Live At the Apollo, Vol. 2 (Deluxe Edition)

iTunes Review

James Brown could elicit gasps and screams with his stop-on-a-dime movements, but the musical shifts on his second volume of Apollo Theater recordings, from 1967, are even more breathtaking. This deluxe remastered edition adds nearly a half hour of sound to the original double LP, including extensions of the slow-drag “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man World” breakdown that recalls JB’s earlier Live at the Apollo and the funk medley that takes in “Let Yourself Go” and its sequel hit “There Was a Time,” among others. The set also nods back to Frank Sinatra’s recent R&B-tinged “That’s Life,” with Brown insisting on both the universality of the human experience and his right to stand next to the great crooner as a musical force. That force was building in snowballing power, as this stunning recording proves.