Originally Posted by
juicefree20
r&b
remember that in his early days, joe was also on the roster of king recoords. Who knows what effect that may have had on their relationship. Another thing that contributed to their problems was how some performers viewed james back then. According to several books & written accounts, joe's problems with james were for various reasons & encompassed several events.
From all accounts, james was known to be a guy who would do just about anything to upstage his fellow performers. Once james jumped to the stage from a balcony, on another occasion james kept falling to his knees until he tore a hole in the knees of his pants. They simply felt that james would do anything to steal the show & many of them didn't like that tendency. Many is the tale told about how a performer would acknowledge james when sitting in the audience, call him onstage to sing a song with them, only to have james damn near do a full show.
In peter guralnick's wonderful book, 'sweet soul music', alan walden related a story about a show that featured james, otis & joe. They had more than a little disdain for james & were conjuring up all sorts of tricks in order to upstage james. They did none of what they were considering [[riding on stage on a horse, flying in on a helicopter, etc.), but the fact that they even discussed it, gives some idea of how they felt about him.
There have been accounts that joe used to have 'soul brother #1' painted on his bus & james found out about it, which led to more words & tension between them. The 'mike trick' was yet another thorny issue between them. Back then [[today, as well), just about everyone 'borrowed' from other entertainers. Why this should've been a monumental problem, i don't know, but it became a pretty big issue between them.
Indeed joe had a beef with james over a woman & if memory serves me correctly, the woman was bea ford, who went on to sing the duet 'you've got the power' with james, but i'll check on that. Legend has it that james 'took' her from joe. Shortly afterward, joe received a letter from james, telling joe that he could have her back. You can hear joe's response to the situation in his song 'you keep her'.
Shortly after that, another situation occured at a show in macon, which featured james & joe sharing the bill. Joe came onstage with a raggedy, torn cape & began singing 'please, please, please', adding 'get me out of this cape' & the audience howled. Now james was the big star coming back to georgia & joe clowned him. Later that evening, otis was performing nearby & james learned that joe would be there & went there, quite the unhappy camper. If one is to believe the accounts given, there was a shootout, a few innocents were hit, but not seriously harmed & some money was passed out to the audience & the whole thing was kept under wraps.
It's possible that a few thing have been embellished over the years, i suspect that very little has been & if anything, i believe that there's even more that hasn't been said. My father used to run with both of them back in the early 60's & their rivalry was very, very real & very personal.
As for wilson, he's another guy that my father used to run with & when i was a little kid, my father told me that wilson could be cool, but had a terrible temper if you caught him on the wrong day. His situation with his neighbors, the isleys is the stuff that legends are made of!
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