A cold night in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Harlem’s most demanding audience. A test of strength between artist and crowd. But James Brown was in devilish form: at that time he played around 300 concerts a year, had his band under an iron thumb, was a master of dramaturgy, danced explosions, retarding elements.
How he tortures the audience for ten minutes in “Lost Someone”, flattering them and provoking them from behind, until a listener even lets herself be carried away into a verbal duel with him – that is still unique in its illusory power.
Read more – Legendary concerts
This performance got its significance from the live recording, financed by Brown himself, which came as an LP to number 2 in the US pop charts: unthinkable until then for such a raw R’n’B record.
