We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,569,400.06 | Books Available: 794,972 | Members Online: 57

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

Kill 'Em and Leave Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
Author: James McBride

National Book Award winner James McBride goes in search of the ?real? James Brown after receiving a tip that promises to uncover the man behind the myth. His surprising journey illuminates not only our understanding of this immensely troubled, misunderstood, and complicated soul genius but the ways in which our cultural heritage has been shaped ... more »by Brown?s legacy.

Kill ?Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown?s rough-and-tumble life, through McBride?s lens, is an unsettling metaphor for American life: the tension between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. McBride?s travels take him to forgotten corners of Brown?s never-before-revealed history: the country town where Brown?s family and thousands of others were displaced by America?s largest nuclear power bomb-making facility; a South Carolina field where a long-forgotten cousin recounts, in the dead of night, a fuller history of Brown?s sharecropping childhood, which until now has been a mystery. McBride seeks out the American expatriate in England who co-created the James Brown sound, visits the trusted right-hand manager who worked with Brown for forty-one years, and interviews Brown?s most influential nonmusical creation, his ?adopted son,? the Reverend Al Sharpton. He describes the stirring visit of Michael Jackson to the Augusta, Georgia, funeral home where the King of Pop sat up all night with the body of his musical godfather, spends hours talking with Brown?s first wife, and lays bare the Dickensian legal contest over James Brown?s estate, a fight that has consumed careers; prevented any money from reaching the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina, as instructed in his will; cost Brown?s estate millions in legal fees; and left James Brown?s body to lie for more than eight years in a gilded coffin in his daughter?s yard in South Carolina.

James McBride is one of the most distinctive and electric literary voices in America today, and part of the pleasure of his narrative is being in his presence, coming to understand Brown through McBride?s own insights as a black musician with Southern roots. Kill ?Em and Leave is a song unearthing and celebrating James Brown?s great legacy: the cultural landscape of America today.

Praise for Kill ?Em and Leave

?Thoughtful and probing . . . with great warmth, insight and frequent wit. The results are partisan and enthusiastic, and they helped this listener think about the work in a new way. . . . James McBride?s welcome elucidation . . . is clear, deeply felt and unmistakable.??Rick Moody, The New York Times Book Review

?[McBride] turns out to also be the biographer of James Brown we?ve all been waiting for. . . . McBride?s true subject is race and poverty in a country that doesn?t want to hear about it, unless compelled by a voice that demands to be heard.??Boris Kachka, New York

?The definitive look at one of the greatest, most important entertainers, The Godfather, Da Number One Soul Brother, Mr. Please, Please Himself?JAMES BROWN.??Spike Lee

?James McBride on James Brown is the matchup we?ve been waiting for, a musician who came up hard in Brooklyn with JB hooks lodged in his brain, a monster ear for the truth, and the chops to write it.??Gerri Hirshey, author of Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music

?An unconventional and fascinating portrait of Soul Brother No. 1 and the significance of his rise and fall in American culture.??Kirkus Reviews

From the Hardcover edition.

ISBN-13: 9780812983739
ISBN-10: 0812983734
Publication Date: 11/1/2016
Pages: 256
Edition: Reprint
Rating:

Currently 3/5 Stars.

3 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Audio CD
Members Wishing: 7
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Humor & Entertainment >> Music >> Musical Genres >> R&B & Soul
Biographies & Memoirs >> Arts & Literature >> Actors & Entertainers
Biographies & Memoirs >> Arts & Literature >> Composers & Musicians >> R&B & Soul
Biographies & Memoirs >> Community & Culture >> Black & African American
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> Popular Culture
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> Specific Demographics >> African American Studies

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

Loading...