I don't know karate, but I do know ka-razy: the JAMES BROWN TRACKS POLL voting/nominations thread (voting closes FRIDAY, FEB. 17 at midnight est)

http://simpsons.skewsme.com/img/james_brown_simpsons_2.jpg

Greetings. So the time has come to finally poll the most important pop musical artist of the second half of the 20th-century.* This poll will encompass not only tracks recorded by the Godfather himself, under his own name, from all his various eras and with all his various bands, but also acts JB produced, wrote for, or was otherwise involved with. That includes everyone from the JBs to Lyn Collins to whomever.

Please don’t get creative and include Bootsy’s Rubber Band or whatever. I want records that JB was actually, even if minimally, involved with, not records by former sidemen or proteges, however good they are.

Pretty standard voting rules apply, if you’ve ever voted in one of these things before. Please compile a list of up 40 tracks, with the usual 50 points for track No. 1 down to 11 points for track no 40. For example:

1. James Brown - “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine Pt. 1” (50)

And so on.

Please note that songs JB recorded multiple times will only be included ONCE. Votes for live versions will also be counted as votes for the track in general, however much you argue for that live version of “Hot Pants” from a 1974 Zurich bootleg.

Obviously Wikipedia’s “official” discography is woefully incomplete, especially as regards JB’s productions and songwriting credits, but here it is anyway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brown_discography. Hopefully people in this thread can fill in the gaps.

Email all ballots to jess dot harvell at gmail dot com by midnight EST on Friday, November 11. That’s two weeks, because I wanted everyone, especially people not that familiar with the JB and friends discography, to have time to dig in. You can vote for as many songs as you’d like, but please don’t vote for any less than 20, if at all possible.

SIDE POLLS:

If you wish, please include a list of your three favorite JB related albums, from most fave to third most fave, no points required. Studio albums, live albums (e.g. “Live at the Apollo”) and fake live albums (e.g. “Sex Machine”) and studio compilations (e.g. “In the Jungle Groove”) can be included in this albums list. Please note: the “Star Time” box set is DISQUALIFIED. Mostly on the grounds that a.) I’m perverse but importantly b.) I think it’d be too easy of a sweep if I allowed it.

Also please send, if you wish, a list of your three favorite songs that SAMPLE JB or a JB-related act, from any genre, rap to dance to whatever, also from most fave to third most fave. (Why do I have a feeling this is going to prove to be the hardest part of this whole poll for a lot of people?)

Thank you. I will be monitoring this thread, so even if I don’t have much time to post over the next two weeks, know that I’m paying attention, and if anyone has any pressing questions/concerns/reasons their ballot will be late, I’ll be around. I now turn the thread over to you fine, funky people for nominations, arguing, and passionate pleas.

*Geir, fuck off.

speaking of AMAZING live (well, fake live) tracks i will have to count as a vote for the song itself in any version, yo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01enu5oqmRE

Spotify's going to be great for this, but dang, his page is eight miles long.

i seriously will not begrudge anyone who sends in a list of dude's 40 most well-known hits. the guy has eleven "complete" multi-disc singles collections. so far.

gonna try my best to binge on Spotify over the next couple weeks and come up with a good ballot

Argh how am I supposed to do this? Will get exploring, but thus far to me he's one long groove, which I like more or less all the same.

fwiw, Geir never votes in these Ballots (not even the Beatles one)

Right, have sent ballot.

Tough one this.

I always heard that line as, "I don't know karate, but I do know ka-razor."

Thanks for doing this, and for laying out the terms as you did. It's giving me ideas for how to conduct the Who poll, particularly live-vs-studio votes.

I can't wait for Geir's contribution to this poll

Turn on your funk motor. Get down and praise the lord.

lol opening jpg well done

first time I heard this on vinyl my head exploded. so heavy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-4VxEtWyRo

Funky Good Times is such a great anthology.

I'm ashamed to admit that outside of "Star Time," "Sex Machine" and at most a couple dozen tracks he produced for others, I'm not overly familiar with JB's oeuvre. Ashamed because I've already spent so much time listening to, reading and writing about funk music. The Godfather deserves better. I could easily, easily compile a top 40 from that corpus alone - the music's that good. But I think I'd better listen more first.

get The Payback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFNMsxcO9yk&feature=related

XP: Get The Payback, Funky Good Time (aka James Browns Funky People Vols 1,2 and 3), Jungle Groove, Reality, Hell, Say It Loud: I'm Black And I'm Proud and Get On The Good Foot.

