James Brown and His Famous Flames-Please, Please, Please

James Brown and His Famous Flames

Review by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Though James Brown and His Famous Flames had scored an R&B Top 10 hit in 1956 with "Please, Please, Please," and Brown's next nine singles for Federal Records flopped until "Try Me," his third single of 1958, scored. That was when King Records (Federal's parent label) assembled this, Brown's debut album, out of some of those singles sessions. You can hear the sound of a group and its enthusiastic singer looking for a hit, sometimes in the rock & roll of "Chonnie-On-Chon" (1957) or the 1956 B-side "I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On," sometimes by remaking "Please, Please, Please" under another name, such as "I Don't Know" (1956), sometimes by tackling Coasters-like novelty material such as "That Dood It" (1958), sometimes by aping the smooth Sam Cooke, as on the 1958 B-side "That's When I Lost My Heart," and once by rewriting "My Bonnie (Lies Over The Ocean)" as the 1958 B-side "Baby Cries Over The Ocean." Only the two hits were really memorable, but the album presented the sound of a major star-to-be in search of his sound.


1. Please Please Please
2. Chonnie-On-Chon
3. Hold My Baby's Hand
4. I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On
5. Just Won't Do Right
6. Baby Cries Over The Ocean
7. I Don't Know
8. Tell Me What I Did Wrong
9. Try Me
10. That Dood It
11. Begging Begging
12. I Walked Alone
13. No No No No
14. That's When I Lost My Heart
15. Let's Make It
16. Love Or A Game

James Brown and His Famous Flames-Please, Please, Please