Luciano Pavarotti & James Brown - It's a man's world (live)
James Brown performed with Luciano Pavarotti on May 28,2002 at a concert titled, "Pavarotti & Friends" benefiting the people of Angola.
This pairing an unexpected duo.
Pavarotti's more formal operatic style teamed with The Godfather of Soul, James Brown.
Two men blessed with incredibly powerful voices balance and complement each other so surprisingly well.
The song's lyrics, which Rolling Stone characterized as "almost biblically chauvinistic", attribute all the works of modern civilization (the car, the train, the electric light) to the efforts of men, but claim that it all would "mean nothing without a woman or a girl."
Brown's co-writer and onetime girlfriend, Betty Jean Newsome, wrote the lyrics based on her own observations of the relations between the sexes.
In later years, Newsome would claim that Brown didn't write any part of the song and argued in court that Brown sometimes forgot to pay her royalties.
The composition of It's a Man's Man's Man's World developed over a period of several years. Tammy Montgomery, better known as Tammi Terrell, recorded "I Cried", a Brown-penned song based on the same chord changes, in 1963. Brown himself recorded a demo version of the song, provisionally entitled "It's a Man's World", in 1964. This version later appeared on the CD compilations The CD of JB and Star Time.
The released version of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" was recorded quickly, in only two takes, with a studio ensemble that included members of Brown's touring band and a string section arranged and conducted by Sammy Lowe. A female chorus was involved in the recording sessions, but their parts were edited out of the song's final master.
"It's a Man's Man's Man's World" became a staple of Brown's live shows for the rest of his career. Its slow, simmering groove and declamatory vocal line made it suitable for long, open-ended performances incorporating spoken ruminations on love and loss and sometimes interpolations from other songs.
It appears on almost all of Brown's live albums starting with 1967's Live at the Garden. Brown also recorded a big band jazz arrangement of the song with the Louie Bellson Orchestra for his 1970 album Soul on Top.
In 2004, "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" was ranked number 123 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
The song has been recorded by many artists in various idioms over the years.
The lyrics:
This is a man's world, this is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
You see, man made the cars, to take us over the road
Man made the train, to carry the heavy load
Man made the electric light, to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark
This is a man's, man's, man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy, 'cause man make them toys
And after man make everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money, to buy from other man
This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing not one little thing
Without a woman or a girl
He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness
He's lost, lost somewhere
