James Brown and Visual Soul
In January 2006, I was asked to participate in a visual (artistic) tribute to the great soul/ funk legend James Brown. The week long event was to take place in Augusta, Georgia and conclude with several musical tributes to Brown on the 2nd to last and last day.
I agreed to participate and went about working on some ideas for the event. Besides his hit songs, like "Pappa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "I Feel Good" I honestly wasn't too familiar with his music. To get into the mood I started downloading songs I wasn't familiar with. The 1st song that took me by surprise was "Please Please Please" which was released in 1956 and was the tune that made everyone take notice of JB. I decided to base the 1st piece on that song and used the title and some of the lyrics as text in the painting. I included the traditional draping of the cape over his shoulders but instead of a man carrying the cape I portrayed 2 Swallows done in tattoo style. To the right is the red curtain getting ready to close the show. "Please..." was usually the last song James Brown performed as an encore. That way he could throw the cape off, run back on stage and plead into the microphone "Please, don't go etc.", and the cape would be re-applied, over and over. The title is "Please Please Please"
Since the event took place 50 years after his debut, I decided to go another 50 years into the future to see what James Brown in 2056 would look like. I figured he probably wouldn't be alive (little did I know) but his music would still be played. The James Brown Estate builds James Brown Robots as Goodwill Ambassadors to other planets. The title of this piece is "James
Brown 2056.
The 3rd piece I made with my 12 year old neighbor, Amber Leftwich. An aspiring artist, I asked her if she would like to participate. She said yes and on a Sunday afternoon we spent 3 hours creating the piece shown below which we called "Funky JB". It was a fun piece to make and was a nice way to unwind after working on the other 2 which were so stylistically strict.
To learn more about the Visual Soul Festival go to the website, you can also look at the other art while visiting: Visual Soul James Brown Soul of America Music Festival, Art Exhibition
I agreed to participate and went about working on some ideas for the event. Besides his hit songs, like "Pappa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "I Feel Good" I honestly wasn't too familiar with his music. To get into the mood I started downloading songs I wasn't familiar with. The 1st song that took me by surprise was "Please Please Please" which was released in 1956 and was the tune that made everyone take notice of JB. I decided to base the 1st piece on that song and used the title and some of the lyrics as text in the painting. I included the traditional draping of the cape over his shoulders but instead of a man carrying the cape I portrayed 2 Swallows done in tattoo style. To the right is the red curtain getting ready to close the show. "Please..." was usually the last song James Brown performed as an encore. That way he could throw the cape off, run back on stage and plead into the microphone "Please, don't go etc.", and the cape would be re-applied, over and over. The title is "Please Please Please"
Since the event took place 50 years after his debut, I decided to go another 50 years into the future to see what James Brown in 2056 would look like. I figured he probably wouldn't be alive (little did I know) but his music would still be played. The James Brown Estate builds James Brown Robots as Goodwill Ambassadors to other planets. The title of this piece is "James
Brown 2056.
The 3rd piece I made with my 12 year old neighbor, Amber Leftwich. An aspiring artist, I asked her if she would like to participate. She said yes and on a Sunday afternoon we spent 3 hours creating the piece shown below which we called "Funky JB". It was a fun piece to make and was a nice way to unwind after working on the other 2 which were so stylistically strict.
To learn more about the Visual Soul Festival go to the website, you can also look at the other art while visiting: Visual Soul James Brown Soul of America Music Festival, Art Exhibition
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