Just over two years ago American R&B star Chris Brown was celebrity public enemy number one after his savage pummelling of his girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. Brown was vilified in the press and TV and radio refused to play his records. As Rihanna was catapulted to worldwide superstardom, Brown started his comeback at the unlikely setting of a tribute concert for Michael Jackson and about a year later scored the most successful album of his career. To me, he’ll always be a nasty piece of shit, but I do wonder if my moral indignation would be as strong if I liked his music.
A few months ago, Beverly Martyn – widow of the legendary John Martyn – published her autobiography revealing her much loved rogueish drunk of a husband was actually a rather nasty wife-beater. She waited until his death before publishing, as she was worried about reaction from the public. Solid Air is one of my favourite albums, but I’ve yet to listen to it since reading about this.
The most notorious wife beater of them all, Ike Turner, although arguably the founder of rock n’ roll and a pioneering guitarist, will forever be cast as the villain due to his brutal treatment of his ex-wife Tina. (Graphically immortalised in the film What’s Love Got to Do With It.)
Ike descended into a downward spiral of drug abuse, but his last few years brought partial redemption with Grammy successes and an appearance on the Gorillaz album Demon Days. One of my all time favourite songs, River Deep Mountain High, was ironically masterminded by the equally messed up – and now convicted murderer – Phil Spector.
None of this is new. Growing up, I was a huge Michael Jackson fan (Thriller was the first album I bought); alarm bells started ringing the first time I saw his distorted white face on the Bad video. Things got worse as Jacko’s plastic surgery got more extreme; his behaviour grew increasingly odd, and then came the barrage of sexual abuse claims – of which his handling hardly reeked of innocence.
I opted for the moral middle ground and chose to stick to listening to Jackson’s output prior to his ‘problems’, which is handy for me as the quality of his music decreased as his problems increased. Jackson’s untimely demise resulted in widespread praise from all manner of musicians and commentators with all the negativity seemingly swept under the rock ‘n’ roll rug, and the months following his death saw Jackson’s music sell in huge numbers.
Dubious private lives
For whatever reason society seems to have different rules for musicians as to the behaviour we tolerate from them, but would deem unacceptable in normal life. It’s not always consistent and it does relate to the level of stardom, or musical talent, and the level of affection the public has for them. The Ryan Giggs super-injunction case was a massive story a few weeks back, clearly Giggs completely misjudged the situation, but what’s even more interesting is that there’s been no mention of rock stars taking out super-injunctions. With celebrities, they’re primarily to cover up affairs, which are seen as the norm when it comes to musicians. The likes of Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Tom Jones were lauded for their manly ‘prowess’, revelling in their ladies man image, regularly being papped with a succession of ‘leggy lovelies’, whilst nobody really gave a toss for the wife at home being humiliated by this behaviour, or their kids being teased at school. In real life such antics would be deemed out of order, but as it’s a rock legend many laugh it off with an envious chuckle –even I absolutely love Rod. (Tell me not all of Rod, Dave, tell me not all? – Ed)
Space prevents mention of more musicians with dubious private lives such as R Kelly, Rick James, Chuck Berry, Tommy Lee and Jerry Lee Lewis, but we’ll end with the godfather of soul James Brown. Arguably the ultimate figure in black music, an all round cultural icon and a dominant presence on what we still listen to today.
Brown was born into a life of crime and poverty and managed to emerge as a successful artist and businessman, but his private life was far from idyllic, numerous domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment and rape charges were brought against him coming to a head in 1988, with a multiple state police car chase where he was jailed on firearms and drugs charges. With James Brown I’m a moral contradiction, I was thoroughly immersed in his music before I found out he was a rather unpleasant man, and whilst much of Brown’s private life is unforgivable, in this case I have chosen to like the art, not the artist.
feature originally appeared in Leither Magazine, June 2011.
Outageously, only 8 months after publication Chris Brown made his prodigal son comeback at the Grammies and was rumoured to be again seeing Rihanna…….
noisy little words 