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The so-called "Godfather of Soul" is gone...James Brown, also known as "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business." Quite the entertainer, James was. I always wondered what that self-proclaimed title meant. I suppose it came about in the 1970s as a way to ride the coattails of the movie, "The Godfather." In hindsight, it was just empty hype; just a way for James to come across as bigger and more significant than he really was. Strictly showbiz.

In the wake of his death, the accolades poured in. Yet, let's have a look at the landscape of American music across which James strode. He could sing and dance, no doubt. Was he a colossus, a powerhouse of record sales and merchandising? NO. James was more of a sideshow, dwelling in the shadows, forced there by the prejudices and fears of 1950s and 60s white America. Then, when the gates were thrown open to black artists in the 70s and 80s, James remained a sideshow; nothing more, nothing less.

I have seen countless interviews with the big artists of the 1970s and 80s. When asked about their influences, they tick off lists of names that include the Beatles and host of other soul and blues acts...Chuck Berry (John Lennon himself admitted to that), Lightning Hopkins, Robert Johnson, etc. I have NEVER heard any young rocker, or rapper, for that matter, list James Brown, although some must have. Simply put, James didn't cast quite the long shadow that the media and his mourners now proclaim; certainly not a shadow in proportion to the Beatles, the Stones, the Eagles, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and others.

James was an "also-ran" in the field of popular music. Undoubtedly, some will argue that he was a "superstar." Their point is well-taken, as James could certainly put on a show, but he was not a superstar, to my understanding of the music business or even of the word itself. What is even more interesting to me is the way James Brown, entertainer, serial spouse abuser and convicted felon, has been elevated to the status of civil rights icon. This is not to cast dispersions on James himself. Let's just remember him as he was and for what he was; let's not make him into something he wasn't.

Prior to burial, James Brown's body lay "in state" at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. That's as it should be. But as he lies there in his GOLD casket, hovered over by a hustler of the stripe of Al Sharpton, I wonder...why a gold casket? Is it REALLY gold? Probably not; just gold-plated, or maybe painted. But, to me, the symbology is important. After all, this is the segment of American society which, according to its self-proclaimed "leaders," shakedown artists like the aforementioned "Reverend" Sharpton and uber-victim Jesse Jackson, does not get its proportionate "piece of the pie," to borrow a phrase from "The Jeffersons" theme song.

Gold coffin. Imagine that...black America is out there starving, scraping along, undereducated, ill-housed, with an astronomical illegitimate birth rate, and James Brown goes to his reward in a GOLD coffin. I wonder...how many Habitat for Humanity homes could have built for an equivalent amount of money, how many kids could have been given scholarships to a community college they otherwise couldn't afford, how many hungry, homeless mouths could have been fed over the balance of this holiday season? I wonder...and marvel at the hypocrisy of it all.

Learn more about this author, Russell Greer.
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