Hands down, all time favorite, knock your socks off and dance till you drop James Brown album. It's so good I listened to it twice through when I first picked it up and it's been in constant rotation ever since. When you hear the words James Brown does your mind go straight to giant hair, a sweaty brow, bad polyester suits and a show-boatiness worthy of Vegas-era Presley? That may be true for 60's and 70's era Brown but in the mid-fifties his group The Famous Flames played straight up dancey R&B influenced by the likes of Little Richard and Ray Charles. The band is tight and the timing flawless and Brown brings the same energy to the dance hits that he does to his later albums yet there's a slight reigning in of vocal stylings that shows up in following albums. This all works to the advantage of the album - James Brown keeps the energy up, the band backs him up with rock n' roll precision and it never fails to make me kick my shoes off and dance around the living room until I'm out of breath.
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