POP MUSIC REVIEW : James Brown Back With Grit, Glitz

In New York, they were welcoming back veterans as heroes with a ticker-tape parade. In Los Angeles, with a ravenous fanfare lacking only yellow ribbons and the slaying of fatted calves, they were recrowning a king.

And the new King James version is no less funky than the old.

The celebrity-heavy audience inside the Wiltern Theatre for James Brown’s first post-penitentiary concert Monday didn’t get to see the backstage proceedings, but viewers of the live pay-per-view telecast on cable were allowed to look on as no less a music fan than the Rev. Al Sharpton led Brown and his entourage in prayer before showtime.

And the terms in which Sharpton described the triumphantly returning soul superstar were less as a prodigal son than positively messianic.

“Now it’s time for the Godfather to come back to the head of the family, for the King of Soul to come back to his throne,” said Sharpton, mixing musical, political and biblical semantics in equal doses: “Now it’s time for the rejected stone to become the cornerstone for the new world order .”

Global domination aside, Brown was more than able to conquer the Wiltern, which was the important question of the night--given that he hadn’t performed publicly since before his controversial 1988 arrest and appeared to some as if he might have gotten out of shape in prison.

If anything, Brown, 53, proved actually in better form than in his mid-’80s appearances, both as a singer and executor of classically wily steps. Sweat and strain he can always provide in abundance--and sometimes does in place of the great vocal performances that established his career in the late ‘50s and ‘60s--but there were moments Monday that showed him still capable of recapturing the magic that made him one of the truly great entertainers of the rock era.

The crucial point and climax came early on with the third number, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” the most vocally demanding of his hourlong set. The big band’s sudden stops and starts--with Brown falling to one knee on cue--were vintage Brown Revue stuff; his vocal had its original, subtle shades of soul as well as volume and verve; and, best of all, he flawlessly executed a mike-stand-tip-full-spin-drop-down-catch with all the Olympian style you’d hope for, resulting in a standing ovation.

That said, it was an awfully campy presentation, too, though far from unenjoyably so.

Predictably, and reminiscent of the “Living in America” scene from “Rocky IV,” the choreography surrounding Brown veered between ‘70s Vegas and ‘60s variety-show TV. At times the eight dancing girls, plastered with unnatural grins throughout, looked as if they’d received their go-go training under Goldie Hawn at the Laugh-In Academy, or maybe from Susan Anton via Atlantic City.

But James Brown may be the only man who can do Vegas in L.A. and get away with it, perhaps because that style of eager-to-please revue showmanship has borrowed so much from his own brand over the years.

And as tackily conceived as some elements might have been--a glittery “JB” logo descending from the rafters during “Sex Machine,” U.S. flags popping out of dancing girls’ canes during “America,” et al--his dignity and mastery of his form are never in question. His true grit and the surrounding glitz, however unevenly matched, added up, as almost always, to an inordinately entertaining show.

Preceding Brown was one-and-a-half hours of warm-up entertainment, mostly one- or two-song appearances from contemporary black entertainers singing or rapping to recorded tracks. Between the canned nature of the music and the fact that the sound was clearly being mixed with an ear toward TV and not the live audience, such acts as Bel Biv DeVoe, Al B. Sure!, Kool Moe Dee and Tone Loc all failed to raise much energy in their brief appearances, though the always strong En Vogue circumvented the problem with an a cappella number.

M. C. Hammer made the strongest impression, not least because he’s the one act on the bill to have paid much public tribute to Brown, with his “Here Comes the Hammer” video and Brown-style remix--resurrected on stage with a live band and horn section and a virtual platoon of not-so-Vegasy dancers.

And on a bill that amply acknowledged modern R&B;’s IOU to Brown but, unfortunately, ignored rock’s significant debt, the excellent (but also sound-hampered) C+C Music Factory helped lessen the producers’ oversight by performing “Here We Go, Let’s Rock & Roll,” a song dedicated to making the interconnectedness of genres clear.