Previously in the book: Nebraskan Hal Neely toured with big bands and transitioned to the record manufacturing business, eventually meeting King Records Syd Nathan and future soul star James Brown. He played a role in Brown’s first big hit but he continued his rise with Allied Recording while James Brown struggled after his initial success, “Please, Please, Please.”
After the success of “Please, Please, Please,” Hal Neely continued his steady rise with Allied Record Company, moving his family from the West Coast to New Jersey where he could commute into downtown New York to the main headquarters. A May 1, 1956, Billboard Magazine article reported that Neely was now national sales manager of both Allied and American Sound, a joint venture of Allied and Bart Manufacturing. He was temporarily assigned to the takeover of Urania Records to complete the necessary planning and change.
James Brown’s career, however, did not move along as smoothly. His next productions from the King studio did not receive the same enthusiastic response as his first hit. In June 1956, “I Don’t Know” and “I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On” seemed to get lost in the aftermath of the “Please” hurricane. A month later King released “No, No, No” and “Hold My Baby’s Hand” to the same lukewarm reception. Another commercial failure in October with “Just Won’t Do Right” and “Let’s Make It” only justified Syd Nathan’s original opinion of James Brown and the Flames. In his autobiography, Brown said he felt he was competing with himself.
Brown’s cure for the record doldrums was to take the group back on the road, playing his old hometown of Augusta, Ga., and then up north to Richmond, Virginia, and back down to Florida, getting gigs in Jacksonville, Bradenton, and Miami. Their next lucky break came when they played the same club as Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. Ballard was so impressed with their act that he called his booking agent in New York City, Ben Bart of Universal Attractions. Bart began in the music business during the 1940s, founding his own agency, Universal Attractions, in 1949. He represented the majority of the hot rhythm and blues acts of the 1950s, including Dinah Washington and Billy Eckstine. Bart saw in Brown a raw talent with unfettered energy and a potential to be open to instruction.1
Bobby Byrd described the relationship in these terms: “Ben and Syd Nathan and King’s lawyer, Jack Pearl, are all inter related in some way either through blood or marriage, so it was like if you recorded for King you are automatically booked by Universal Attractions. When we first went up to Cincinnati to record ‘Please, Please’ I’m sure we signed all three contracts at the same time, for recording, publishing and booking. Of course, we didn’t know nothing about contracts back then. We all just signed on the dotted line.”2
Universal Attractions opened doors for Brown and the Flames with more bookings in the North. As is often the case after an initial success, cracks began to show in the team that was James Brown and the Flames. Bobby Byrd, who had been Brown’s close friend ever since the Toccoa days, found out that Brantley was paying James Brown more money, even though every member of the group had agreed from the beginning that income would be divided equally.3
The next crack happened when Bart wanted to change the billing from the Famous Flames to James Brown and the Famous Flames. The flame, so to speak, went out. Bobby Byrd went back to Toccoa to be a darkroom assistant. Most of the others, including Johnny Terry whom Brown had met in prison, continued to work in the music business. The close bond Brown had developed with Byrd withstood the business disappointments. In coming years Byrd would rehearse Brown’s bands, rewrite and co-write many of Brown’s most famous tunes even though he did not receive credit on some of them.4
In late 1957 Little Richard announced he was leaving rock ‘n roll to devote his life to Christian ministry.5 This allowed Brown not only to pick up some of Richard’s bookings but also his band members, including Fats Gonder who was with Richard the night he first heard Brown. The new gigs prompted Nathan to give Brown another chance in the King studio. The results were “That Dood It,” released in February 1958, and “Begging, Begging” in May. Both flopped, and, according to Browns autobiography, Nathan declared, “James Brown is all through, washed up. He’ll never record for me again.”
After that, Brown went back on the road with his new members of the Famous Flames and developed a new song called “Try Me.” Bobby Byrd said Brown had gotten the lyrics for “Try Me” from someone—nobody writing music history knows his name–in Hollandale, Florida. “It was something like the way we got ‘Please, Please’, an adaptation from something else.” Byrd explained, “This boy was singing the song around and he gave James the lyric. But it was originally more complicated. We went back and did it again in New York, simplified it structurally but made it smoother and more sophisticated sounding musically. I wasn’t on the original demo but I was a part of the issued recording, singing and helping with the lyrical adaptation.”6
According to Brown biographer Geoff Brown, “‘Try Me’ is a heartfelt plea for love and if Brown did rein in his vocal then the restraint has worked to the benefit of the lyric because the understatement gives his singing a vulnerable quality that is at the center of the record’s success. Self-pity is kept at bay by the energy yearning in his voice.”7
That was not the reaction of Syd Nathan when he first heard it. “I’m not spending my money on that garbage,” Nathan said, according to Brown’s autobiography. Brown and Brantley personally financed the demonstration record of “Try Me” and took it back to Nathan but to no avail. “It doesn’t make sense,” the King executive said. “I don’t want it.” Not deterred, Brown paid for copies of the record to be pressed and took them around to disc jockeys who knew him. When the song got airtime, orders started coming in to King Records. Nathan tried to ignore them at first but when they reached 20,000 he gave in and called Brown to bring back the master recording.
“Oh, you don’t want that tape, Mr. Nathan,” Brown recalled saying in his autobiography. “It’s just a demo, a little something I paid for myself.” He knew he was on the rebound when he was able to force Syd Nathan into paying for a new recording of “Try Me” with top-of-the-line production values. King released it in October, 1958 with maximum marketing effort. Nathan even tried to get the song played on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. “He turned it down flat,” Byrd said about Clark. The record still reached No. 1 in the rhythm and blues charts.8
Footnotes
1The Life of James Brown, 53.
2Ibid. 54.
3Say It Loud, 28.
4The One, 81
5 Ibid., 83.
6The Life of James Brown, 51.
7Ibid. 52.
8Ibid. 53.