Star Time's discography lists 183 singles and 75 albums, virtually
all of which are out of print with few to mourn their passing, since
most were outrageously short or clogged with filler. Brown's most
recent albums, 1986's Gravity, produced by high-energy
disco maven Dan Hartman, and 1988's I'm Real, produced
by the New York hip-hop crew Full Force, are spirited but misguided.
Intending to boost Brown back onto the charts with snazzy studio
showcases, they succeed mainly in reducing his usual possessed drive
to mere enthusiasm. Of the pre-Star Time best-of collections, now on
Polydor but soon to be deleted, the two volumes of The CD of JB are
valuable for their concentrated doses of classic cuts. Serious
students of soul can go deeper into the archives with the two-CD sets
Roots of a Revolution, which collects honky-tonk R&B tracks
recorded between 1956 and 1964, and Messing with the Blues,
which ranges more widely over Brown's career but concentrates on
blues-based material. Both sets include previously unreleased cuts.
Two separate Live at the Apollo albums capture Brown's
onstage intensity, but on 1967's session the band is listless, the
set meanders, and Brown sings ''That's Life.'' Only the one recorded in
1962 really catches fire.
Gravity: C; I'm Real: C-; The CD of JB: A-; Roots of a Revolution: B+; Messing With the Blues: A-; Live at the Apollo 1967: C; Live at the Apollo 1962: A
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