James Brown was my main man. Saw him countless times from the late ‘70s through the early 2000s. One night he pulled me up onstage and let me do my James Brown dance during his show.
Politically he was pretty conservative. He endorsed Nixon in ‘72, loved Ronald Reagan and said he was the most intelligent US President ever, and recorded songs like “America Is My Home” and of course, “Living in America.” He believed in pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps.
One of my favorite James Brown songs of all time is “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothin’ Open Up The Door and I’ll Get It Myself.”
Yep, when I saw him in about 1995 he did a full blown version of Living In America with American flags everywhere and the dancers all done up in red white and blue. He was a patriot in his own way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5BL4RNFr58
He helped define our society with poignant lyrics like these;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWo9SNvaJZU