James Brown-"It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s..."

Unreleased 1964 recording

It runs about 3:17.

It was mixed to mono in 1985 on Polydor's CD Of JB.

It was mixed to stereo in 1991 on Polydor's 4-CD Star Time.

1966 hit version

It exists only in mono; the hit version was never mixed to stereo.

It runs 2:46 on some pressings and about 2:53 on other pressings. Mark M discovered that the 2:46 version just runs faster than the 2:53 version. The 2:53 version seems to be in the same key as the unreleased 1964 recording, so I'd bet that the 2:53 version is how it was recorded, and the 2:46 version was sped up from the original performance.

The 2:46 versions are well-represented on CD.    To recreate the 2:53 45 version, Mark slowed down the version on Rhino's Billboard Top R&B Hits 1966 by 5.25%.

Get this: it appears that all the CD versions of the hit are taken from vinyl!

On Rhino's Billboard Top R&B Hits (1989), there's a tick/pop at 1:33 in the word "man". This version is pretty clean-sounding (listen to "you see" at 0:37), but it fades about 4 beats sooner than others. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul Vol. 27 Deep Soul (1999) - The first part of the song is fine. It appears that Time-Life tried to fix the tick/pop at 1:33, but instead switched to fake stereo from 1:33 onward! Holy smoke, this sounds awful, especially in headphones. Avoid for this track.

On Polydor's 20 All-Time Greatest Hits (1991), there's a huge amount of distortion on the vocals. Listen to "you see" at 0:37, which is far more distorted here than on the Rhino CD. There's no tick/pop at 1:33 in the word "man". There's a little turntable rumble and some crackly-pops at the very end of the fade. Here, the track runs out to the end of the word "loneliness" at about 2:47. The same analog transfer is used on:

• MCA's Soul Train 25th Anniversary Box Set (1995)
• Polydor's JB 40: 40th Anniversary Collection (1996)

Polydor's 4-CD Star Time (1991) seems to use the same vinyl transfer, but with an insignificantly small speed difference. The sound quality is about the same as 20 All-Time Greatest Hits, but the fade runs a bit past the end of the word "loneliness" so you hear the start of another note. It runs 2:47.

Polydor's The 50th Anniversary Collection (2003) seems to also use the same vinyl transfer as 20 All-Time Greatest Hits, but mastered too loud and having a squashed dynamic range. I think it cleaned up some of the tick/pops, compared to the 1991 releases.

Hip-O Select/Polydor's The Singles Volume 4: 1966-1967 (2007) sounds about as clean as the Rhino disc, with relatively little distortion on the vocals (listen to "you see" at 0:37) and all the cracklies removed. Plus, it runs out to the end of the word "loneliness", like the 1991 masterings. But the clean-up software left some stereo-like artifacts behind (listen from about 0:17 to about 0:25 in headphones). There are also some unnaturally large mike-pop effects from the vocals (listen starting at 1:01 to the words "take us out of the dark", and you'll hear the T and the D have an unnaturally large bass bump). I would think that would have been EQ'd out of the vinyl pressings, to avoid having the needle bounce out of the groove. The bass bumps aren't on any of the earlier masterings.

My recommendation

Boy, this isn't an easy choice. You get to pick among: (1) an early fade, (2) severe vocal distortion, or (3) bass bumps from vocal mike pops and some noise-reduction artifacts.

I'm going to hesitantly pick Rhino's Billboard Top R&B Hits (1989), which has some cracklies and fades a bit early. I prefer these artifacts over the severe vocal distortion of the 1991 masterings. I also prefer these artifacts over the bass bumps and the weirdness left behind from the clean-up software. In an A/B/C test among the Rhino disc, STar Time and The Singles, the Rhino disc sounded more natural to me. Your results may vary.

Amazing to me that for such a big hit that peaked at #8 in 1966, the two-track mixdown tape seems to be missing, and the multi-track session tape seems also to be missing (or Dennis Drake surely would have produced a clean remix for the Star Time box set).

I've gone so many years hearing it sped up that it sounded
strange to hear it at the proper speed.

First, I went to Qobuz and downloaded the track from
Universal's Soul Hits Of The 60's which
runs the full 2:46. Then, I took the Billboard Top
R&B Hits (1989) and pasted on the ending of the
Soul Hits file, slowed it down by 4% and ended up with a
file running 2:53.


Edited by eriejwg