What Sleepy Joe Might've Learned from The Godfather of Soul

Seeing Biden escorted offstage reminded me of a powerhouse performance I witnessed in the '60s

[Note: A version of this essay appeared this morning on American Thinker, and may be viewed here.]

I'm sure that by now we've all seen the video, from Joe Biden's recent Hollywood fundraising event, of the president being led offstage by Barack Obama, who in addition to taking him by the hand and guiding him, appears to be consoling or reassuring him by putting a hand on his shoulder and then patting him on the back.

And we've all heard the spin from the White House and its sycophants in the press (which is to say almost the entirety of the Mainstream Media) that officially denies what we all saw, and which claims that Biden did not freeze like a deer in the headlights and did not need to be escorted offstage, and that to say that he did is to accept a malicious right-wing campaign using "cheap fake," "selectively-edited" video clips to paint a deliberately false and misleading picture of the president's cognitive state. They've even gone so far as to flatly announce that it "didn't happen." ("Who y'gonna b'lieve? Us, or your own lyin' eyes?")

But am I the only one who watched and thought of James Brown and The Famous Flames?

Circa 1964 or 1965, while enrolled at New York City's High School of Music and Art (that school is now at Lincoln Center, but back then it was at 135th St. and Convent Ave, on Harlem's "Sugar Hill"), I attended a performance at the Apollo Theater, on 125th St. in the heart of Harlem (Harlem, at that time, although it had pockets of poverty and blight, was a largely-thriving, vibrant city-within-a-city, and 125th St. was the Black version of 5th Avenue).

The headliner was James Brown. He appeared with The Famous Flames and put on a show that I remember to this day. The Apollo was packed; I'm sure the crowd far exceeded the theater's legal occupancy.

One aspect of that day that I've often remarked about is that, in a Standing Room Only crowd, I was one of only a couple of dozen "palefaces." And yet there was not a hint, not a whiff, not a glance of anything that could be construed as a bad vibe or any kind of racial tension. Everybody there was there to have a good time.

And, obviously, we were all fans of James Brown. His performance of "Please, Please, Please" was already legendary, and we all eagerly anticipated it as the highlight of the show. That song had already become a part of the not just one but four honorifics by which James Brown was introduced: Soul Brother Number One; The Hardest-Working Man in Show Business; Mr. Please, Please, Please; The Godfather of Soul.

Where am I going with this? Watch this video of James Brown and The Famous Flames performing "Please, Please, Please" (it's over six minutes long, but I think it's worth watching, especially if you’ve never seen James Brown perform), and note how, several times, James appears to suffer a physical collapse and emotional breakdown, and has to be comforted and led away by one of the Flames, patting him on the back, until, in a sudden burst of new energy, and throwing up his hands (and sometimes even throwing off his cape!) he returns to the microphone and resumes, with even greater intensity, his powerhouse performance, driving the already-mesmerized audience totally wild!

I watched Barack Obama leading Joe Biden offstage and thought, "If only Joe Biden (who’s never been “the hardest-working man” in any business!) had anywhere near the energy and charisma — and even a smidgen of the showmanship — possessed by James Brown, he could've had the audience in the palm of his hand and turned this embarrassing and ultimately deeply disturbing incident into something positively legendary!"

ST