Remembering James Brown
This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.
When I was in high school my best friends and I didn't listen to rock and roll. We listened to R&B. Pop music just didn't cut it for us. We were looking for more.
One of my best memories from those days was going to the A&W root beer stand after football practice and arguing about who was better, Wilson Pickett or James Brown.
The beat, the horns, the style; nothing was more exotic or enticing to us lily white suburban kids than soul music.
In the late sixties, when James Brown was at his frenetic best, it was his music that cracked into the psyches of many of us who lived in what was still a very much segregated America.
As kids, we knew about Martin Luther King in some sort of vague, evening news way. But James Brown was in our culture. And even if our parents regularly used the "n" word, we knew we wouldn't because you wouldn't use a word like that about someone you liked so much.
Harry's daily commentary can be heard on many CBS Radio News affiliates across the country.