Day 379: The J.B.’s – Doing it to Death

Today, I needed something fun to listen to while I’m cooking. I’m still slightly struck down by whatever plague is making its rounds at the moment, so I needed to keep the spirits high, and what better way to do that than to listen to a bit of funk. Today, I went for the J.B.’s, a band I was previously completely unfamiliar with.

Album cover courtesy of Polydor

The J.B.’s were formed in 1970 in Cincinnati after James Brown’s band walked out on him due to pay disputes. Brown then recruited a local R&B band called the Pacemakers to join him on tour and accompany him on his records, and they changed their name to the J.B.’s. They recorded albums not as James Brown’s backing band but as the J.B.’s, however, James Brown was still playing on the albums. One of these albums, Doing it to Death, was released in 1973 and it features the band along with James Brown producing, arranging, doing lead vocals and playing the organ.

I’ll be completely honest about what happened here, I wanted to listen to some funk so I did a bit of googling and went for the J.B.’s with absolutely no prior knowledge about them. Had I known before listening that it’s James Brown’s band, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. But I just don’t have it in me to listen to a second album today, so we’ll go for the J.B.’s, with a disclaimer that James Brown was a rancid man who beat his partners and is accused of sexually assaulting a number of women, so make of that what you will, at least James Brown is not alive to reap the benefits of streaming.

That being said, the album itself is alright. Nothing about it really stuck out, it faded mainly into the background, but it was a decent accompaniment to today’s cooking. Nothing about it stood out and nothing made its way to any playlist, but it was a fairly enjoyable album of tight funk. It was fine, I enjoyed it, but I won’t listen to it again, it’s a 7/10. Also, fun fact: the original J.B.’s rhythm section reunited in 2007 to do the soundtrack to the film Superbad.