If you're a James Brown fan, I highly recommend this new 3 dvd set that was released about a week ago. Two amazing performances from 1968. I mostly know James for his music, but the Live At Boston Garden show from April 1968, the Night after Martin Luther King was shot, shows just how much power James also weilds as a proponent of civil rights. The documentary disc really puts the show in its historical context. The third disc is James live from his now legendary run of live shows at the Apollo in Harlem in March 1968. Fantastic stuff, still just as powerful over forty years later.BUY I Got The Feelin’: James Brown in the ‘60s
DISC ONE:
The Night James Brown Saved Boston (Director’s Cut)
A film by award-wining filmmaker David Leaf and executive produced by Shout! Factory CEO Richard Foos, David Leaf Production and VH1, The Night James Brown Saved Boston focuses on one of the most historic moments in Boston and America’s musical social and political history. The night Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, rioting began to tear at the fabric of America’s cities. Everybody wondered if there was anyone who could stop the violence, who could bring peace to the streets? The truth is, there was only one man – James Brown. So, on April 5, 1968, the night after Dr. King was shot and killed, James Brown took the stage for a previously scheduled show at the Boston Garden for a concert that was televised live on Boston’s public station WGBH, televised for just one reason---to keep the citizens of Boston off the streets, to try and stop a riot from starting. James Brown, a great artist at his peak, was thus thrust on to the center stage, facing the crucible moment of his career. He wasn’t known at that time as an activist, but that night, he rose to the occasion and kept Boston spell-bound with a musical tour-de-force, a performance that is considered so legendary that forty years later, Bostonians still regard it as the greatest concert the city every hosted.
Through the actual performance footage and the personal reminiscence of James Brown’s band members, the recollections of James’ friends like activist Al Sharpton and personal manager Charles Bobbitt, Boston citizens, those who attended the concert, politicians (like former Boston Mayor Kevin White) and Newsweek’s David Gates, The Night James Brown Saved Boston tells the compelling story of an artist at the absolute peak of his powers using his artistry for the greater good.
This film, which premiered at SXSW 2008 and broadcasting on VH1 on April 5, is an amazing look back at one heroic moment in James Brown’s life as a performer, a public figure and a man.
The Night James Brown Saved Boston Bonus Content:
Additional interview footage with
Rev. Al Sharpton
Dr. Cornel West
Anecdotes with Charles Bobbitt who worked with James for 40 years
DISC TWO:
James Brown Live At The Boston Garden
With cities around America reeling from sorrow, shock and anger, this is the actual April 5, 1968 concert James Brown gave at the Boston Garden as it was filmed and broadcast that fateful night. Boston PBS station WGBH agreed to televise the performance in an effort to keep the streets of Boston from erupting into violence.
Bonus Content:
Additional audio from radio simulcast
Additional interview footage with WGBH’s Director and Producer of the concert.
DISC THREE:
James Brown Live In The ‘60s – The T.A.M.I. Show, 1964 & Man To Man
The T.A.M.I. Show: James Brown’s 1964 performance of “Out Of Sight”
James Brown Live at the Apollo Theater 1968 – This was one of a series of concerts James Brown performed at the Apollo in Harlem in March 1968. This performance was taped in color and broadcast on television as Man To Man.
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