There Was a Time: The Life of Reverend Al Sharpton Captured in New Documentary
Loudmouth, a documentary directed by Josh Alexander that premiered at the recent 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, has me thinking about when I saw James Brown at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1999 and he invited Reverend Al Sharpton to join him on stage. The crowd savagely booed the pudgy civil-rights activist to the point that the visibly irritated soul singer instructed attendees to ‘’start loving each other and respect yourself.’’ No one defended Sharpton—the subject of this documentary—so vigorously before or since.
Brown had adopted (not literally) Sharpton a few years earlier; they met when he was 18 and eager to work in the music industry. Sharpton was often around Brown in those days, especially when the Godfather of Soul hit the Big Apple. I met the Reverend several times in the late-’70s and early-’80s as I was covering Brown for various media outlets (Soho Weekly News, New York Daily News, New York, Down Beat and USA Today).
Most people don’t know about Sharpton’s close relationship with Brown. Sharpton’s dad left his mother when he was nine years old. Seeking father figures, he latched onto Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Brown, who he met through Brown’s son Teddy. A fighter like Brown, who boxed in prison, Sharpton took his cues from the Georgia-born R&B legend.
