James Brown — “Out of the Blue”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — January 10, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,074) James Brown — “Out of the Blue”

Well, this June 1964 Smash B-side (https://www.45cat.com/record/s1908) came out of the blue — it’s not your typical James Brown. The “twisting original . . . backtracked on the evolutionary steps Brown’s music had been making”. (Zeth Lundy, https://www.popmatters.com/james-brown-the-singles-volume-3-1964-1965-2496216266.html) Yeah, but oh how finger snapping cool this deevolution was!

William Ruhlmann tells us that:

At the end of 1963, Brown entered into a contract dispute with his record label, King Records. He stopped recording for King and even signed a contract with another label, Smash Records (a subsidiary of Mercury Records). But King went right on putting out Brown singles by delving into its catalog of LP tracks and altering other previously released recordings without Brown’s knowledge, much less permission. For example, Brown’s Live at the Apollo album had been a big success in 1963, so King overdubbed screams and applause onto Brown’s 1956 recording “Please, Please, Please” to make it sound like a live performance and re-released it as a single in January 1964 . . . . Meanwhile, Brown was uncertain of his direction, and his first recordings for Smash included forays into covers of jump blues (Louis Jordan’s “Caldonia”) and straight blues (Guitar Slim’s “The Things That I Used to Do”) to which his fans did not respond. . . . Eventually, Brown found his feet and came to an accommodation with King in time to cut such classics as “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, Pt. 1” and “I Got You (I Feel Good)[.]”

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-singles-vol-3-1964-1965-mw0000483493

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