The sheer brilliance and theatricality of James Brown’s live show is captured in an extended medley performance now available on the official YouTube page of The Ed Sullivan Show.
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In the clip, from the edition of October 30, 1966, the Godfather of Soul is seen with members of his band – including the ever-present Bobby Byrd – delivering a fast-paced, super-slick workout of some of his biggest hits to that point. He begins with a double-speed “I Got You (I Feel Good),” on which Mr. Brown shows his almost impossibly nimble footwork, before he moves almost immediately into “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.” He then offers the ballad “Prisoner Of Love.”
As he falls to his knees in an impassioned “Please, Please, Please,” the band recognize the cue to cover him with his cape – or at least to try, as he shrugs it off as ever, and starts singing again, before the process is repeated, this time with an even more garish red mantle. He finishes by calling in “Night Train,” and exiting to the back of the stage with another quite incredible display of balance and agility.
It was bookings such as this, on one of the most highly-rated shows on television, that helped Brown to cultivate and maintain a pop audience. It was only the year before that “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “I Got You (I Feel Good)” had given him a first brace of Top 10 pop crossovers to augment his chart-topping R&B popularity, and he had recently returned there with the dramatic “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
“The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” had worked his way onto a Sullivan edition only a few months earlier, in May 1966 – on an edition that was especially relevant to the growing cause of racial equality, since it also featured the Supremes. This October show may have been just as important to the message of integration, since he was booked alongside Nancy Sinatra, comedian Stan Freberg, and comic singer Mrs. Miller.
Watch all the latest archival videos from The Ed Sullivan Show on the program’s official YouTube channel.