God, The Devil and James Brown
MARVA WHITNEY AND BANK HOUSE
Bank House Books is soon to publish ‘God, The Devil and James Brown: Memoirs of a Funky Diva’ by Marva Whitney (with Charles Waring). Marva made her
name singing with James Brown, and – to quote allmusic.com – is ‘fondly remembered by funk devotees as one of the rawest, brassiest, most powerful
divas the music ever produced’.
Here, in an exclusive preview, is the ‘flashback’ that opens Marva’s book:
James Brown is holding a gun against my head. I think I’m about to die. I can feel the cold metal pressing against the side of my skull. I’m
terrified. It’s 1969. We’re in James’s suite at the Beverley Comstock Hotel in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles. A few minutes earlier, downstairs, I’d
told him I had decided to leave his show and stay with some friends in LA. James didn’t want that. He turned on his charm and persuaded me not to go.
He said he was going to change and I believed him. So I went with him and Charles Bobbitt, his manager, into the hotel elevator to go up to his room.
As I walked into the elevator a sharp, violent kick to my backside pushed me to the floor. I lay there while James kicked me, over and over. Charles
Bobbitt stepped over me but did nothing to help.
A few minutes later I’m being bundled into James’s room. ‘So you were goin’ to leave me, Whit?’ he grunts. ‘I tell you what you gonna do. You’re gonna
[Censored] and fall back in it. [Censored] and fall back in it!’ He almost spat the words out as he pulled a gun on me.
So now I’m praying. Help me, Lord, I’m saying to myself, help me, Lord, and wondering how I got into this mess in the first place.
Read ‘God, The Devil and James Brown’ to find out how Marva ‘got into this mess’, and the whole long inspiring story of how she got out of it.
|
![[*]](images/guitar/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
