PW: In your memoir, you write that your work in the 1950s and '60s was an attempt at leading African-American musicians out of record-industry exploitation. Has the situation progressed since then?
It hasn't progressed a lot. There were a lot of people who could have done more but just kind of let it get away from them. Black musicians today still have a problem getting into the entertainment business, unless they want to go into rap. Luckily I started all that. When I came along all the little white kids couldn't get into African-American music and now they're into it.
African-Americans are doing better because of rap—it's the number one music in the world, but they don't have enough facilities and places to play. The way rap performers dress and the atmosphere that they create winds up hindering people coming out to see their shows. Club owners consider rap acts a risk, so the artists don't get the venues. The same thing happened to me years ago when rock and roll was just starting.
In your book you're critical of rap with offensive lyrics.
It kind of irritates me that they're taking the intelligence out of show business. I want to see artists brightening up their future and setting their own example for young people, so hopefully when the young people become presidents or congressmen or governors they'll have that same spirit.
So you think the artists need to take more responsibility?
They can't take responsibility because they don't control themselves no more, not like they used to.
Your book reveals how you started out in boxing and baseball. It's clear that African-Americans are hugely successful in music and in sports. Do you think this poses a stereotyping problem?
I feel they're taking what they can get, like I did too; but God led me in the right direction. If I had been lucky enough to make it in sports I would have upstaged my music career and I'd be out of it today. Had I been lucky, or rather, unlucky enough to make it years ago, I'd be talking now about how I made it big in history, but I wouldn't have a future. Now, I'm an older person but my act is super clean, made out of hard work, sweat, good manners and good integrity.
You write, "I still feel a little tightness when appearing before mixed audiences." What does that mean?
Well, they're two different cultures and you have to pick the right song that cuts through the both of them, like "Living in America" or "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," things like that. And my tunes cut right through them and make them want to get up and dance. "Sex Machine" and "I Feel Good"—those are different kinds of songs, not like the songs I was writing years ago for black people to get a more advanced concept of what they were dealing with, that they ought to stick together and vote and do all the things that it takes to make a productive citizen.
You were friends with racial conservatives like George Wallace, who was governor of Alabama, and President Nixon. You've also said "people can learn and people can change," but these friendships were controversial and cost you some young black support. Do you have any regrets?
I don't have regrets for anything I've done; I just wish I would have done more. I met with governors who were called racists but were caught up in the whole system of trying to be a politician. Senator Strom Thurmond, who was like a grandfather to me, told me one time that a politician will say anything to win. I guess it's a business, isn't it? Whatever happens, it's not because they want to be bad. They have good intentions and they probably go so far and then they find themselves monopolizing something they shouldn't be monopolizing. But in their heart they're trying to do good.
In your book you tell about going to Vietnam in 1968 to perform for the troops. Would you play for the troops in Iraq?
If they wanted me to and I needed to play I'd be glad to do it because the troops would like to come home. Apparently on both sides over there they like James Brown music. Maybe I'd get a cassette player and a track and a microphone and put on a show without a band. Do "I Feel Good" or something like that. But I don't want to get out there and get in the way of their plans.
