100 Best Albums Of All Time

01 Introduction to James Brown

02 I’ll Go Crazy

03 Try Me

04 Think

05 I Don’t Mind

06 Lost Someone

07 Medley: Please, Please, Please/ You’ve Got the Power/I Found Someone/Why Do You Do Me/I Want You So Bad/I Love You, Yes I Do/Strange Things Happen/ Bewildered/Please, Please, Please

08 Night Train

One of the greatest live albums ever made was cut on a Wednesday night and paid for by the artist, because his sceptical label didn’t see the commercial benefit in putting out a record that didn’t have a new single on it. Syd Nathan, the founder of King Records, was famously wrong, but it’s worth bearing those circumstances in mind. On 24 October 1962, when Live at the Apollo was cut in front of approximately 1500 deliriously elevated fans, James Brown had a lot to prove. Legend and critical acclaim, let alone national recognition, had not yet been conferred on him, but much of it would come when this set – a pocket battleship of soul classics running all of 31 minutes – was released.

‘So now ladies and gentlemen, it is Star Time. Are you ready for Star Time?’ asks the MC, Fats Gonder, by way of introduction, and the massed horns of the James Brown Band provide stings to illustrate every stoking of the audience’s fire for the appearance of ‘Mr. Dynamite’. A lesser artist might have held his musicians back, but Brown wasn’t short on confidence, and when he finally took the stage the audience’s approval was clear. ‘You gotta live for yourself, yourself and nobody else,’ the then 29-year-old pledges on the first song, ‘I’ll Go Crazy’, and it soon sounds as if the fans are ready to follow Brown and his backing band wherever they take them.

Live at the Apollo not only gave Brown national prominence in America, it also made clear the arrival of soul music. In 1962 Motown and Stax were just hitting their stride, while future titans such as Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding were still neophytes. Soul had grown out of traditional gospel and 1950s R&B, and it combined the devotion of church music and the looming desires of secular grooves. With his mastery of the call and response style and his seditious tone – ‘I wonder if you know what I’m talking about,’ Brown wails on the slow burn seduction of ‘Lost Someone’ – Brown was the preacher ready to minister to more than just souls.

He’s helped immeasurably by backing vocalists the Famous Flames, who cushion and caterwaul as require, and a backing band 14-strong on the night, who had been honed by years on the road with their fearsomely disciplined leader. Individual members shine through, whether it’s the alternately sighing and slashing guitar chords of Les Buie or the rousing rhythm that Clayton Fillyau produces for the intoxicating ‘Think’. But what resonates is their unison of action. The Famous Flames could change direction on a pinhead and on the famous, exhausting medley, where ‘Please, Please, Please’ serves as bookends for the various truncated tunes, they embrace the deep groove of late night devotion and raucous deliverance.

You can’t see what Brown, a legendarily physical performer, was doing on that Wednesday night, but the audience’s response – not hysterical, as the Beatles would hear two years later in America, but excited to the point of surrender, as if they can’t possibly handle another refrain or demand for affection – and the wordless physical punctuation of Brown’s expressive voice make it all easy to imagine. By the closing number, a ferocious rendition of the hit ‘Night Train’, the Macon, Georgia singer and his band are the combustible definition of soul music. James Brown would return to the Apollo for future live albums, adding heavy funk to his arsenal, but he would never top the original Live at the Apollo.