Farewell JB

James Brown had been one of my very first celebrity interviews. It was 1985, just before 'Rocky IV' came out and he came out with 'Living in the USA'. He was ranting and raving and yelling out James Brown shouts, his extravagant wife next to him and modest European me was utterly impressed how much self-assurance and egomania one single living being could muster up without coming across as completely mad. Well, my friend got the mad part a few years later, when JB had just finished a photo shoot with him and got impatient that it took Wolfgang and his assistant so long to pack his photo equipment, so he chased them off his poperty with a shot-gun.

Years later when I had just moved to New York in the late 80s the Godfather of Soul was incarcerated for dancing the Good Foot for a bunch of police officers after they had followed him in a wild car chase. A friend of mine produced Maceo Parker's first album back then. But times were hard for Maceo without the steady gig as part of the JBs. One afternoon he stopped by unannounced in my Chinatown appartment. He knew I had a very decent alto sax, so he asked, if he could borrow it. He had run out of money, needed to repair his own horn and was up for a sutdio gig with Mtume. He brought the sax back a week later and offered to give me a cut of his studio fee. Which I of course declined, since I was now the proud owner of an alto saxophone sanctified by a week's worth of Maceo playing on it.

The last time I saw James Brown was some years ago at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Which of course was a grand evening, now forever in my repertory of pop veteran stories.The next time I saw Maceo was in Biloxi Mississippi where he was the star member of Prince's band.