The James Brown Show: Live At The Apollo

As is often the case with live albums, if you weren't there, it's hard to really enjoy them. James Brown is great, and his music is fantastic. He and the audience had a blast. I even enjoyed the intro. But as the album went on, that feeling got lost on me a bit—precisely because I wasn't there. I prefer listening to Brown's studio albums. 3/5

This could be good, I like James Brown's music. But the live aspect of the album makes it unbearable to listen to. Can people shut the fuck up and enjoy the music?

The hardest working man in show business

Great soul album before bootsy delivered the funk

Suffers like most live albums but still great

Very nice

Terrific live album. There are bands like this where a studio album can’t capture the magic of a live set so concert recording makes sense. My issue with concert albums is I miss the visual experience more than I would if it was a studio album and it ends up feeling like it’s lacking. Still amazing.

This album is an early progenitor to 70s soul and funk. It should therefore be pretty good. It was a good live album with lots of energy. It had a lot of soul and was very funky. The lyrics were typical for early soul, but the songs were good and sung well. The backing band was very energetic, and the crowd was as well without being overbearing. This is a very good album that was fun to listen to, like all soul albums should be. I recommend this for a simple funky album that you can have fun with.

This album is ranked #4 of 8 albums for 1963. Other 1963 albums rated by me:
Live at the Harlem Square Club(1/8)-5
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan(3/8)-4
A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector(7/8)-2

Favorite track(s): I'll Go Crazy, Think, Lost Someone

Not usually a fan of live albums but this slaps

James Brown recorded this at his own expense because his label didn't think a live album would sell. It went to number two on the Billboard charts and stayed there for over a year. The label was wrong, and the instinct that drove Brown to capture this moment was right — there's something here that needed to exist on tape.
The performance is extraordinary. Brown commanding the Apollo is Brown at his most elemental — preaching, sweating, working a room that's completely his from the first note. The Famous Flames are locked in behind him, the energy is real, and the whole thing plays as one continuous experience rather than a collection of tracks. You can hear the foundation of everything that came after — the JBs, Fred Wesley, the entire funk tradition — being built in real time.
And yet. When "I Got You (I Feel Good)" autoplayed immediately after the record ended, something crystallized. The studio recording had a presence and physical immediacy that the live album, for all its historical weight, doesn't quite match. The 1962 recording technology captured most of the room but not all of it — maybe 80% of what being there must have felt like. Sam Cooke at the Harlem Square Club, recorded the same year, somehow got the other 20%. This one leaves you feeling the gap.
A four that fully respects the greatness without being seduced by the legend. The performance deserves five stars. The record earns four.

I hope the tickets weren't expensive. At no point during this half-hour concert did I feel like I'd missed out because I wasn't there. At least the recording quality isn't dogshit.

Pretty nice.

Singer, instrumentalist, dancer and all-round well-earned self-promoter, this was wonderful. You can feel his energy, feel the excitement of the call and response in the medley, and also the beauty of his voice in his tender moments. Are you ready for star time?

Holy crap, after several live albums from the vinyl era, I found one that has the FULL performance, no cuts or editing trickery needed! Even better, it's from the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, backed by his old vocal group, The Famous Flames. Financed out of his own pocket, James Brown's live performance at the Apollo Theatre proved to be a stroke of success, probably because of how well the energy translated to the recording.

From the elaborate introduction by the MC to the rapid-fire intensity in which Brown and the backing personnel ran through the early hits like "Try Me" and "Think", complete with braggadocious instrumental bridges between the songs, it is quite the spectacle they put on. It all culminates in the centerpiece that is the nearly eleven-minute rendition of "Lost Someone", where Brown sold every note and bar of that song with the utmost conviction while teasing the audience along the way. From there, the show closes with a swaggering medley of tunes, followed by the eruptive bounce of Brown's take on Jimmy Forrest's "Night Train", as the audience ate it up. The only aspect of the show I would be missing is seeing James Brown vigorously dancing, but there's only so much you can pack into a vinyl record.

Live at the Apollo is a bona fide classic live album, and there's not much else needed to say here.

if i wanted to listen to screaming girls, i'd rewatch my recordings from the one direction concerts i went to at 13.

Very cool.

Like funk before funk was a thing (because it's surprisingly un-funky).

Still interesting and great vocal/instrumental performance.

This is another nice album cover. I'd put it on my wall!

However, I can't believe it's another live album. Horrible. This is an extra weird album choice because I do know a few James Brown songs from the Rolling Stone top songs list, yet none of them are here! Also, why are all the live albums on here so old? Were there simply more live albums back in the day (because the sound quality was just bad regardless, so why not)?

The songs are at least short. Well, except that 11 minute one. The horns/drums are good. Although this is considered "R&B", it seems more like oldies to me. The instrumental bridges are my favorite part. No hooks. But nothing particularly unlikable either. According to Wiki, James Brown had 9–13 children. (I myself only have 0-4 children.)

It’s great to have documents like this so we can hear how pure and vital live music used to be.
It really is too bad that we don’t get music performers doing this kind of thing anymore with a large ensemble.
It’s so unfortunate that the art of rehearsing, arranging and performing live with a large ensemble does not happen because of the financial constraints.
All the rich people of the world should invest in making art like this possible again instead of blowing all their money on their useless and bullshit lifestyle.
This album is the truth.
Real music made by real people.

I wasn't quite as blown away by this as I expected to be. It's good, of course, and the band are super tight, but it only really gripped me on the more up tempo numbers.

Dramatic opening. Extremely professional. Too short to give a true reflection the live experience.

johnny this is how you do a live album