I Got The Feelin: James Brown In The 60s DVD

As an undeniable document of its time, I Got The Feelin' is a must for any serious student of America, race relations, and soul. For anyone else, it's merely a ferocious funk outburst from the Godfather of Soul at the very peak of his powers. And the addition of an Apollo concert plus several of his finest Sixties moments captured on film makes this an essential for any James Brown fan.

April 5, 1968. The world is still reeling from the news that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- the living, breathing embodiment of the civil rights movement in America -- has been cut down the day before by an assassin's bullet while rallying union sanitation workers in Memphis. The country, already scarred by thirteen separate urban riots over the previous four years, watched as Baltimore, Chicago, Louisville, and Washington D.C. erupted in violence. Boston mayor Kevin White contacted soul singer James Brown, then at the height of his popularity, and urged him to play a televised concert that would take the city's minds -- specfically those of the Roxbury ghetto, where violence was already primed to break wild -- in a different direction. Amazingly, it worked.

The nation could not have been split more evenly than it was at that moment: the broadcast of that show began with a white announcer declaring that "Negro singer Jimmy Brown" was about to perform. But as the concert broadcast and VH1's excellent 2004 documentary The Night James Brown Saved Boston demonstrate, the Godfather was no mere last-minute distraction but himself a living, breathing embodiment of African-American success. And, better still, possibility. Starting slowly, as if in recognition of the weight of the moment, Brown gradually begins to unleash his own kind of fury, delivering such seemingly innocuous gems as "Cold Sweat" and "I Feel Good (I Got You)" with a fire that somehow speaks volumes. The documentary, which was whittled down by about 20 minutes on broadcast, is full-length here, along with a solid concert from that same year at the Apollo, recollections of those involved in the Boston Garden concert, and several bonus clips from his greatest Sixties moments. Even if you think this is all ancient history, Brown's performance manages to transport you there again.