James Brown Doesn't Like To Stop Performing | Letterman

James Brown says the only time he ever gets hurt onstage is when he has to stop performing (Air date: 7/12/1982)
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Welcome to the Letterman KZbin Channel, home to all your favorite clips from Late Night and Late Show - as well as conversations with the writers, producers and performers who helped make it all happen. These highlights have been artisanly-produced, carefully-curated, and chosen completely at random by an old computer that used to pick numbers for the New York Lotto back in the 90’s.

[@CastanedaCrew4]

James Face at 4:13 when Dave jokes about singing his songs😂😑

[@MultiHondaa]

Almost got swung on lol

[@TheZerokool187]

😅😅

[@dtonesmith766]

I see why you got the hottest show, David!

[@MultiHondaa]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@VinVonVoom]

5:03 It's really interesting he says Michael Jackson here. Keep in mind Thriller hadn't even come out yet, this was before Motown 25 and he still said he was one of the best in the game. He saw greatness in him before a vast majority of people did.

[@OlafProt]

Off The Wall was HUGE from 1979, so I think Michael was already mega, especially in terms of black music. Thriller created a new level of success no one else had seen before.

[@PaulDA2000]

You don’t know a thing about James Brown. He’s been my favorite artist since 1968 when I was 12 I’ve seen him over 100 times in concert I have all of his records I’ve met him a few times. Exactly he was buying his records and has always been Black people and larger numbers than white people even when he had his biggest pop exposure first starting in 1962 when live at the Apollo went up to number two on the pop album charts and was on the chart for 66 weeks and then starting in 1964 out of site all the way through 1968 with say it loud up black and out proud where he had six top 10 pop hits. And he knew when he put out the loud he was going to lose the majority of his white audience and pop airplay which is exactly what happened.

[@CastanedaCrew4]

The King Of Cool👑

[@ad8554]

Belushi died in March of 82. This was only a couple months later

[@riverdean7]

yes

[@jameswilson1522]

Incredible !

[@williamg2552]

Listen CAREFULLY at what James tells Dave Letterman at 2:21 , when He explains just WHO THE FAMOUS FLAMES REALLY WERE…ESPECIALLY those of you who SWEAR UP and DOWN that THE FAMOUS FLAMES are a FUNK BAND( Maceo, Fred , Jabo, Clyde etc etc) James said: “ The FLAMES are a SINGING GROUP. The BAND is The JBs” That’s IT. CASE CLOSED !!

[@livefromplanetearth]

✊🏾

[@OlafProt]

Mr JB knew his music back then. Augusta Georgia, late September, hadn't happened yet.

[@VinVonVoom]

How come the performances aren't here?

[@PaulDA2000]

Because this is just the interview. If you want to see the performances just do a search on KZbin it’s very easy to find them.

[@VinVonVoom]

@@PaulDA2000 I know that I was just hoping they'd have posted the performance too given how legendary it is in Letterman history and the fact that it's never been preserved in quality this good.

[@petergrundy8081]

He was the coolest cat

[@hollywoodseanhendrix]

He said Michael jackson 🔥

[@ericmagee5998]

He forgot to mention prince

[@69Mucci]

Prince was only just starting to become known at that point. This might be right before "1999"

[@archangelrapheal5231]

​@@69Mucci I believe this was the 1970s late 1970s very early 1980s here where this interview took place

[@VinVonVoom]

@@69Mucci Michael wasn't really known as a live performer at this point either, this was before Thriller. I'm not too knowledgeable on Prince but to my knowledge he wasn't doing all the stage theatrics at this point. If he was maybe James simply hadn't seen him, he was a busy man. He usually gave him his props after this (with the caveat that he wasn't a big fan of his sex'd out persona).

[@liamdell4202]

​@@archangelrapheal5231it was 1982. It's in the video description lol

[@archangelrapheal5231]

@@liamdell4202 yeah like I said the early 1980s on the last part of my comment lol

[@devilshark6694]

that's lil ze's grandaddy from city of god

[@dwaneyocum1718]

James was so out of touch that he never knew white people were buying his records. Among the kids I hung out with we all bought and played his music and listened to the black radio station in town.

[@ednoroirika]

He had a whole audience of white kids saying, , I’m black and I’m proud! 😅 He knew!

[@PaulDA2000]

You don’t know what you’re talking about. James Brown had a very large white following until he cuts say it loud and he virtually lost all of the pop AirPlay overnight.

[@dwaneyocum1718]

@@PaulDA2000 You're making my point.

[@johnhenningfield4360]

I think the reason why was in the beginning his face wasn’t on his records covers until way later, so that was his mindset that whites wouldn’t buy his music because of his FACE …say it loud was necessary for black Americans and the time of the world (1968) I don’t know why they were offended