The Godfather of Soul January 26, 2005 Introduction We will look into the life of James Brown. He is known for his music. In his life, he had to face many obstacles, but through determination, he changed his life cycle. We will touch on the influences in his life, developmental stage and theories that best fit his personality. James Brown was born on May 3, 1933, in South Carolina. He lived a life without parental guidance. His mother left him with his father when he was only 4 years old. James was often left alone while his father traveled to turpentine camps selling tar for a living. James recalls the times he spent alone walking around in the woods looking for doodlebugs, and playing a harmonic his father gave him. …show more content…
This type of upbringing forced him to have a mind of his own taking care of himself without his parents. The last influence on James's life was the church. Here he learned about God and the bible. James has stated that he would leave all his pain and worry to the Lord, because he was the only person that could fix his problems. The church certainly gave him the support during his developmental growth as a child. He never received that from his parents because they were not around. If James's parents had been around during his developmental stages, he probably could have avoided going to prison. He would have received the nurturing a child needs during development. Who knows how he would have turned out; music may not have been part of his life. Because of his environment in which he grew up that gave him the determination that he had to be successful in life. Personality Theory Looking deeper into James's personality my assumption would be that he is extroversion and Freud's theory of superego. Han Eysenck's view of personality traits is that they are inherited. He believes that there are two types of people we encounter extroversion and introversion. In reviewing Eysenck's information, there is two second-order factors extroversion and neuroticism. An extroversion viewed in terms of activity, sociability, risk-taking, impulsiveness, expressiveness, reflectiveness and
Moreover into his life he really began to gain momentum towards his life when he started school. He began Pre-k in a private catholic school St. Anthony. He would gain life experiences by the little things that happened to him. Expecting another classmate to be his friend and ultimately being told that they're not friends made James cry. However, he has learned not to cry when a person does not feel the same way but rather find someone that does. One of his closest friends during Pre-K was Phillip but their friendship would end like most would during such a young age, by going to different schools. James then went to finish most of his elementary classes in St. Joseph’s Catholic School, another private school. There he would go and become more sociable with his peers and had a level of comfortable around them. So much so that he would make a YouTube channel simply titled “James Craw”. Here he would record himself and friends performing skits and the interesting parts of his life he wanted to
To begin with, James McBride took the death of his stepfather rough. To explain, “ I virtually dropped out of high school after he died, failing every class”. (Chapter 2) . James no longer felt the energy to continue to go to school if he was going to not even pay attention due to the constant distraction of his father's death. In addition, James Mcbride got out of control and started acting like a criminal. To show, “ I shoplifted. I even robbed a drug dealer once” (Chapter 2). James Mcbride was not the kind of person to even think about committing such acts when his father was alive, but his anger has caused him to act in a
James retorts, " I never knew who I was. It wasn 't ' so much of a question of searching for myself as it was my own decisions not to look." It was only when James uncovers the life of his mother does he begin to understand the complexity within himself, noting that, "the uncertainty that lived inside me began to dissipate; the ache that the little boy who stared in the mirror felt was gone." By uncovering Ruth 's earlier life, James could understand his own singularity, thus creating the identity he sought his life to achieve.
Since James was hardly at home he started hanging with friends which he later described as “family”, “My friends became my family, and my family and mother just became people i lived with” (McBride 140). James was the the first kid on his block to smoke and reefer, he got into bad habits with his friends which led to him quitting church. This shows how both James and Ruth were in a bad situation. After some time passed Ruth sent him to Louisville, Kentucky with his sister Jack. James liked the idea it was liberty for him. He would hang out with Jacks’ husbands’ boys on “the corner”, James idolized them.Then one day he was talking with “Chicken Man” one of the guys on the corner, chicken man gave him a lecture and told him that the life he had was not something James deserved. “ You think if you drop out of school
James grew up in a racist and segregated part of history. Often times racial slurs were used to describe people of African descent during the time James was growing up. Even during school James would be called these horrendous names: “...someone in the back of the class whispered, “James is ni**er!” followed by a ripple of tittering and giggling across the room” (McBride 89). The fact that small school children call blacks these names shows how racist the many people are and the hatred and discrimination that blacks face. These experience taught James how people treat those that appear to be different. Another experience that taught James this was when he and his family went to the Jewish store and were discriminated against. McBride had many experiences in which he and his family were discriminated against whether it was by the police or store owners: “Some of these Jews can’t stand you” (86). All in all, incidents with people who have a particular dislike for blacks shaped James into the way
Despite the fact that he respected his mother, James grew to question her unorthodox strictness and unusual teachings. Eventually, he graduated college to become a press writer and a jazz musician, yet he still felt incomplete. James says "Play sax, write books, compose music, do something, express yourself, who the hell are you anyway? There were two worlds bursting inside me trying to get out. I had to find out more about who I was..." (330). Even though James has a great job that pays well, he still quits because he wishes to figure out who he is. By saying this, he proves that he wants to find his identity and reason for continuing his line of work. I chose this quote because it clearly demonstrates how James feels about finding his identity.
