I suppose I could justify noting the passing of music legend James Brown in a marketing blog: After all, few people ever matched his branding and positioning skills. At first, he established himself as “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,†as Bobby Byrd would try to put a cape on James to an end performance, but James kept shrugging it off so he could continue to dance and sing. Then when Al Pacino was assuming his place as the Godfather, James became “The Godfather of Soul.â€
Both positioning lines worked exceptionally well because they were colorful encapsulations of the truth, and continued to enhance the James Brown Brand.
And of couse I could further justify writing about him here by noting how many times his music has been played on commercials in the past 10 years or so.
But the truth is I just wanted to pay tribute to the passing of a great figure in the history of popular music. Years ago, myself I and my friend “Bull†Bromberg went up to Harlem to see a James Brown concert.
I had never seen or heard anything like it then and haven’t seen or heard anything like it since. No matter how good his early and midcareer albums are, they cannot begin to capture what it sounded like to there live and seeing JB and his band (when James was still somewhere near his prime.).
So that’s it. Bye James. Heaven just got funky.
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James Brown
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