JAMES BROWN—The Original Disco Man (Polydor):: Wherein the inscrutable Soul Brother Numero Uno finally comes to grips with a genre he just about invented singlehandedly, parts the sea of strobe lights, and proceeds to do the Camel Walk all over most of the undeserving, competition that had pushed him off the charts for far too long. Brad Shapiro’s sympathetic and somewhat adventurous production keeps these moving without too many discoid cliches, as Brown is surrounded by snazzy horns, standard JB maniacal bass playing and Some exquisite guitar work. But be he wailing incomprehensibly (“Too Funky in Here”) or preaching himself into a frenzy (Bill Anderson’s "Still”), Brown is totally in command, as befits royalty. Cross cultural moment of the decade comes when Brown confronts a dobrO on “Let the Boogie Do the Rest”: “That’s a ug/y guitar... that (guitar’s so ugly it could jump behind a tombstone and spit monkeys.” Like I said, inscrutable.

B.A.