Talk about hardcore! James Brown, the legendary entertainer, addict, and hardest-working man in show business, has been dead for three days and he’s still touring. Not only is he Doin’ it to Death, he’s Doin’ it In Spite of Death. Lying in state at the James Brown arena in Augusta, Georgia (playing to a capacity crowd), touring New York City by horsedrawn carriage, or receiving the adoration of thousands at the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Brown hasn’t been this popular since he was pulling stickups back in Augusta. And thanks to Defamer for the news that there’s a … er … um … livecam outside the theatre.

The background, from the Guardian:

…by 1962 Brown was breaking box office records in major black venues throughout the US with a whirlwind revue of his own creation that synthesised all of his roots into a shockingly unique new persona. Live at the Apollo, the resulting LP recorded at the top New York venue, smashed him into the face of white recognition.

What followed did not go according to anybody’s plan. Brown formed his own independent company, Fair Deal Productions, and rebuilt his band into a sizeable orchestra with the intention of crossing the tracks at Tuxedo Junction. The prevailing social climate in the US, Brown‘s responses to the situation, and the fact that his new recruits were mostly restless young jazzers, sparked them all off into uncharted territory. It was Out of Sight, Papa Got a Brand New Bag. A Man’s World bathed in Cold Sweat. He Said it Loud, was Black and Proud and danced the Popcorn. In a New Day it was Funky Now. He was Super Bad, a Sex Machine with Soul Power. He had his Thang and Papa Didn’t Take No Mess, he demanded Payback. This litany of just a few of his more familiar titles does little justice to the underlying tour de force, involving three effectively different bands over 10 years, that changed the direction of black American music.

By 1975, James Brown was showing the first signs of insecurity since the 1950s. In the charts he was being outflanked by many of the younger acts he had inspired, he was on shaky ground with his record company, Polydor (a dispassionate international corporation, unlike the seat-of-the-pants operation with which he had grown strong), some of his leading musicians left him, and the Internal Revenue Service was on his case.

It was then that he apparently began smoking something rather more confusing than the occasional menthol…

To say the least. But, like Frosty the Snowman‘s very special hat, there must have been some magic or at the very least, preservatives, in the toxic miasma in which Brown marinaded his lungs, for when he keeled over from his penultimate heart attack, he didn’t cease to bop around. He hosted a Christmas toy giveaway the day the day he was admitted to the hospital, and has appeared before tens of thousands of people in the days since.

He’s STILL big. It’s the arteries that got small.

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