In 1974, James Brown performed on “Soul Train,” but it was his 5-year-old daughter who stole the show.
“It was a big moment. I’ve had celebrities come to me and say, ‘’Are you the little girl dancing with your dad on TV?’” said Deanna Brown Thomas, who wore a jumpsuit that matched the one her famous father donned that day. “I remember standing on that stage under those lights.”
She recently got to revisit those dance moves as she attended rehearsal for a play she helped pen with Jeremy Cormier, an Atlanta playwright. Their collaboration, a musical called “Papa Didn’t Take No Mess” will be performed for three weekends in Decatur beginning Oct. 17.
Cormier is a long-time James Brown Family Foundation Board member who has traveled extensively with Thomas to various engagements over the years.
On those journeys, she shared stories with him of growing up with the Godfather of Soul. When Cormier first mentioned the idea of transforming her memories into a play, she laughed. She was too busy.
“I’ve got set things I have to do — J.A.M.P. (James Brown Academy of Musik Pupils), turkey and toy (the annual holiday giveaways) that I know I have to be there for. J.A.M.P. is all-year round. I’m definitely in the middle of turkeys and toys. I’m up to both hands and feet, legs, ears, eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes everything. I really wasn’t interested,” she said.
But Cormier was. And his commitment to preserving her memories and the Godfather’s legacy made her take notice. She started collaborating with him.
Thomas is a morning person. After her daily devotions, it was off to writing. She’d write and send it to Cormier.
“I’d get my God download then my Godfather download. It was coming so naturally to me. I’d remember things, little anecdotes. I realized this is really supposed to happen,” she said.
Growing up, she had one view of the man she called “Daddy.” She knew he was popular and that his job took him away for long periods of time. It wasn’t until she started her own career in radio that she came to appreciate the artist known to the world by nicknames including Mr. Dynamite and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. She also went on tour with him and styled his hair for many years.
No matter what city she was in, everyone seemed to have their own James Brown story.
She remembered a veteran who told her that her father’s music saved him while he was in Vietnam. It gave him the strength to keep going every day.
“People loved my father. The messages in his songs changed people’s lives,” she said.
While it’s James Brown through Deanna Brown Thomas’s eyes, “Papa Didn’t Take No Mess” is “legacy driven, love driven, community driven,” she said.
The title is a play on his song “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.”
“That was a song everybody danced to and enjoyed, but I lived it, so we changed it a little to ‘Papa Didn’t Take No Mess,’ and he didn’t,” she said.
Shows will be at 8 p.m. Oct. 17-18, 24-25, Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2 and 8 p.m. Oct. 19 and 26, 3 p.m., Oct. 20, 5 p.m., Oct. 27 at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center, 3181 Rainbow Dr, Decatur. Tickets are $40-$55 and are available here.
Some of the proceeds will benefit the foundation and its’ programs, and she hopes that Atlanta is only the first of many stops for the production.
“Let us hope that God and the Godfather are happy with our work, and we get those blessings,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Great to read that JB daughter collaborated with someone to acknowledge his GREATNESS not just for what he performed and recorded but the man I remember as a little girl that always sent me messages through Gertrude and always sent messages complimenting my poem/lyrics I gave to her for him and paid me with my favorite candy bar Hershey’s (one poem one candy bar) was a kind and sacrificial man as well as a man who kept promises I am sorry I didn’t check out when he passed that he would have his children have the foundation. I hope the musical shows how he did many pro awareness songs.Him and Mr. Sinatra left me with a humorous memory that happened the year or two after Mr
King died with someone who I doubt remembers this
I was told to say hello to Mr. Joe who I asked when I saw him in sunglasses and a fur coat why he was óut of the store and why he was in a fur coat waiting for the parade JB and Mr. Sinatra laughed and told me it wasn’t Mr. Joe who owned the grocery store on 7th ave near 148th st next to Thelma’s but none other than the quarterback known also as Broadway Joe . I always thought when remembering that occasion how sadly it was the last time I would see both of them and how happy it makes me to remember a Harlem where people had friends like Uncles Franks that helped people out up there and places like Small’s Paradise had like the best Chinese restaurant in New York was in Harlem to me and memories given to me by those that are known as legends and icons but to me were gentle men who I always remember who stood up for each other and others.Men who started not from mansions but who opened doors and spoke up for others as well as encouraged me through the years by just having memories of them and the Harlem of the sixties where I learned from men like JB and Powell and Rangel and Sinatra that we are all family friends and lovers that as long as we remember the good we’ve been taught we can always get up and have a brand new day.
Thanks babygirl for remembering a man who next to the Creator has always inspired me to write my heart on paper.
MAY OUR PRECIOUS LORD CONTINUE BESTOWING MULTIPLIED BLESSINGS UPON YOU AND YOUR BELOVED FAMILY , BELOVED.GRACE BE UNTO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER , AND OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.. KEEP MOVING.
( REMEMBERING our working at WERD. ATLANTA, together ❤️ 🙏 ✝️