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August 26, 2013 11:14 AM   Subscribe

On September 28, 1988, James Brown led police on a two-state high-speed chase, for which he ultimately served three years in prison on a six-year sentence. This spectacle has been memorialized in two songs I know of: Big Audio Dynamite's James Brown and Pop Will Eat Itself's Not Now James, We're Busy. Are there other songs that chronicle this event?

Any genre would be accepted--it's funny to me that the only two songs I have are from UK acts.

Bonus question: was this the first celebrity high-speed chase? I assume it was the first televised celebrity high-speed chase, but were there amazing stories of, I don't know, Jimmy Stewart pushing 80 in his Bel Air at 2 a.m. on the Vegas Strip that I don't know about?
posted by Admiral Haddock to Media & Arts (5 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
LA Style's James Brown Is Dead was certainly inspired by it, though 4 years later.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:18 AM on August 26, 2013


And there's the apocryphal story that Mrs. James Brown tried to assert that her husband had "diplomatic immunity" because he was the Ambassador of Soul.
posted by John Borrowman at 12:19 PM on August 26, 2013


The 1989 song Car Thief on the Paul's Boutique album by the Beastie Boys references the event:

"The godfather of soul is in the belly of the beast"
posted by JennyJupiter at 4:15 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Free James Brown" by Robert Lucsson? There's a Foetus song by the same name, but it really isn't about the chase incident.
posted by mumkin at 12:47 AM on August 27, 2013


I believe Public Enemy's Who Stole the Soul? references this in the first verse.
posted by rocketman at 2:53 PM on August 27, 2013


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