This is fueled by, not only the changing emotions that teenagers typically endure, but also by the death of his stepfather, whom he saw as his own father. After his death, James cannot bear to see his mother suffer, for she no longer knows how to control the dynamics of the family and "wandered in an emotional stupor for nearly a year." James instead turns to alcohol and drugs, dropping out of school to play music and go around with his friends, which James refers to as "my own process of running, emotionally disconnecting myself from her, as if by doing to I could keep her suffering from touching me." Instead of turning to his family and becoming "the king in the house, the oldest kid," James "spent as much time away from home as possible absolve[ing] [himself] of all responsibility " As a result, Ruth sends James to live with his older half sister and her husband, in an attempt to straighten her out her son's life. James distracts himself with the life he found there, spending the summers on a street corner with his half sister's husband, Big Richard, whom he adores, and the unique men that frequented the area. During these summers, James discovers "[He] could hide. No one knew [him]. No one knew [his] past, [his] white mother, [his] dead father, nothing. It was perfect. [His] problems seemed far, far away." Instead of facing the realities of loss and anger in his family, James seeks distractions
The person I chose to do my project on is Louis Armstrong. I chose Louis Armstrong because I wanted to do my project on a singer as well as a musician. I chose him because he was one of the few people that I knew about, also because I did some research on him and listened to his music and I thought that he was interesting to write about. My main three things that I’m going to discuss about Louis Armstrong will be his life, his music and influence on others. I’m going to describe how and where Louis Armstrong’s grew up and how he started out his career as a trumpeter. I’m also going to write about how he went through life and how that affected him in the future. Lastly, I’m going to discuss with you how he had an influence on others. I’m going to explain how he impacted the world with his music and how that affected so many people to this day. Louis Armstrong made a great impact in the world and I’m going to teach you all about it.
Throughout African American history, especially during slavery music has been used as a coping mechanism to assist one with enduring hardship and opposition. Music specifically jazz and the blues can have many boundless effects on one’s life. In this case, in Sonny’s life, music was his only source of hope and strength to redemption.
Considering the environment in which James grew up certainly had an impact on his life. Some of the influences in his life were being poor, racism, his parents and the church. The areas that affected his moral development stem from when he grew up, doing the time of segregation. Segregation had an impact on how he viewed the world. He felt that everyone should be treated equally. James’s moral belief was that blacks should have a choice, and have the same opportunities as others. When he saw the separate drinking fountains for whites and blacks, he recalls the mental pain, but for him only God could take care of. He used his music as away to communicate how he felt. Growing up poor affected James’s emotional development. He never wanted any handouts.
Born in Alton, Illinois, Miles Davis grew up in a middle-class family in East St. Louis. Miles Davis took up the trumpet at the age of 13 and was playing professionally two years later. Some of his first gigs included performances with his high school bandand playing with Eddie Randall and the blue Devils. Miles Davis has said that the greatest musical experience of his life was hearing the Billy Eckstine orchestra when it passed through St. Louis. In September 1944 Davis went to New York to study at Juilliard but spend much more time hanging out on 52nd Street and eventually dropped out of school. He moved from his home in East St. Louis to New York primarily to enter school but also to locate his musical idol,
For example, the text says” I hold Isaac’s hand as we cross the street.” Just a small action like that proves that James doesn’t want Isaac to be in danger or, in hazards of going out, even though being there is dangerous already. Now, I think James has more care for his brother, seeing that he put himself and Isaac at risk. He probably knew that this would be dangerous from the start, but still did it because he wants to be cool. I think James is also regretting his decision of being attractive , and wishing that he just followed the rules and stayed home with
During my early years of school, I remember being taught white accomplishments and wondering if blacks and other people of color had made any significant contributions to today's world. I noticed that television consist of all white people. Throughout my research paper I hope to cover certain aspects of African American heritage. Aspects such as blacks making up the largest minority group in the United States, although Mexican-Americans are rapidly changing that. The contributions blacks have provided to our country are immeasurable. Unfortunately though rather than recognizing these contributions, white America would rather focus on oppressing and degrading these people. As a consequence American
Everything started going downhill from there and that's where the conflict of interest begins. James left the house in the mornings but didn't go to school and says himself that he was practically a dropout. "I spent as much time away from home as possible. I quit church and avoided my deeply religious godparents. I was the first kid on my block to smoke cigarettes and reefer" (McBride, 138) shows the ways he was acting out, also including stealing from freight cars with his friends. He was even caught by the police once. With James out of the house all the time, his mother suffered more because no one was there to help her with her young children. He was hurting but was too stubborn to admit it and "reefer and wine helped me to forget any pain, and as the pain and guilt increased, my problems with drugs worsened" (McBride, 142). All the while his mother knew nothing about it. Until one day when he gave her a forged report card with a grade unlike his usual ones and she called the school only to find out something way worse than what she expected. From then on, James spent the summers with his sister Jack in Kentucky who his mother thought could straighten him out. Jack's husband lets James run free with him and he finds himself often at a place called the
James Joseph Brown, Jr., a.k.a. James Brown was born in Barnwell, State of South Carolina May 3, 1933. At his age of four, he moved to Georgia to live with his Aunt. At his young age, Brown was in the time of the Great Depression so he took whatever job that he could find just to make some money. In 1944, Brown showed his talent for the first time and won first place for an open music convention in Lenox Theater. Later on, Brown got kicked out of school at the age of twelve for not having proper clothing. Now that Brown does not need to go to school, he worked full-time with the low paying jobs. Because of his harsh life growing up in the racism society, Brown had hold on to music