Sex Machine (album)
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''Sex Machine'' is a
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
double album by
James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...
. It showcases the playing of the original J.B.'s lineup featuring Bootsy and Catfish Collins, and includes an 11-minute rendition of the album's
title song Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...
, different from the original recording of the title song which was released as a two-part single in 1970. ''Sex Machine'' purports to be a live recording. However, the first LP's worth of material consists of tracks recorded in studio settings with added reverberation and overdubbed applause (some of which subsequently were released in unadulterated mixes, most notably on the 1996 ''Funk Power'' compilation CD.). All but one track of the second LP apparently were recorded live in concert in Brown's hometown of
Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...
, although this material, too, features added reverb and overdubbed applause. It charted #4 R&B and #29 Pop. ''Sex Machine'' is often considered to be one of the greatest and most important funk records of all time, and arguably the high point of Brown's creative heyday from 1967 to 1971. It was ranked 1st in SPIN magazine's 25 greatest albums of all time in 1989, and 96th in a 2005 survey held by British television's
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. ''Sex Machine'' was also voted the 34th greatest album of all time in a VH1 poll of over 700 musicians, songwriters, disc jockeys, radio programmers, and critics in 2003. In ''Rolling Stones 2020 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked number 439.


Contents

All tracks on sides one and two and "Lowdown Popcorn" on side three are studio recordings with added reverberation and audience noise. All other tracks on sides three and four were recorded live at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, GA. " Brother Rapp" and " Lowdown Popcorn" are the same studio performances initially released as singles. Audience-free studio versions of " Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine" and " Give It Up or Turnit a Loose" appear on the CD compilation '' Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang'', along with a previously unreleased take of " There Was a Time" from the same session. " Mother Popcorn", which was indeed recorded live, appears without added audience noise and with a longer running time on the CD compilation '' Foundations of Funk: A Brand New Bag 1964-1969''. In addition, the album '' Motherlode'' includes a live rendition of " Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud" purportedly from the same Augusta concert. The full 1969 Augusta concert was released in 2019 as ''Live At Home With His Bad Self''.


Track listing


Personnel

Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, ''Medley'' *
James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...
– vocals, piano (Sex Machine) *Clayton "Chicken" Gunnels – trumpet *Darryl "Hassan" Jamison – trumpet *Robert "Chopper" McCollough – tenor sax * Bobby Byrd – organ, vocals (Sex Machine) * Phelps "Catfish" Collins – guitar * William "Bootsy" Collins – bass * John "Jabo" Starks – drums (Sex Machine) * Clyde Stubblefield – drums (Medley) *Johnny Griggs – congas (Medley) Bell Auditorium, Augusta, GA *
James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...
– vocals, organ (Spinning Wheel) *Richard "Kush" Griffith – trumpet *Joseph Davis – trumpet * Fred Wesley – trombone *
Maceo Parker Maceo Parker (; born February 14, 1943) is an American funk and soul jazz saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s, Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s and Prince in the 2000s. Parker was a prominent soloist on many of ...
– tenor sax, organ, emcee *Eldee Williams – tenor sax * St. Clair Pinckney – tenor and baritone sax * Jimmy Nolen – guitar *Alphonso "Country" Kellum – guitar * Sweet Charles Sherrell – bass * Clyde Stubblefield – drums * John "Jabo" Starks – drums *Melvin Parker – drums


References


External links

*
Sex Machine
' at
Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...
{{Authority control James Brown albums James Brown live albums 1970 albums 1970 live albums King Records (United States) albums