James Brown

Used for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", as mentioned by recording engineer Ron Lenhoff in this June 2014 Sound on Sound interview.

"While I recorded Melvin Parker's drums with a tube [Neumann] U47 overhead and a kick mic, I also tracked James's vocals with a 47. The only time he ever did anything other than hand-hold the microphone was when he did overdubs. When he hand-held the microphone it was like he was on stage. It wasn't a studio performance; it was a stage performance. He had a great mic technique right from the very first time I met him, so we really didn't get the problem of his voice phasing in and out. We didn't always get everything the first take, but the first complete take that he was satisfied with. If he was happy with it, we'd have it on tape. I knew I had to work that way.

"We did add echo, but that was usually done on the session, and at that time it was 100 percent live echo. We'd use anything to give him an edge, and later on we did use echo plates. Both James and I preferred to always aim for as clean a sound as possible, with plenty of separation on the instruments.

Visible in this photo of Brown.

Visible in this photo of Brown and this footage of Brown at 0:11.

Visible in this photo of Brown at the Apollo Theater.

Visible in this 1984 photo of Brown in New York, taken from this page of the website Jazzinphoto.

Visible in this photo of Brown.

We caught up with guitarist James Brown, who’s currently using an AC30C2X

“I’m here with my Ac30 which is doing an amazing job of my live sound right now..”

Brown can be seen in this photo playing a Moog Liberation.