Today we welcome James Brown – a/k/a/ “Soul Brother Number One,” “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” and “The Godfather of Soul" – to the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADES” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.
Brown absolutely dominated the Billboard R&B singles charts during the 2 or 3 lines “Golden Decade” years of 1965 t0 1974, with no fewer than 42 top ten singles – 16 of which went all the way to #1.
There were no stations that programmed soul music in Joplin, Missouri when I was growing up there in the sixties. Hell, there was only one top-40 station, and it was a low-powered AM station that signed off each night at sunset.
James Brown was only an occasional presence on that station. While most of his biggest-selling singles charted on the Billboard “Hot 100,” they usually peaked at much lower chart positions – meaning they got played much less often on top-40 stations. A total of 91 Brown singles made their way into the “Hot 100” – the most ever by an artist who never had a #1 hit.
Today’s featured song went all the way to #3, which was the highest “Hot 100” position ever for a James Brown song. I don’t remember hearing it in 1965 – the year it was released – but it became a ubiquitous presence in movie soundtracks (including The Big Chill, Good Morning Vietnam, and Garfield: The Movie) and on television shows (including The Simpsons, Punky Brewster, and Full House).
“I Got You (I Feel Good)” has also been used in numerous TV commercials, including this one for Autolite spark plugs, which aired in 1990.
* * * * *
All the records by black recording artists that have previously inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME were released on Motown or Tamla (which was a Motown subsidiary label).
James Brown with Johnny Carson
“I Got You (I Feel Good)” was released on King Records – a Cincinnati label that initially specialized in country music. (The label’s advertising slogan was "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly – If it's a Hillbilly, it's a King.”)
Every so often, 2 or 3 lines feels compelled to write a long, involved “think” piece on some complicated and controversial topic.
Whenever 2 or 3 lines does this, things never turn out well – especially when the complicated and controversial topic involves women.
But 2 or 3 lines never learns. Hence, today’s post.
My choice of the 1966 James Brown hit, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” as the featured song for today’s post proves just what a well-developed sense of irony I have. Because it is most definitely NOT a man’s man’s man’s world fifty years later.
To wit:
– Only 49% of college-age Americans are female. But women are now receiving some 60% of all degrees granted by American colleges and universities. (When men constituted 60% of the college population, that was viewed – and rightfully so – as a clear indication that women weren’t being treated as equals. But have you heard any expressions of concern about the fact that the tables have turned and 60% of new college graduates are female?)
– Women now dominate the service professions, while industries that have a higher proportion of male employees – like construction and manufacturing – are shrinking. In fact, three-quarters of the eight million jobs lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09 were lost by males.
– The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. And the gap is growing, too: ten million more females than males voted in 2012. (If you women out there don’t like the last half-dozen or so Presidents we’ve elected, you have only yourselves to blame.)
In 2010, an Atlantic magazine cover story famously declared “The End of Men.”
Perhaps the most startling fact noted in that story was how rapidly the traditional gender preferences of prospective parents around the world were changing. According to that article, American parents who utilized a new sperm-selecting technology that enabled them to choose whether they wanted a boy or a girl were choosing to have a girl 75 percent of the time.
Even feminists are realizing the pendulum has swung too far.
[A] lot of feminist rhetoric today does cross the line from attacks on sexism into attacks on men, with a strong focus on personal behavior: the way they talk, the way they approach relationships, even the way they sit on public transit. Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity. Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.
For example, it is now common for women to complain about “manterrupting,” a neologism that is used to describe the supposedly common male practice of interrupting female speakers in business meetings rather than listening to what women have to say.
Kanye West "manterrupting" Taylor Swift
Here’s what a Time magazine columnist had to say about “manterrupting”:
[A]sk any woman in the working world and we all recognize the phenomenon. We speak up in a meeting, only to hear a man’s voice chime in louder. We pitch an idea, perhaps too uncertainly – only to have a dude repeat it with authority. We may possess the skill, but he has the right vocal cords – which means we shut up, losing our confidence (or worse, the credit for the work).
But there’s a teeny-weeny problem with all the talk about “manterrupting.”
Things have gotten to a point where casual low-level male-bashing is a constant white noise in the hip progressive online media. Take a recent [online] piece titled, “Men Are Creepy, New Study Confirms.” The actual study found something very different: that both men and women overwhelmingly think someone described as “creepy” is more likely to be male.
Imagine if a study had found that most people think that someone who is described as “cheap” is more likely to be a Jew. Can you imagine a story reporting on the findings of that study being headlined, “Jews Are Cheap, New Study Confirms”?
What’s bad for the goose is perfectly OK for the gander when it comes to misogyny (bad!) vs. misandry (not a problem) at least in the eyes of those feminists who view sexism as a one-way street. They believe that gender-based prejudice isn’t sexism unless it’s directed against the oppressed and disadvantaged – i.e., females. Since males hold the power in our society, they’re fair game.
Except for the fact that males don’t really hold the power any more. Remember: ten million more women than men voted in the 2012 presidential election.
That trend may sound like a bad thing for men, but it does offer one big advantage for males. We’ll explain what that advantage is in the next 2 or 3 lines.
*****
“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” was recorded back when males did hold the power in our society.
Officially, the song was co-written by James Brown and his girlfriend Betty Jean Newsome. Brown later said she had nothing to do with the song, while Newsome claimed just the opposite and took the “Godfather of Soul” to court – unsuccessfully.
Betty Jean Newsome in 2007
The Village Voice published a long and sordid story about the Brown-Newsome relationship and the squabbling over who deserved credit for writing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” in 2007. Click here to read it.
Here’s my favorite paragraph from that article:
[Newsome] says Brown asked her to have a baby with him, but she rebuffed him, saying, "I ain't gonna be having one of your little monkey babies." The Famous Flames, Newsome recalls, marveled at the fact that James didn't kill her right then and there.
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