He Said It Loud
America Burned in '68, but in One City, Music Quenched the Fire

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 5, 2008

This stiff with a Boston Brahmin accent is sounding as if he's just ordered a mimosa and oysters on the half shell, talking into the microphone on April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated: "WGBH public radio invites you to stay tuned for a live memorial concert from the Boston Garden, featuring Negro singer Jimmy Brown and his group."

Those are the first words of "The Night James Brown Saved Boston." It sounds like a short story in the New Yorker, but it's actually a VH1 documentary debuting tonight at 9. Somehow this hour-long program is both a sincere and funny remembrance of how Beantown's leaders and the Godfather of Soul bumbled and beefed their way into turning a regularly scheduled concert into an event that (barely) staved off devastating riots.

This is from David Leaf, he of the feature film "The U.S. vs. John Lennon." The documentary features current-day interviews with most of the main players in the event, concert footage, vintage news coverage of the riots sweeping across the country, and a voice-of-God narration from Dennis Haysbert. It's not "Eyes on the Prize," and doesn't try to be. It's about a weird little sideshow to one of the worst moments in American history and is pretty close to flawless. (Okay, the title overreaches with "saved," but the show doesn't take itself too seriously, so lighten up.)

More than 100 cities across the country start to burn after King's assassination, and Boston appears to be ripe for trouble. The city was no paradise of race relations, and this is where King earned the title of "doctor," from Boston University. He met his wife there. People -- such as African Americans forced to live in ghettos in Roxbury, in the South End -- remember.

And who has a concert scheduled for the next night?

James Brown! Babybabybaby!

Scenario 1: Let the concert go on, and you have about 15,000 fans, presumably most of them black, come to downtown Boston for a concert by Soul Brother No. 1, who wasn't exactly in line with that nonviolence thing, with security provided mostly by white cops with billy clubs. Scenario 2: Cancel the concert, and have those 15,000 come downtown to find out The Man wouldn't let The Godfather in town.

This is what's known as a lose-lose situation.

Brand-new mayor Kevin White is adamant that the show must be canceled. He's talked into changing that position by Tom Atkins, a Harvard Law student who happens to be the only black person on the city council. (And, you know, thereby deputized to deal with This Negro From Out of Town.)

White decides to solve the problem by slapping the show on live television, and offering refunds to anyone who asks.

But -- and this tells you how 1968 it was -- he sort of doesn't bother to ask Mr. James Brown whether that was okay by him.

Well, honey, The Godfather stands to lose 60 large! He is not happy!

"What you had was two arrogant people," White recalls on camera. "Brown and myself."

Brown gets the city to pay up. Introduces the mayor onstage as "a swinging cat." People applaud, the show starts.

And if that were it, it wouldn't be much of a documentary.

But Leaf knows something about building tension, and this is when he shows black fans starting to jump onstage. White cops start shoving them off the stage, getting rough. Holy cow, a race riot, broadcast live, one day after King's death!

Brown backs the cops off. Lets people up there a minute. But people don't leave. They get a little rowdy. Brown, irritated now: "Can't y'all go back down and let's do this show together? We're black! Don't make us all look bad. Let me finish doing this show."

But things start getting ugly. The hair on your forearms starts to stand up. Across the country, there are dozens of cities in flames. Smoke is billowing. Vietnam, Malcolm dead, Martin dead, Watts, Detroit. Black Panthers, power to the people. Onstage, lots of cops, clubs. The tension, man, that racial thing .

Soul Brother No. 1, pacing, lecturing a few thousand angry people now:

"You made me look very bad. 'Cause I asked the police to step back and you wouldn't go down. Nah, that's wrong."

We're past babybabybaby and goodgod and henh! and ifeelgoodiknewthatiwouldnow. With one question, Brown tosses his reputation up in the air:

"Now I asked the po-lice to step back because I figured I could get some respect from my own people. Now are we together or we ain't?"

David Gates of Newsweek, one of the few white fans in the house: "It could have gone up like a torch."

The answer comes back down, down, this noise filling the arena, falling across Brown's shoulders, falling down across the suit drenched with sweat, falling down across the city on television sets flickering in Roxbury:

YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

The crowd goes with him. They love him. Here come the horns, the music. But it teetered, the whole thing, the whole night, everything.

Later, Brown went to Vietnam to entertain troops, got cozy with politicians. People in the movement worried. "People starting calling him Sold Brother No. 1," remembers Marva Whitney, a backup singer.

What did James Brown do with that, man?

Wrote "Say It Loud." You know the next line.

Anthem. Cultural statement. Babybabybaby. ImBlackandImProud. You had to be there, that night in Boston. You had to see it, that James Brown, that swinging cat, holding America together for just one more night.

The Night James Brown Saved Boston (one hour) airs tonight at 9 on VH1.