SEATTLE -- James Brown has seen some history. When his first

single charted, Jim Crow segregation was alive and well. His songs threw a

beat behind the Black Power movement. And yet, no recent era in America has

been more perilous than the present, the 69-year-old said.

"We at the lowest time that we've been since I've been born, as a nation --

the lowest time," Brown said Friday in his dressing room before a

show at the Paramount Theatre.

The man known onstage as the Godfather of Soul often sounds offstage like

the fretful great-grandfather he is. His solution to society's ills, among

which he counts school shootings and gangsta rap, is, as you might expect, more

music -- preferably more James Brown music. And short of that, more of

every kind of music.

"We got to now barter our thoughts and our love with each other," said

Brown, sitting back on a couch, dressed in a red-striped black suit, with

silver-tipped brown cowboy boots. "Country music gotta get with rock

music, rock music gotta get with the hip-hop, the hip-hop gotta get with

the jazz, the jazz gotta get with the country, and the country gotta get

with the opera. We gotta all become a part of each other."

In the 1960s, Brown commanded the pop charts with groove-laden hits such as

"I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud." By the

early '90s, samples from his records provided the backbeat for untold

numbers of hip-hop songs, including Public Enemy's "Rebel Without a Pause."

But in recent years, Brown's been a fixture on gossip pages. Last month,

two daughters sued him for back royalties, claiming they helped him write

25 songs as children. Earlier this year, he successfully fought a sexual

harassment lawsuit brought by a former employee. In 1991, Brown was paroled

after two years of a six-year jail sentence that followed an interstate car

chase and gun threats.

Throughout it all, however, he's maintained his reputation for exacting

control onstage. Before the show at the Paramount, he spent an hour with

his 16-piece band refining segues and "If I Ruled the World." Brown sang

guitar parts for a young player, took over the drums himself, laid down

lines on the keyboards to illustrate his demands. The band swallowed the

criticism without a word of protest.

"You're missing a whole lick," Brown said.

"It's not as big a mistake as some other mistakes, but it's still a mistake."

"What you got is good, but ..."

During the night's set, Brown left most -- but not all -- of the fancy

footwork to two Britney-esque dancers. The old-fashioned revue packed in

past glories such as "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" and "Get Up

Offa That Thing (Release the Pressure)."

If he's tired of singing the tunes, it hardly showed. Brown seemed most

engaged by directing his band. Even as he was walking off under the cape

draped over him by the show's MC, he was flashing hand signals to one of

the players.

Brown ignored his most recent album, this year's The Next Step,

which includes "Killing Is Out, School Is In" -- featuring the instruction

to, "Try romance, turn that hat around, and take that gun out your pants."

He did, however, lead the crowd through a sincere take on "God Bless America."

Before the show, Brown said he'd like to work with Snoop Dogg now that the

gangsta rapper has vowed to lay off pot, but the two have nothing planned.

"We got to get our music back," Brown said backstage. "We get our music

back, we won't have so much problems. And our music has to say something,

other than what you're gonna do to somebody, whether you're gonna off

somebody, how you're gonna whack 'em.

"We used to use music to get in our car and go off in the woods with our

girlfriends. They don't know what to do with music now. They make music to

go fight and kill people with. We used music to make love by."

For more sights and stories from concerts around the country, check out MTV News Tour Reports.