Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Hometown remembers music legend

By AMBER MOBLEY
Published December 31, 2006

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Who? James? Well, everybody knew James.

Before James Brown was the Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, folks around here knew him as a shoe-shiner, a fellow high school student, a buddy and a man who loved to eat chicken gizzards.

On Saturday, thousands of fans, friends and folks who felt like he was family - old and young, black and white and all shades in between - came to James Brown Arena to pay their respects to the singer, who died on Christmas at age 73.

They stood in the rain with and without umbrellas and wore everything from velour sweat suits to full-length mink coats. Some drove for hours or slept outside in 50-degree weather just to be sure they saw him one last time.

And as they stood, they shared.

"I remember my mama pointing him out when I was just a little girl," said Elenora Devine, 62.

As they walked down Ninth Street her mama saw Brown shining shoes.

People around Augusta knew he could sing "but he wasn't popular then," said Devine, who waited in line at the funeral service with her son Leonard Devine, 42, and her sister Earlene Bess, 55, all of Augusta.

Leonard Devine had been holding a spot in line for his mama and aunt since 6 a.m.

"My best friend Betty used to catch a cotton truck with him," added Yzonna Darby, 53, who was standing just close enough to get in on the conversation. "And she always tells me about how he loved to (pick) peanuts with her."

"The first time I saw James Brown for myself," said Bess, "he had on these pink, blue and green shoes. I said, 'James Brown! Them some bad shoes!' And he told me he'd give them to me if I waited till he came back. He was going to get some gizzards. He loved chicken gizzards."

And Shirley Willis, 57, of Augusta recalled that Brown was also a fan of her mother's sweet potato pies.

Willis' late mother Louise Jones was Brown's housekeeper for six years in the early 1970s.

"He would call from Japan while he was on tour and tell her to have four or five ready for him when he got back," said Willis.

Born in a one-room shack in nearby Barnwell, S.C., Brown moved to Augusta as a boy. To local folks, Brown was more Augusta than Augusta itself.

Before and after the music fame, Brown stayed the same. Whether at a gas station, walking down the street or giving a free show at the William Bell Auditorium or local recreation center, he was always ready to say hello and even chat awhile.

"He was full of life," said Leonard Weathersby, 41, of Augusta. "He never met a stranger."

Weathersby and his wife, Jennifer, 46, were near the front of a line stretching six blocks down Seventh Street. They had staked their spot at 10:15 p.m. Friday night.

The atmosphere on the street combined the hustle of a concert with the casual ease of an extended family reunion. Hawkers sold T-shirts imprinted with Brown's face. People greeted neighbors and friends, got caught up and swapped stories.

But the chatter turned to whispers as they entered the building and approached the bier. For one melancholy morning this spartan hockey arena was transformed into the final venue for Augusta's favorite son.

The somber stillness drove home the loss of a dynamic man whose life had been defined by movement, passion and electrifying music.

Brown lay in a gold coffin lined in white, surrounded by two dozen or more floral wreaths and sprays. The singer was clad in a black suit with silver sequins on the lapels, black gloves and bow tie, and sparkling silver wing tips.

Two black-suited attendants stood to the side, near a 5-foot portrait of the star.

On a stage behind them, members of his band started setting up for the coming 1 p.m. funeral service.

One thing the home folks wished for was more time.

Jennifer Weathersby wondered, "Why did the Apollo get eight hours (to view Brown's body) and we only got three?"

Others in line voiced disappointment that there would be no hearse processional, and over the restriction forbidding them from taking pictures inside the arena.

John Cheever of Miami, a tall man in a yellow suit and matching shoes, missed a high school friend's funeral Saturday to come to Brown's service.

"I at least wanted to get some pictures inside," said Cheever, 62.

"And where's the music?" Cheever asked, seeming to lighten his own mood.

"When I was a little boy I always wanted to do the James Brown," Cheever said while doing a little fancy footwork and getting chuckles from the ever-growing line.

Sitting quietly at the front of the line, Eddie Jackson leaned his head back against a brick wall where he'd been since 9:20 p.m. Friday.

Like Cheever, Jackson loved to dance to Brown's music growing up.

"I never got a chance to see him perform," said the 65-year-old Decatur, Ga., man.

"But I told myself I'd see him before they put him in the ground," said Jackson. "And that's why I'm here today."

[Last modified December 31, 2006, 00:27:19]