I’m still astonished over the photo in this post at the 10thingsihateabouthongkongblog. I won’t publish it here because I don’t want to be seen as trying to lure traffic away from there. But simply put, if you read this blog, please click through and take a look at this – and be sure to click on the photo itself to see the larger version and the astonishing English contained therein – I thought “Destvoy HIV” was bad enough until I got to the one on the far right.

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One of the prized rarities in my VHS collection is a bootleg video of a televised James Brown concert from April, 1968. Not only does it capture JB during his peak years, second only to his appearance in the now serious rare T.A.M.I. Show (which has basically been copied by everyone from Springsteen to Prince), but it has a great story as well. The concert came just days after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, riots were taking place in most major American cities and Brown’s concert is credited with preventing a similar situation in Boston.

Anyway, there’s now a documentary on this – The Night James Brown Saved Boston – and the doc will be released on DVD shortly. (I wonder if the entire concert would be included on the DVD as a bonus?) The story is more amazing than I realized. Here are excerpts from Variety’s review of the documentary:

When news that the show would be aired on WGBH — which knew nothing about popular music or how to broadcast it and even referred to the star attraction as “negro singer Jimmy Brown and his group,” — ticket holders started lining up for refunds. Word reached Brown, and he was furious, as was his manager Charles Bobbit; negotiations led to the city agreeing to pony up $60,000 for the show. The two sides disagree on whether that money was ever paid.

Brown had been in a New York recording studio when riots broke out, and he had appeared on television asking for peace. He went to Harlem on his own to witness the looting, destruction and police brutality. In the concert footage, we see his negotiating skills at work assuaging concertgoers and the police that no one wants any trouble.

“James Brown,” like Leaf’s works on Brian Wilson and John Lennon, was created with the cooperation of the subject and/or estate, which has provided him with some boffo footage. The concert, natch, is a high point, but there’s also Brown visiting impoverished youth and Vietnam. Brown’s band members, especially Jab’o Starks and Fred Wesley, reflect on the night from the one perspective that required fearlessness — being James Brown — and their stories, along with Bobbit’s recollections, flesh out another under-reported chapter from the life of an American original.

Hongkie Town
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