James Spencer
I had never heard of James Spencer before, but the Harlem native was a house photographer at the Apollo, spent lots of time with Muhammad Ali, and was James Brown’s personal photographer. The Morning News has a great gallery of his work, as well as an interview and a link to a very interesting video documentary about Spencer.
How did you end up working for James Brown?
Around 1972, I was into martial arts and Charles Bobbit was one of my instructors. He became James Brown’s bodyguard and then James Brown’s personal manager. I’m from Harlem, but I was doing photography in Brooklyn and [Bobbit] ran into me on Broadway one day and he said, “What are you doin’?” I said, “Well, I’m doin’ photography.” He said, “Are you a professional? Because James Brown needs some new pictures.” He told me to come to a studio that night where James Brown was recording. As James Brown came out of the Polydor offices, I took some shots without flash so as not to disturb him, since he was talking to some people. I went home, developed the pictures that night then came back and left about 16 or 20 pictures at his office. I went back a couple weeks later and Bobbit said, “Damn, Mr. Brown loved those pictures.” He gave me five $100 bills for the pictures I’d left and he gave me a down payment for film and things. [He wanted me] to shoot James Brown while was doing a week at the Apollo starting the next day. I shot the show for a week and he used seven to 10 of my pictures for the inside cover of his album Get on the Good Foot. I took all the photography on that album—it was the first work I did for him. I started traveling with him off and on and shot a couple more albums.