Alternate history
Soul man extraordinaire James Brown covered his life through the time of the publication of his 1986 autobiography: James Brown: The Godfather of Soul. He's had a pretty eventful life since 1986, although none of the highlights are musical. He has now revisited the years in which he forged a musical revolution or two and brought the story up to date in a second autobiographical volume whose title trades on a highlight of the earlier era: I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul.
Tomorrow's New York Times Book Review carries a review of the new book by Ishmael Reed: "The Godfather of everything." Reed saves the only interesting tidbit for the last paragraph:
The most surprising news in "I Feel Good" might be Brown's revelation that his close friend Hubert Humphrey once mused about making Brown his running mate, a disclosure that is bound to draw snickers. Vice President Brown.Reed concludes with a stupid anti-American comment that doesn't merit quotation; he is too self-involved to elaborate whether Brown might have been invited to join the ticket in lieu of Edmund Muskie and help pull Humphrey over the top in 1968, or whether Humphrey had somehthing else in mind.
For clarification, we turn to this recent feature from The State (of South Carolina): "Eight things we didn't know about James Brown* (*but learned from reading "I Feel Good")." The State's take is a little more down-to-earth than Reed's:
Superstar autobiographies usually have a few wild statements. If "I Feel Good" has one, it’s Brown’s declaration that Hubert Humphrey entertained the idea of having him as a running mate.As a long-time admirer of Hubert Humphrey, I myself would now like to disclose that if nominated to run for president, I am thinking seriously about asking Solomon Burke to join me on the ticket as my pick for vice president."You may not believe this," Brown writes, "or may not want to, but at one point (Humphrey) talked to me about the idea of my being his running mate if he ran again for president! Of course the idea didn’t go very far, but I have to admit it was intriguing."
It sounds unbelievable, but Brown is certainly convinced. Brown goes on to say if he were elected, he would’ve put the whole country in a brand-new bag.
Now, that’s believable.