Get On the Good Foot is such a weird record. not that it's uncharacteristic really, he released a lot of weird records!

for ex. the track where Bobby Byrd just recites James Brown song titles over some re-used studio track lol

wonder if will anyone vote for Grodeck Whipperjenny

for additional reference: my sad poll that only got two votes

oh hello, this thread

It'll be interesting to see how much love pre-funk JB gets.

At some level of my psyche 'Hot Pants' and 'The Payback' are on constant roation

rotation even

there should be a sub-poll of just the best bridges in JB tracks

Votes for live versions will also be counted as votes for the track in general, however much you argue for that live version of “Hot Pants” from a 1974 Zurich bootleg.

What about votes for, say, "Medley: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good)/I Got The Feelin'" from Love Power Peace...how would they be counted?

It'll be interesting to see how much love pre-funk JB gets.

honestly I'll be hard-pressed to vote for anything prior to Papa's Got a Brand New Bag

debating how high my "for goodness sakes, just look at those cakes" joke vote is going to be (although i honestly have love for later 'dead on the heavy funk' period JB)

Nobody forget this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmSPlyRhJz0

for consideration pt 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYSsU9m7bR8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTZHie6dTdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2ZY2loo74

yeah that's a cut xp

it is kind of insane how much of this guy's stuff I still haven't heard

how about covers? like this version of 'tighten up' that basically invents jungle at 1:40:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shYv2E9Ek4Q

jesus fuck who is that, Jabo?

man, there is this one JB cut that i love, but i can't think of the name and it's killing me. it's on the slow side, descending minor bassline, lots of horns...anyone?

gotta be clyde, back when he did stuff like that.

yup: http://www.discogs.com/James-Brown-Say-It-Live-And-Loud/release/1438546

just incredible. nice find.

i've got that 'tighten up' on this 2-cd set of (mostly) early instrumentals. it's the highlight but there is some interesting stuff for super geeks, not to mention 'the chicken' (which was basically ruined for me back in my jam session days): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSIpOUp-5M

Living In America gives Geir Norwegian wood.

Definitely going to vote for some Christmas songs.

covers are collaborations are fine.

medleys...will have to becounted as their own thing i suppose.

You got me in the mood for some Apollo Creed there and damn if Living In America isn't pretty great after all.

Man, Apollo is taking a pounding here.

Currently revisiting the 1969 oddity Gettin' Down To It which saw Soul Brother #1 step away from the relative (and a long time coming) militancy of Say It Loud: I'm Black And I'm Proud and go immediately back into straight up entertainer mode. It's a collection of standards, some of them pretty obvious - Sunny, Strangers In The Night, Chicago, That's Life... - but he attacks all of them as if there were a riot going on in the actual studio. The disconnect between the relatively polite (and two thirds white) Dee Felice trio and Brown letting rip makes for interesting listening. The trio are pretty smooth but Brown fucking monsters them with his plosive vowels, grunts, screams and yells, weirdly only reining it in for Cold Sweat. I wonder if producer Bud Hobgood tried to get him to sing "normally" and suffered the same fate as Jones with Michael Jackson. Either way an interesting record.

drums on this one are crazy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6l5_FxjlaQ

yeah, i respect that.

jess is probably just busy. im sure he will reply or post in here once he has a chance

yeah let's wait

have a listen to http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/0OsqkC9t5hl4rYUEx7kcG3

subscribe to it, the whole of Star Time box set is on there

...

Yeah get a move on Shakey, it's obviously terra nullius

I admit part of my antsiness is that we've been going through our LP collection alphabetically at home and we just got up to the end of the Bs.

I emailed him on Jan 3rd, no response. I think we should get things moving under the SMC regime.

http://2trak.com/hands_twiddling_thumbs_lg_clr.gif

ive seen him posting

he might be one of those who dont use new answers or site new answers and only goes via bookmarks.
but i assumed if he did that then this thread would be bookmarked

if you love POLL RESULTS NOW more than you love jess fucking harvell then you should get the fuck off this board imo

I love jess fucking harvell but the facts that he's been getting emails from ilxors for six weeks, has been posting here and there on ilx for the last couple of weeks, and hasn't appeared on this thread at all, all add up to an explicit "go ahead y'all" it seems to me.

i just don't understand the rush, there is literally no reason (besides Shakey alphabetizing his vinyl) that it has to be rushed through without his OK. stop whining about how hard it is to get in touch with him and get in touch with him.

if for no other reason than that jess already HAS a bunch of people's ballots and may have even tabulated them, which would save anyone who would be finishing organizing the poll a ton of work

dont you think they've been trying?
wm how about giving jess a yellow card with the message? At least it will get some dude to calm down.

