"Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" is a

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

song recorded 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 ...

with

Bobby Byrd Bobby Howard Byrd (August 15, 1934 – September 12, 2007) was an American rhythm and blues, soul and funk singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, bandleader, and talent dedicated. He played a part in the development of soul and funk m ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

. Released as a two-part single in 1970, it was a no. 2 R&B hit and reached no. 15 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. In 2004, "Sex Machine" was ranked number 326 on ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' magazine's list of

the 500 greatest songs of all time "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2 ...

. In the 2021 update of the list it had risen to 196. In 2014, the original 1970 recording of "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" on the King Records label was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Analysis

"Sex Machine" was one of the first songs Brown recorded with his new band,

The J.B.'s The J.B.'s (sometimes punctuated The JB's or The J.B.s) was James Brown's band from 1970 through the early 1980s. On records, the band was sometimes billed under alternate names such as Fred Wesley and the JBs, The James Brown Soul Train, Mace ...

. In comparison with Brown's 1960s solo funk hits such as "

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" is a song written and recorded by James Brown. Released as a two-part single in 1965, it was Brown's first song to reach the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 Top Ten, peaking at number eight, and was a number-one R&B hit, top ...

", the band's inexperienced horn section plays a relatively minor part. Instead, the song centers on the insistent

riff A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...

played by brothers

Bootsy William Earl "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s before joining the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Collins established himse ...

and

Catfish Collins Phelps "Catfish" Collins (October 17, 1943 – August 6, 2010) was an American musician. A lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist, he is known mostly for his work in the P-Funk collective. Although frequently overshadowed by his younger brother, ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

and Jabo Starks on drums, along with the

call and response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...

interplay between Brown and Byrd's vocals, which consist mostly of exhortations to "get up / stay on the scene / like a sex machine". During the song's final vocal passages Brown and Byrd started to sing the main hook of

Elmore James Elmore James ( Brooks; January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963) was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader. Noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice, James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ...

' blues classic " Shake Your Moneymaker." The original single version of "Sex Machine"—recorded, like many of Brown's hits, in just two takes—begins with a spoken dialogue between Brown and his band which was recreated with minor variations in live performances:

Fellas, I'm ready to get up and do my thing! ''(Yeah! That's right! Do it!)'' I want to get into it, man, you know? ''(Go ahead! Yeah!)'' Like a, like a sex machine, man, ''(Yeah!)'' movin', groovin', doin' it, y'know? ''(Yeah!)'' Can I count it off? ''(Okay! Alright!)'' One, two, three, four!

Personnel

* James Brown – lead vocal, piano ''with

:'' * Clayton "Chicken" Gunnells – trumpet * Darryl "Hassan" Jamison – trumpet * Robert McCollough – tenor saxophone *

–

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

, vocal *

Phelps "Catfish" Collins Phelps "Catfish" Collins (October 17, 1943 – August 6, 2010) was an American musician. A lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist, he is known mostly for his work in the P-Funk collective. Although frequently overshadowed by his younger brother, ...

– guitar *

William "Bootsy" Collins William Earl "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s before joining the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Collins established himse ...

– bass guitar *

John "Jabo" Starks John Henry "Jabo" Starks (; October 26, 1937 – May 1, 2018), sometimes spelled Jab'o, was an American funk and blues drummer best known for playing with James Brown as well as other notable musicians including Bobby Bland and B.B. King. A self- ...

– drums

Chart positions

Other recordings

Brown would go on to re-record "Sex Machine" several times in addition to the original single version: *One was made in 1970 for his ostensibly all-live ''Sex Machine'' album. It is over 10 minutes long and includes added

reverb In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then decay as the sound is a ...

and

overdubbed Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more a ...

audience noise intended to conceal its studio origins. (A version of this recording without overdubs appears on the 1996 compilation '' Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang''.) *Another, which was released in 1975, features a new instrumental arrangement and lyrics aimed at

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

audiences. Nearly 12 minutes long, it was released as a two-part single and appeared on the album ''Sex Machine Today''. Though it was poorly reviewed —

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

wrote that "if you own another version of 'Sex Machine' you own a better one" — it charted no. 16 on the R&B charts. *In 1986, Japanese musician

Haruomi Hosono , sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop f ...

's group Friends of Earth (F.O.E.) remake the album “SEX, ENERGY & STAR” in a digital funk style, with guest vocals from James Brown himself and

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 ...

on saxophone. Due to this relationship, F.O.E. joined the band as a frontliner during James Brown's tour in Japan in February 1986, and received angry shouts, abuse, and loud booing from conservative JB's fans. *In 1993, Brown sang another version that was released in collaboration with his sponsorship of Nissin's

Cup Noodles A cup noodle is an instant ramen product in a disposable cup, first developed in 1971 and manufactured by the Japanese food company Nissin Foods. The product was first introduced in the United States as "Cup O' Noodles" in 1972, before being ren ...

Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji (the fungus ''Aspergillus oryzae''), and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spreads; p ...

Flavor. "Sex Machine" remained a staple of Brown's concert repertoire until the end of his career. Live performances of the song appear on the albums '' Revolution of the Mind: Live at the Apollo, Volume III'' (1971), '' Hot on the One'' (1980), '' Live in New York'' (1981), '' Love, Power, Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971'' (1992), and '' Live at the Apollo 1995''.

References

External links

Song review
at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

List of songs that sample "Sex Machine"
{{authority control 1970 songs 1970 singles James Brown songs The Flying Lizards songs King Records (United States) singles Polydor Records singles Songs written by James Brown Songs written by Bobby Byrd