Sometimes you can see the moments when history could
have turned one way or another. Late in James Brown's Boston concert on April
5, 1968, fans start to rush the stage. They're mostly excited kids, but it's
the day after Martin Luther King's assassination, and tensions are high, to say
the least. Across America, other cities have already erupted into riots. Boston
mayor Kevin White—a recently elected progressive who narrowly defeated
his crypto-racist opponent—heard conflicting views about whether he
should let the show go on; ultimately, he roped in the local PBS station to
broadcast it, in hopes of giving black residents in the heavily segregated city
something to do other than destroy Boston in anger. It worked, until the
chaotic stage-rush. Then Brown stops the show, with a lot of desperate calls of
"Wait a minute!" What he says isn't eloquent, but it works: "We're black. Don't
make us all look bad."
It was quiet in Boston that night. The Night
James Brown Saved Boston, the excellent VH1-produced documentary that serves as the
first disc of the three-disc set I Got The Feelin': James Brown In The '60s, places the concert in
context, complete with recollections from Brown's band, Mayor White, and the
observations of the always-sharp Cornel West. That's no simple task. Brown had
his differences with King, and mixed feelings about the concert itself, not the
least because he worried about losing money on the date.
Those doubts aren't there in the performance,
filmed by a crew more used to shooting The Boston Pops. (The show is featured
in its entirety on disc two.) Having a subject as animated as Brown didn't
hurt. Still, Brown plays to the camera a bit too much in the 1968 Apollo
Theater concert, taped as a television performance, on disc three. It focuses
on Brown's softer, croonier side until its final minutes, though scenes of
Brown surveying inner-city neighborhoods and a recovering Watts serve as a
fascinating time capsule. Nothing, however, captures the full measure of
Brown's talent like the opening moments of the Boston show, when he plants
himself center stage in front of a crowd still reeling from King's death, and launches
into a version of "That's Life" that substitutes defiance for resignation
without changing a word.
Key features: More interviews and
performances.