One more from the big oevre of James Brown. In an interview with Red Bull Music Academy Fred Wesley tells that It was supposed to be a soundtrack for a movie "Hell up in Haarlem" but the producer didn't find it funky enough! Fred continues: "So I gave the phone to [the producer] and James Brown really flipped. [The producer] was turning blue and turning red and different colors and gave the phone back to me. James told me, “Bring it home!” So I took [the tapes] back to Augusta. I was living in California, I flew all the way back [East] and James put that music out as an album. And it was the biggest album James ever had, The Payback."
So the first time we played the music from Royalty For Real wasn't in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, but in Bengaluru and Mumbai, all the way in India in 2023!Here you'll see me play Au Privave, Classy Cats and Royalty For Real, together with Timothy Banchet (piano), Marius Beets (bass) and Sven Rozier (drums).Au Privave is a well-known blues by Charlie Parker which I often like to start with, almost like a soundcheck tune. Although most of the time a soundcheck is done I found out it's a good idea to play a tune everybody of the band knows very well so we all can get used to the sound of the stage, the presence of the audience and it also gives the sound engineer the chance to adjust microphones last minute. During the soundcheck, the sound of the room is significantly different because of the lack of audience. All that flesh and clothes work a little bit like a totally empty room versus a room with furniture and carpets, if you know what I mean :-)Acoustics are so interesting and full of surprises.. Anyways.. hope you like it! - One more from the big oevre of James Brown. In an interview with Red Bull Music Academy Fred Wesley tells that It was supposed to be a soundtrack for a movie Hell up in Haarlem but the producer didn't find it funky enough! Fred continues: So I gave the phone to [the producer] and James Brown really flipped. [The producer] was turning blue and turning red and different colors and gave the phone back to me. James told me, “Bring it home!” So I took [the tapes] back to Augusta. I was living in California, I flew all the way back [East] and James put that music out as an album. And it was the biggest album James ever had, The Payback.
