WHEN JAMES BROWN CAME TO TOWN
Mr. Dynamite. Soul Brother No. 1. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.
The Godfather of… School? James Brown (Say it loud! Say it proud!) once made a surprise visit in September 1977 to West Palm Beach’s Twin Lakes High School, now the Dreyfoos School of the Arts.
Brown — who would have turned 85 today — did it in fabulous James Brown style, according to The Palm Beach Post’s coverage of the event. Wearing a stylish ’70s brown leisure suit, he arrived in a Fleetwood Cadillac and walked into the school at lunchtime with an entourage of three bodyguards and his manager, accompanied by a chorus of screaming students.
He immediately got sent to the principal’s office.
Five minutes later, he emerged, signed autographs, got hugs and laid down something funky (Pt. 1 and Pt. 2) for the kids to think about:
Part 1: Please, please, please: Stay in school, go to college. “You can’t make it without an education.”
Part 2: Don’t be a dropout: Avoid drugs. “Stay off dope and make the best of your school years.”
Brown, who dropped out himself in seventh grade and put a portion of his income into scholarships and educational opportunities for youth, then got back in his Cadillac and took off.
Michael Brown (no relation) remembers it as if it were yesterday. A longtime local lawyer
and former mayor of Riviera Beach, he was a Twin Lakes senior and student council vice-president when he was asked to escort the singer around campus.
“What I remember being most surprised about is how all the students — and the school had a diverse population — went crazy,” he said. “It almost became like a mob. I became like a security guard.”
The student who would go on to attend Howard University — and was wearing the school’s T-shirt that day — recalled the music legend as being “very encouraging about education. His message was to inspire and uplift the kids.”
He’s not sure why Brown chose Twin Lakes, but is still glad he did. “He was a big star. He was Prince or Michael Jackson before Prince or Michael Jackson.”
From the ’60s to the new century, Brown was a concert fixture in Palm Beach County, where he appeared everywhere from the West Palm Beach Auditorium to the Delray Beach Tennis Center, Kravis Center and SunFest.
Any James Brown concert was an event (Have you seen “The T.A.M.I. Show”? Listened to “Live At The Apollo”?), but those ’60s shows must have been something else. A Palm Beach Post ad for a June 13, 1969 concert at the auditorium called him “The Living Legend” and “The Man, The Humanitarian.”
It promised a “Big 14 Piece Orchestra,” a comedian, “singing sensation” Marva Whitney, the “JB Dancers” and “Go Go Girls.”
But what must have felt nice, like sugar and spice: The ticket prices were $4 to $5.