The James Brown Band was excellent at playing a jazz/soul/protofunk mix when most rock bands struggled to stay in tune (looking at you, Byrds). Brown conducted them when he performed; I believe Alfred Ellis led them in his absence. The liner notes have a King James version joke in them; I guess it wasn’t invented for LeBron.
When I was looking for James Brown records in the mid-70s, they were sadly out of print. The collectors drove the prices out of my range. In 1980 this one was $5 (about $18 today), and it is just the band. Others in my price range (in years of searching) were one record with a big scratch and another with By the Time I Get to Phoenix and Let It Be Me.
I held out against CDs for years. They killed records, which I loved. When my brother thought my resisting had gone on too long, he bought me the Holy Grail—James Brown Live at the Apollo on CD. He knew I’d buy a CD player for it. (As I recall, he threw in Bob Dylan Live at the Albert Hall, which had been the GWW bootleg at an astronomical price.) He was right. I bought a little CD player and still listen to Marvin Gaye’s greatest hits, the complete Robert Johnson, and other compilations on CD. Solid Smoke Records started to bring Brown’s King records back, but a) all the records were sold immediately and so they were still very expensive used, and b) Solid Smoke went broke.
converselyspeaking 