Licking Stick - Licking Stick
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Album Summary
Dropped in the summer of 1968 on King Records, 'Licking Stick - Licking Stick' was a single release from the Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown, recorded with his tight, sweat-soaked ensemble The Famous Flames. Produced by James Brown alongside his longtime collaborator Alfred Ellis — the man who helped sharpen that razor-edged funk — this record came straight out of the fire of one of the most creatively explosive periods in Brown's career. The track was split across two sides, Part 1 and Part 2, a format Brown knew how to work like nobody's business, letting the groove breathe and stretch across the full vinyl real estate. This was James Brown in full command of the funk universe he was building, and King Records was right there with him.
Reception
- "Licking Stick - Licking Stick" was a genuine chart success, climbing into the upper reaches of the Billboard R&B singles chart in 1968, confirming that James Brown's audience was locked in tight with wherever he wanted to take the music.
- The record crossed over with enough pop appeal to also register on the Billboard Hot 100, demonstrating the broad commercial reach that James Brown had cultivated by this point in his career.
- Critics and fans alike recognized the track as a pure distillation of the hard funk sound Brown was perfecting — lean, percussive, and relentlessly rhythmic.
Significance
- "Licking Stick - Licking Stick" stands as one of the early landmark recordings in the development of hard funk, stripping the music down to its rhythmic skeleton and pointing the way toward the genre's future.
- The call-and-response interplay between James Brown and The Famous Flames on this record is a master class in ensemble funk performance, capturing a live, spontaneous energy that would define the sound of Black popular music moving into the 1970s.
- Released during one of the most turbulent years in American history, this record carried the raw, assertive energy of a community demanding to be heard — James Brown was not just making music, he was making a statement about Black pride and power through every note and grunt.
Samples
- "Licking Stick - Licking Stick (Part 1)" — one of the most heavily sampled tracks in James Brown's catalog, with its driving rhythm and horn stabs lifted by countless hip-hop and funk producers across decades of recorded music.
- "Licking Stick - Licking Stick (Part 2)" — also drawn upon by producers seeking the raw percussive and vocal textures that made the original such an irresistible source of raw material.
Tracklist
-
A Licking Stick - Licking Stick (Part 1) —
2:50
-
B Licking Stick - Licking Stick (Part 2) —
2:15
Artist Details
James Brown & The Famous Flames came together in Augusta, Georgia in the mid-1950s, a powerhouse collective that fused gospel fire, raw rhythm and blues, and hard-driving soul into something the world had never quite felt before — a sound so funky it could make the floors shake and the walls sweat. James Brown, the self-proclaimed Hardest Working Man in Show Business, led this outfit with a ferocity and precision that reshaped not just soul and funk, but laid the very groundwork for hip-hop, disco, and every groove-based genre that followed, earning him the title of the Godfather of Soul for a reason. Their cultural significance runs deep — from being the soundtrack of Black pride and empowerment during the Civil Rights era to influencing virtually every major rhythm-based artist who came after them, James Brown & The Famous Flames didn't just make music, they made history.