I would webmail jess if I saw him on a thread but I have no idea what his display name is at the moment

'strongo hulkington's ghost dad' -- put it in search & 'newest posts' and see all the threads he's been posting in

hello all. honestly, i completely forgot all about this while ilx was down. i do apologize. all ilx webmail goes to my gmail account which i never use, hence why i didnt see/hear/remember until wmc facebook messaged me. i *did* tabulate everything. if shakey wants to run the results, that's fine by me. i wont have two weekdays off in a row until next weds/thurs to roll things out myself.

haha awesome, thanks for showing up dude

Ah, I figured yr gmail acct was reasonably active since that's what you sent yr Zeppelin ballot from. Thanks for checking in!

huzzah! good to see you jess

I'm cool with waiting for the results, especially if it means getting some more ballots in (but maybe that's wishful thinking...?)

would be good if we could change the dates in the thread title tho, so people would know they still have like a week to vote...?

can I still send a ballot? I got kinda lost at the end of the year being on the road a bunch, but I can whip one out in five minutes if you'll take it. if not nbd obviously

if people wanna send in more ballots until (say) friday at midnight est usa, i'd be okay with that. it'd give me time to re-tab over the weekend.

otherwise i will plan to roll out the list on weds and thurs of next.

obviously i'll be checking the gmail address if people want to send in more ballots.

awesome

need mod to change thread title

cool, thanks! voted

title updated

Fuck yeah, now I can vote and not feel like a hypocrite for trying to shame people into voting back in November and then forget about doing it myself.

this'll be kind of cool, now we can have the Jacksons poll results as an opening act for JB

yeah everyone vote who still thinks they want to. i got euler's.

that makes 18 (including mine). maybe we can get it to 20?

Outscoring the Jacksons then - godfather pwning king, I like it.

Ballot sent!

Outscoring the Jacksons then - godfather pwning king, I like it.

^^^

vote for the most important musical artist of the latter half of the 20th century ya goons!

otm

if MJ gets more votes than JB something is wrong

MJ has sold like 50 times as many records as JB so worrying about who gets a handful more votes on a message board poll is pretty beside the point

"something is wrong" is always a reasonable conclusion to reach

some times it's the small victories that count

EXCITED

well, don't be.

okay, funk fans. here is where i have to hang my head in shame and bow out entirely. back when these polls were being claimed/assigned to everyone, my life wasn't half as batshit insane as it has become. no excuses obviously, and i do apologize. but between work (which is sadly not the kinda job where i'll be at a computer all day able to roll these things out when no one's looking) and family stuff, i just can't find a couple extra hours in the day at the moment. i really was planning on making a valiant effort today, but instead i am back at my job, and i don't want to string everyone along any further. if shakey mo still wants to take over the roll-out, he's welcome to my tabulations. (i can email them after i get home from work tonight. probably around midnight est.) and i promise to never attempt to be responsible for anything on the internet ever again.

nothin beats a try but a fail

hey it's nice just to get it all settled finally, good of you to figure that out now and bow out instead of drawing it out any further strongo.

yeah, sorry it hasn't worked out.

and I'll totally do the roll-out, just send what you've got to my ilx mail and I'll take care of it

You could've made that post shorter and used the time for a top 5 rundown strongo

(just kidding, it doesn't matter who does it and we probably would never have had JB without you, so thanks & hope the pressure eases back soon)

First thing, hope real life eases up on you soon, strongo.
2nd thing, thanks for receiving the ballots and doing the math. Shit, that's 90% of the headache right there.

Thanks in advance to Shakey for taking care of the rollout.

2nd thing, thanks for receiving the ballots and doing the math. Shit, that's 90% of the headache right there.

yeah definitely - results roll-out is comparatively easy

the results are now in shakey's and (the) god(father)'s hands now.

huge new bio

I've never seen a decent bio of him, looking forward to this