Music on Monday: "Those That Have Ears, Hear - Those That Don't..."

From now on, for no real reason other than it's alliterative, Mondays are Music Mondays.

Post one, and on the one, is probably my favourite James Brown song. Talking Loud and Saying Nothing was recorded October 1st 1970 in Macon, Georgia and it's funky as a week-old sock. This is the extended seven minute version: I was overjoyed to discover that there's a complete, unfaded version on the Motherlode compilation that clocks in at a magisterial fourteen minutes.

The band, and this is about nothing if it's not about the band, was the legendary J.B.s:

Clayton "Chicken" Gunnells - trumpet
Darryl "Hassan" Jamison - trumpet
Robert McCollough - tenor saxophone
St. Clair Pinckney - baritone saxophone
Bobby Byrd - organ, vocal
Phelps "Catfish" Collins - guitar
William "Bootsy" Collins - bass
John "Jabo" Starks - drums
Johnny Griggs - congas

The improvised stop/start set up from about 5:00 is the industry standard definition of 'tight.'




He didn't play on Talking Loud... but Clyde Stubblefield was the Funky Drummer. Here he gives an insight into how the Brown band worked. And there's some funky drumming.



And while we're at it, Bootsy and Jabo explain the one. To Lenny Henry.

Papa's Got a Bag of Swordfishtrombones.

Blimey. Tom Waits covers James Brown. It's like a parlour game come true.