Search - James Brown :: In the Jungle Groove

Amazinggggggggg

Andrea Mongini | Mortara, PV, ITALY | 06/27/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Fast Delivery the item like descript in very good condition and this time i had no pay a Italian Dogana.... and at the end James Brown is The King ::::::::::::: Thank-U Amazon!!!!! Andrea."

What do we want? Soul power!

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 10/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is my favorite James Brown album - arguably my favorite funk album, too. It's basically a collection of remixes and single-only tracks, with a couple well-known album cuts ("Hot Pants"; "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'") reprised. So who needs it? Everybody! For one, the remixes aren't just anyone's remixes, they're James Brown's remixes! This sure isn't Black Eyed Peas doing their 8,000,000 remix of "My Humps (Jimmy Hoffa Mix)" or whatever. This is JAMES BROWN! The Godfather of Soul! And when he remixes, he REMIXES - you'd expect a song titled "Give it up or Turnit Loose" to be loose, and while the original sure was, this is even more so. It's almost out-of-control. And I love it! By the way, if you listen closely you can also hear a few licks from my one of my favorite James Brown tunes, "Sex Machine". So that's where they came from... I always thought the groove was made up on the spot, but I guess not.

Anyway, this has a lot of the best of the Bootsy Collins band. Bootzilla is all over "Soul Power", a total classic with memorable vocal tradeoff between Brown and Bobby Byrd (Who plays an impressive organ, too!) This also contains my favorite Brown track ever - "Funky Drummer". For one, JB plays some awesome organ on it; for another, Maceo plays a classic solo; and of course there's the Clyde Stubblefield drum break, which I believe makes it the most sampled song of all time. You gotta hear that one! And you gotta hear the full "Hot Pants", too. That is excellent stuff. A more overlooked track is "Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved". Why is it always forgotten? That heavy rhythm guitar part is stunning, and as usual the vocal hook and bass part is marvelous. It also contains the powerful Nixon indictment "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'" - a fantastic song, be it this remixed version or on There It Is (my second-favorite James Brown album). "I Got to Move" is one of the weaker songs here, but removed from its company and spliced onto another album, it would've been the high point. It's a lot like "There Was a Time" (actually, I think they have the exact same lyrics), only longer and funkier. And Brown puts a lot of soul on "It's a New Day".

This is JB how I like him! No saccharine ballads; no misfired covers; just givin' up the funk. The recordings here are some of the most influential in R&B history, paving the way for both funk and rap, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice in missing out on them."