Live at Home with His Bad Self is the first-ever release of the complete homecoming concert
James Brown held at Augusta, Georgia's Bell Auditorium on October 1, 1969. The performance was intended as a live album for that holiday season, but those plans were scrapped once his band walked out on him. Roughly a year later, the
Sex Machine double album arrived bearing some of the recordings from this concert. The full show didn't materialize until 2019, when the album was released for its would-be 50th anniversary. Considering how so many members of
Brown's band left in the months that followed, the concert turned out to be as valedictory as it was victorious; this was the last time
Fred Wesley,
Maceo Parker,
Jimmy Nolen,
Sweet Charles Sherrell, and
Clyde Stubblefield shared the stage with Soul Brother Number One. The great thing about
Live at Home with His Bad Self is that it carries no air of being a major statement:
Brown simply whipped the group into shape to deliver a show that he could be proud to deliver to a hometown crowd. The performance contains a few period oddities --
the J.B.'s jamming to
Blood Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel" fares a little bit better than
James crooning through the show tune "If I Ruled the World," and both are better than
Brown performing to a pre-recorded track for "World" -- but complaining about these cuts amounts to nitpicking. Every cut, including the old-fashioned numbers, finds
James Brown and
the J.B.'s in prime shape, tearing through their hits and extending "There Was a Time," "Lowdown Popcorn," and "Mother Popcorn" to the point that they're about to burst. As a sheer performance, it's giddy and intoxicating, but it's also a useful document of one of
Brown's best bands at their live peak. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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