side, and Part 2 (at a length of three minutes) as the B-side. The record’s energy, led off naturally by Brown’s uncontained swagger, features great horn work, including a searing sax solo from main man Maceo Parker. With this on hand, “Mother Popcorn” not only topped the Billboard R&B chart in mid-July 1969, but also managed to find its way to #11 on the Hot 100 for the week ending July 26th. Brown’s success was maintained on the R&B charts, but much of his pop success fizzled out after 1974, until he roared back in late 1985/early 1986 with “Living In America” (from the soundtrack of the film Rocky IV).