I want to thank God first. And I want to thank my wife, who gave me a new look and a new outlook. I want to thank Macmillan Publishing Company for going through with the project all the way and realizing how important it is.
I want to thank Bruce Tucker for traveling around with me, seeing me in all different kinds of situations, and really getting to know James Brown so he could bring out the real story. I want to thank Gerri Hirshey for bringing me to the attention of other writers interested in my story.
I want to thank all the members of my band, who gave me the drive and the support that I need to demand an audience—not command but demand.
I want to thank my mother and father. I hope their son’s story will thank them more by doing a lot of good things.
And I want to thank this country for allowing me to tell my story and for making it possible for me to have a story to tell. I’m also grateful to all the countries that allow me to come onto their soil and do a show that’s Americanized to a point that it could hurt some of their culture—but they always take the good from it to help their culture along.
I’d like to thank in advance the libraries and the schools for a place on their bookshelves. And I want to thank in advance any young kids who can use this story as a role model. If this book helps somebody, then it will have accomplished what I want to accomplish.
JAMES BROWN
Not many kids get to grow up and work with their boyhood idol. For giving me that rare opportunity, I have many people to thank. Jim Fitzgerald initiated the project, and Roy Blount drew me into it. My agent, Carol Mann, kept it going and, for the past year and a half, kept me going as well. At Macmillan the support of Hillel Black and the enthusiasm and incisive editing of Dominick Anfuso made the idea a reality.
For me, nothing would be possible without the unflagging support of my wife, Harriet Davidson, who, while I was out there with the Godfather, endured my frequent absences from home before and after the birth of our daughter.
I, too, wish to thank Gerri Hirshey, author of the incomparable Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music. Her generosity with files and notes, her unfailingly sound advice, and her strategically timed encouragement helped immeasurably.
In Georgia, A. H. Dallas smoothed the way throughout. Mrs. James Brown offered hospitality and candor in equal measure. And if they gave Grammys to secretaries for handling with sympathy and tact the unceasing demands made on performers like James Brown, Becky Blanchard Miller would win hands-down.
My sister Mary Howell provided logistical support during a crucial stage of the project. The indefatigable Cliff White, on woefully short notice, produced the exhaustive discography that appears at the end of the book. Vicki Gold Levi gave me a crash course in photo research. John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company generously made available photographs from Ebony.
Thanks also to the many people who provided information and interviews as aids to His Bad Self’s own astonishing powers of recall: “Hoss” Allen, Thomas I. Atkins, Leon Austin, Sydney L. Avery, Dan Aykroyd, Johnnie May Wheeler Banks, Jack Bart, Steve Bloom, Robert J. Brown, Velma Warren Brown, Dr. William Calloway, William “Bootsy” Collins, Mal Cook, Richard Dostal, Tim Drummond, Roy Emory, Buddy Fox, Al Garner, Laura Garvin, Willie M. Glenn, Delois (Keith) Haley, Sylvester Keels, Gwen Kessler, Mike Lawlor, Ron Lenhoff, George Livingston, Jr., Lester Maddox, Warren A. Martin, Sparkie Martin, Mrs. Walter J. Matthews, Johnnie Miller, Silas Moore, Hal Neely, Bob Patton, Dora (Davis) Payne, Chuck Seitz, Reverend Al Sharpton, Charles Sherrell, Hamp Swain, Donald E. Walters, Sr., Colonel Jim Wilson, Guy Wilson, Teddy Washington, and Perry Williams.
Just as he made a major contribution to James Brown and the Famous Flames, Bobby Byrd played a crucial role in the realization of this book. With Bobby and his wife, Vicki Anderson, two of the most generous and gracious people I know, I passed many pleasurable hours in my old hometown of Nashville.
It was there, back in 1962, after a rained-out James Brown show at Sulphur Dell, that I jumped from the grandstand and sneaked backstage. A fourteen-year-old already suffocating in surburbia, I wanted to shake the hand of the man whose music coming over WLAC late at night had blown away the teen crooning, cha-cha-cha and Mouseketeer rock found a little farther up the radio dial. Even then I perceived, however dimly, that I was thanking James Brown for far more than some enjoyable records. Twenty-three years later, after an arduous day of working together on this book, I tried to tell him all that. “You’re kidding,” he said.
No, James, I’m not.
BRUCE TUCKER