14 DAY TRIAL // It's not every day that you learn one of the most iconic figures in today's music industry, one that has been around for decades, started off his career by ripping off other musicians. Mick Jagger isn't afraid to admit that he boosted many of his dance moves from his idol James Brown.
In a new interview with Time magazine, the Rolling Stones frontman comes clean after all these years and confesses where he got his moves from: funk icon James Brown, who would go on to become Jagger's mentor in terms of music, stage presence and, of course, dancing.
Jagger admits that, while he tried to get inspiration from Brown's energetic stage play, he only mastered a couple of his moves and he never really did them with the same style and grace as Brown did: “I copied all his moves. I copied everybody’s moves. I used to do [James’] slide across the stage. I couldn’t do the splits, so I didn’t even bother.”
Apart from Brown, who almost gave Mick a heart attack the first time they met because of the excitement, there are other musicians who have left their mark on the rocker. He claims that “Little Richard also taught me a lot of things. It wasn’t so much moves. It’s about presence on stage in relationship to the audience.”
Jagger is now trying to honor the memory of the man that came before him with a biopic about James Brown called “Get On Up.” He reveals that he had a lot of trouble with the script of the movie that was trying to tell the life story of such a big man.
He then moves on to disclose other aspects of the production process and the problems he encountered along the way. A big stepping stone was getting the right actor to play the main role. In the end, they went with Chadwick Boseman, who had to work really hard to achieve the same level of performance on stage as the real Brown.