Kill 'Em And Leave. Searching For The Real James Brown

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: As New
Jacket Condition: As New
Publisher: Weidenfeld And Nicolson
Publisher Place: London
Publisher Year: 2016
Edition: Reprint

Description: 232 pages. Book and Jacket appear to have hardly been read and are both in As new condition throughout.

Publishers Description: National Book Award winner James McBride goes in search of the real� James Brown after receiving a tip that promises to uncover the man behind the myth. His surprising journey illuminates not only our understanding of this immensely troubled, misunderstood, and complicated soul genius but the ways in which our cultural heritage has been shaped by Browns legacy. Kill Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Browns rough-and-tumble life, through McBrides lens, is an unsettling metaphor for American life: the tension between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. McBrides travels take him to forgotten corners of Browns never-before-revealed history: the country town where Browns family and thousands of others were displaced by Americas largest nuclear power bomb-making facility; a South Carolina field where a long-forgotten cousin recounts, in the dead of night, a fuller history of Browns sharecropping childhood, which until now has been a mystery. McBride seeks out the American expatriate in England who co-created the James Brown sound, visits the trusted right-hand manager who worked with Brown for forty-one years, and interviews Browns most influential nonmusical creation, his adopted son,� the Reverend Al Sharpton. He describes the stirring visit of Michael Jackson to the Augusta, Georgia, funeral home where the King of Pop sat up all night with the body of his musical godfather, spends hours talking with Browns first wife, and lays bare the Dickensian legal contest over James Browns estate, a fight that has consumed careers; prevented any money from reaching the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina, as instructed in his will; cost Browns estate millions in legal fees; and left James Browns body to lie for more than eight years in a gilded coffin in his daughters yard in South Carolina. James McBride is one of the most distinctive and electric literary voices in America today, and part of the pleasure of his narrative is being in his presence, coming to understand Brown through McBrides own insights as a black musician with Southern roots. Kill Em and Leave is a song unearthing and celebrating James Browns great legacy: the cultural landscape of America today. Praise for Kill Em and LeaveThoughtful and probing . . . with great warmth, insight and frequent wit. The results are partisan and enthusiastic, and they helped this listener think about the work in a new way. . . . James McBrides welcome elucidation . . . is clear, deeply felt and unmistakable.�Rick Moody, The New York Times Book Review [McBride] turns out to also be the biographer of James Brown weve all been waiting for. . . . McBrides true subject is race and poverty in a country that doesnt want to hear about it, unless compelled by a voice that demands to be heard.�Boris Kachka, New York The definitive look at one of the greatest, most important entertainers, The Godfather, Da Number One Soul Brother, Mr. Please, Please HimselfJAMES BROWN.�Spike LeeA feat of intrepid journalistic fortitude.�USA Today This is an important book about an important figure in American musical history and about American culture. . . . You wont leave this hypnotic book without feeling that James Brown is still out there, howling.�The Boston Globe Illuminating . . . engaging.�The Washington PostFrom the Hardcover edition.

ISBN: 9781474603645