Ear Fuzz

James Brown Regrooved

James Brown – Get Up Off That Thing – Regrooved by Featurecast
James Brown – My Thang – Regrooved by DJP
James Brown – It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World – Regrooved by Parker

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Other remixes

James Brown – Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag – DJ Eli Escobar Remix

I AM NOT a fan of remixes of songs originally created by great artists, especially when it comes to classic funk ; the remixes have to be done really really right for me to enjoy them.

During the whole Michael Jackson memorial week, I couldn’t even start getting into all of the MJ remixes, to me, they just seemed poorly conceived and unfunky. I think I found one I liked – the Saalam Remi remix of ‘ABC’ and I was already aware of Bird Peterson’s awesome remix of ‘Thriller’.

Yet I found a new collection of funk remixes I’m really enjoying now. This one remixes the Minister of the Super Heavy Funk – James Brown.

I was peeping the newly created ‘Twitter Music Chart’ built by the Hype Machine – you can peep the new chart here yourself – http://hypem.com/#/twitter/popular/1/ . At position #4 on the chart that particular day, I found a dubstep oriented rework of James Brown’s ‘It’s a Man’s World’ by a guy named DJ Parker. This one is proper – I’m not a dubstep fan, but I dug this. The bass layered on top of this, the congas, it’s just makes for a nice but clean bubbling update of what is typically a rare JB ballad.

It turns out DJ Parker’s rework of ‘Man’s World’ is part of a larger collection of James Brown remixes put out by UK based Good Groove Records – http://www.myspace.com/goodgrooverecords. I would head over to their page and read the back story and artist roster they have.

What’s really good is that Good Groove is offering the entire collection of James Brown remixes as part of it’s ‘ReGrooved Series’. You can download the ZIP folder here that contains the entire collection.

Some other picks from this collection are at top of the post.

I thoroughly got down with the Featurecast Edit of ‘Get Up Off That Thang’. I plan to earpeep more of Featurecast’s edits in a minute over at his MySpace page. The ‘Get Up’ take here offers a clean remix; Featurecast adds some subtle disco elements, a thicker beat and scratches and hip hop samples. I jammed to it on my run across San Francisco this morning and I swear I was about to stop jogging and break into a street dancing routine.

Also recommended in the collection is the Basement Freaks’ take on ‘My Thang’. This remix adds in a little dingle dongle synth in, plus some vocals from other James Brown songs like ‘Get Up, Get Into and Get Involved’ over the top. This remix, or should I say ‘regroove’ as Good Groove Records dubs it, just delivers right on time, right on the one.

Know of other good James Brown remixes? Let us know in the comments. Most of the spring of 2009, I was jamming on DJ Eli Escobar’s nice re-edit of ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’. But to me it’s more than just a re-edit, it is simply, ‘CLAPTASTIC’!, and a very proper remix.