Guitar Forms

Hey DrJay. I loved the way you put that and your message made me laugh! To stay with the picture, I think there's no "juice in the news". Just a odd mistake that simply was made on the first 1969 issue of King Records (KS-1055) and was duplicated from there (Wikipedia goes old school, LOL). My theory is that Cannonball together with Zawinul "owned" the song in a way Ray Charles "owned Georgia On My Mind" without writing it. A second aspect might be that -- with a little fantasy -- the Roebuck Staples tune has a bit of the groove of "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" which of course IS a Zawinul composition. So some kind of "Cannonball-ism" might be the source for the miscredit on Brown's album and its variations.

"James Brown Directs And Dances The James Brown Band – The Popcorn" is by the way the full and completely entertaining title of the LP track 3 was taken from. My King original was manufactured in Canada in 1969. On that copy the credit below "Why Am I Treated So Bad" reads "Joe Zawinul – Zawinul – BMI". Never shy Polydor Germany used the same credit on their pressing (184 319) and so did Universal Japan on the first CD release (UICY – 93287). Polydor also reprinted their first edition in the nineties and poor Zawinul had to go all these ways. :)

In my -- maybe lonely -- opinion it's even allowed to ask if this is a James Brown album at all. A more appropriate name might have been "Pee Wee Ellis Directs The James Brown Band (even without dancing) – The Popcorn" LLOOOLLLL!!! No, seriously, when you look at the other tunes you'll find out that it's more HIS album than Brown's, even though it wouldn't exist without "The Godfather" to be fair. BUT "Soul Pride, Parts 1 & 2", "In The Middle", "A New Shift" and "The Chicken" are all trademark tunes of Mr. Ellis. So credit to where credit is due! Cheers, The Soul Preacher