Beyonce' and James Brown: Deja Vu

                           

   The success of Beyoncé's eponymous album confirms her status as the premiere artist of her generation. The album's visual format and initial single purchase point via iTunes expands alternate distribution possibilities beyond conventional record label support.

  Husband Jay-Z's Samsung  download strategy was the sign of things to come, Magna Carta: Holy Grail's revolutionary delivery to consumers resulted in another platinum seller in the Jay-Z catalog, becoming the 13th straight number one album of his career.

If Magna Carta was a home run, Beyonce'  is a grand slam. With Columbia Records backed physical product on the way, Mrs. Knowles-Carter will probably have the distinction of having 2014's first number one album. While it is clear she is having a MJ moment, Beyonce' s back story is similar to that of a music legend who departed from this world on Christmas Day seven years ago.

     James Brown's hectic touring schedule allowed him to see first hand how audiences responded to his music. While it was one thing to measure success by records sold, it was another to witness the frenzy his live performances created. Inspired by this revelation, he set out to make a live album at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater.

      In his memoir I Feel Good written with Marc Eliot, Brown describes his process of "four-walling"---paying to rent out the venue and absorbing all costs from concession, heating bills and promotion to get fans in the seats. The first time he did it he barely cleared a thousand dollars in profit but in true Brown grit and determination he refused to give up.

His label King Records lacking the vision (figuratively and literally--label head Syd Nathan was nearly legally blind) to see commercial value of live albums with previously recorded music refused to back Brown, who wound up funding the project himself.

 Don Rhodes' Say It Loud: My Memories of James Brown recounts 1500 people standing in two lines on a freezing Harlem night in 1962  as Brown's people provided free cups of coffee. They were unaware they would be part of history.

Despite label reservations, James Brown Live At The Apollo was a resounding success. It stayed on the Billboard charts for an unprecedented sixty-six weeks peaking at number two behind the West Side Story soundtrack--the Thriller of its day standing firm at fifty- four weeks in the number one slot.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album 25 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. While many of Brown's early performances were never captured on film, Live At The Apollo stands as the seminal introduction to the Hardest Working Man In Show Business for those outside his core fan base.

Most importantly Brown was able to command a larger share of profits that usually went to booking agents and venue owners. During an era where artists saw little or no royalties for album sales relying on touring for income, Brown changed the game and set in motion urban music's gradual transition from singles to albums that captured the full range of their creative expression.

Other artists have similar stories. The Eighties saw Michael Jackson finance his Thriller video, coordinate video sales and MTV airplay orchestrating an industry takeover en route to the biggest selling album of all time. The Nineties saw rock comeback kings Aerosmith sign a $30 million deal with Columbia Records before the conclusion of their old deal with Geffen Records. During the 2000s, the Eagles released their first album in nearly 30 years. Targeting Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, havens for their baby boomer audience--- to stock the album, they sold an astounding seven million copies.

Beyonce' trumps them all and comes closest to the Godfather of Soul in terms of sheer independence and presentation. Saavy enough to establish a separate publishing deal away from her label, she avoided the conflicts and restrictions Jackson and Brown experienced trying to elevate their careers beyond typical industry expectations. While other artists changed the game in their own way, the impact is defined by the size of contracts or the sale of product. The success of the Beyoncé album mirrors the impact of Live At the Apollo: the successful packaging of an experience-- consumed as a whole than the sum of its parts.

                                                                                                     -- Sheldon Taylor