James Brown’s first Live at the Apollo album was one of the best-selling live albums ever and spent 66 weeks on the Billboard charts.
But that set was from 1963. Brown hadn’t yet birthed funk. The album was only half an hour; his band hadn’t the chance to stretch out and really enjoy a groove.
In 1967, Brown recorded two more nights at the Apollo for a sequel album, released in ’68.
The set is famous for a medley of ‘Let Yourself Go’, ‘There Was a Time’, and ‘I Feel All Right’.
In 2001, a double CD release compiled more of the original performances (hence the “2001” track titles on digital platforms).
Though the album art put ‘Live’ in quotes, the album is from two genuine live gigs recorded on 24-25 June.
‘There Was a Time’, in its near-nine-minute glory, shows just how great Brown’s band was and the immense power of the One.
Brown’s lines starting with “There was” give a storytelling feel, even when he’s not telling us that much. He does namecheck Augusta, GA. Brown wrote in his autobiography about living with “Auntie Minnie” and “another aunt” when he was a kid. He learned a few dance steps from Big Junior, a friend who was a year older. Brown danced for the soldiers, who poured into Augusta in the fall of 1940 and threw nickels and dimes, adding a few steps of his own.
When Brown got his funk thing going, he would often build songs around a horn motif. The motif is first heard here at 1:16, played subtly in the background.
The entire verses are building up to the release of bursting horns and their sustain on the One. The finest moment of that kind comes five and a half minutes in, after Brown’s triumphant, self-referential line that presumably injected energy into anyone still seated: “But you can bet you haven’t seen nothing yet / Until you see me do the James Brown”.
Later, Brown builds up to another release by asking everyone if they’re ready – the band, the dancers, the audience, even the building (“Building, is you ready?”).
During that passage, Jimmy Nolen’s typically brilliantly funky guitar part provides much of the song’s fidgetiness. The variations in his rhythms (like the more sustained chords at 6:54 at 7:11) aren’t the kind of thing to be written out or pre-composed. Funk is largely a live music, and Brown’s funkiest studio recordings mostly captured the band playing much the same way as they would live.
The Guitar Player columnist Ella Feingold has said that Nolen’s percussive “in-between (not fully fretted nor pitchless) notes” were “unique to him alone.”
Unfortunately for bottom end fans, the bass (likely played by Bernard Odum) is mixed unusually quietly. You can hear it most clearly in the breakdown when the horns lay out and Brown asks if everyone is ready. It is, though, higher pitched than in some classics like ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’, making it more distinguishable from the bass drum. A notable aspect of the bass, and guitar in fact, is that it doesn’t join the drums and horns on the second downbeat (the three). But while Brown wasn’t yet using the term “funk” (“I hope this building can stand all this soul”), everybody was on the One.