As Brown's music progressed into the late '60s, it moved away from "soul" and towards "funk." The rhythm became the most important element. "James kept adding better musicians as time went on," according to Melvin Parker. "He started With the rhythm section, then built up to the horns. [Band leader] Nat Jones brought a cleanliness to the band's sound. The unit just got better and better-we could play chases, anybody's music."

According to Stubblefield, "In those days we didn't use monitors, either. I remember playing Soldiers Field in Chicago once. We were down on the field and we had these little Vox PA. systems. I looked way up at the top rows, and I'm trying to figure out how they're going to hear us. But they were up there rockin'! My hands were bleeding. I couldn't stop, though. Blood was "7 everywhere from hitting those drums so hard."

But tunes still came together quickly. In the studio, the band would set up so that James would be visible to the players the way he was on stage. This was for one simple reason: Playing in James' band required that you pay ; attention to James, because song arrangements weren't etched in stone; they were often ad-libbed.

You can hear it on the records: James' famous demand, "Take me to the bridge!", his directions to drop out and "give the drummer some." In addition, James would "conduct" the players to do certain things based on his body signals. "He would twitch, and I would catch it," explains Jabo. "If he turned one way real quick, that was a particular lick. Or when he went down on his knees during 'Please Please Please,' there would be a lick for that. You'd see him run his hand up by his face, and that would be another lick. He would do other things and that meant a choked cymbal. Those were the things that added to the show and made it more exciting."

When songs were being worked up, Brown would verbally describe what he wanted rhythms to sound like. On outtakes from his records, you can hear James grunting or imitating the sounds of the drums, trying to get the drummers to make often very subtle changes on accents and such. One must remember that this was a very rhythmically advanced band at this time. It's not so much that they were playing technically complex parts. It was more about the band being like one big rhythmic ensemble, and the balance of all the instruments (often including a few guitars and several horns) was very delicate. Since James didn't read music, though-and since "you couldn't really write that music out," according to Jabo Starks, "you . couldn't write that feel"-a lot was left up to the drummers to interpret. They had the delicate job of giving James what he heard in his head, yet making it work within the rest of the tune.