When We Were Kings, Leon Gast’s definitive documentary on the fabled “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, started life as a concert film. As part of the associated festivities in Zaire, several funk and soul artists were there to stage a live show, which undoubtedly seemed like perfect fodder for a hit movie release back when Michael Wadleigh’s film of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair was still making the rounds to young, adoring and probably pretty stoned audiences. While there, Gast quickly figured out that the real story was happening over in the training gyms and then later in the ring. It may have taken him over twenty years to bring the film to fruition, but the finished product is phenomenal. And he had a bonus not readily available to a lot of Oscar-winning documentaries: a killer soundtrack.

While the focus was on the Ali-Foreman bout, Gast was able to snake in his concert footage, giving the film a racing pulse. And no one could get pulses racing like James Brown. There were plenty of sterling acts on the stage, but Gast understandably gives some of his most generous attention to the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, as if the camera itself is marveling at the pure energy being unleashed up there in the spotlight. I don’t know that any of the performances caught on film or transferred to the eventual CD soundtrack are essential in the way of, say, recordings of Brown’s legendary concerts at the Apollo. Maybe they’re just supplemental evidence to the man’s colossal talent, in much the same way that When We Were Kings was a timely reminder of Ali’s one-of-a-kind charisma at precisely the time illness was causing him to fade from public view. And I have to add: the songs sounded amazing piped through a theater sound system, even one as suspect as that utilized in the place I saw the film.

Listen or download –> James Brown, “Gonna Have a Funky Good Time”

(Disclaimer: It appears to me that the When We Were Kings soundtrack is out of print, which makes sharing this song fair game as it doesn’t disrupt the flow of commerce in a way that harms the original artist–or his estate, anyway–or the proprietor of your favorite local, independently-owned record store. I guess it’s possible that the track has wound up on some James Brown collection that can be bought properly, but there’s no way I’m going to sift through all that material trying to find the needle that is this song. I’m confident that placing this song in this space constitutes fair use, but I understand that opinions may differ. If I’m asked to remove it by someone or some entity with due authority to make such a request, I will gladly and promptly comply.)