In response to 3.13.14 HE piece called “The New Ray?,” HE commenter Anna Zed wrote the following: “I knew James Brown, and his bombastic personality and absolutely unmistakeable personal style (not to mention his checkered personal life) really don’t seem like they would lend themselves to this kind of glossy wash to me.
“As you say physically he was a very dark-skinned black man, intensely muscular and frenetic, thick necked and small (not matinee idol material at all, or even lead singer style for the period that he emerged) who just burst past all of these qualities that might seem to have hindered his appeal by sheer force of will, fantastic charisma, unstoppable originality as a musical stylist and an almost psychotic belief in himself (like Muhammad Ali).