A1. Damn Right I’m Somebody • A2. Blow Your Head • A3. I’m Payin’ Taxes, What Am I Buyin’?
B1. Same Beat (Part 1) • B2. If You Don’t Get It The First Time, Back Up & Try It Again, Party
B3. Make Me What You Want Me To Be • B4. Going To Get A Thrill • B5. You Sure Love To Ball
In 1974 one of James Brown’s most important band-leaders and sidemen – trombonist Fred Wesley – would release not one but two albums as a leader including Damn Right I Am Somebody. Starting with an evocative cover it was clear to fans that this album wasn’t all about a party. Deep messages abound in the songs here, such as the nearly 10-minute workout “I’m Paying Taxes, But What Am I Buying.”
Social messages aside, Fred and his assembled JBs were a party-moving funk machine at heart, as heard on “If You Don’t Get It The First Time, Back Up And Try It Again, Party” and the laid-back groove of “Same Beat” (with prototypical sampling of Jesse Jackson exhorting an audience to chant “I am / Somebody”). Nestled among these raise-your-fist classics is one of the most experimental funk cuts ever made: “Blow our Head,” known to relatively modern listeners as the backbone of Public Enemy’s “Public Enemy #1” (from 1987). Other tracks have been sampled by EPMD, Run-DMC, De La Soul, Digable Planets, and Ice-T among others.
