James Brown & The Famous Flames - Try Me (1965)

When James Brown and His Famous Flames finally scored a second hit with their 11th single, "Try Me," King Records constructed this 16-track LP, including the hit along with both sides of three of its follow-ups, "I Want You So Bad"/"There Must Be a Reason," "I've Got to Change"/"It Hurts to Tell You," and "Got to Cry"/"It Was You"; the B-side of a fourth follow-up, "Don't Let It Happen to Me"; the 1957 single "Can't Be the Same"/"Gonna Try"; the 1957 B-sides "I Won't Plead No More" and "Messing With the Blues"; the B-side of Brown's first hit ("Please Please Please"), "Why Do You Do Me"; and three other stray tracks. The earliest work especially sounded more like that of a doo wop group rather than that of a gritty R&B solo singer. None of it measured up to "Try Me," but you could see what Brown had been aiming at, and if the set list comprised what were in effect James Brown's greatest flops, circa 1959, it demonstrated that he possessed as much promise as fervor. (Try Me! was reissued in 1964 under the title The Unbeatable James Brown: 16 Hits.)~William Ruhlmann