I got a couple of responses to my banner bleg post yesterday, and while they’re not exactly on point, they’ll certainly do until exactly comes along.
The first came from Jason Hasty, who specializes in Georgia athletics history at the Hargrett Library. (And if I can take a moment here to digress — Dawg fans, if you don’t already know this, you are lucky to have an incredible resource chronicling Georgia football in the Hargrett Library. If that’s of interest, make yourself familiar with it.)
Jason spent time with Coach Dooley compiling an oral history and as part of it, touched on the making of “Dooley’s Junkyard Dogs”.
Dayum! Impromptu. Completely impromptu. I can only imagine how Dooley took that in on the spot. (Too bad nobody filmed that whole scene.)
I still find it a shame that UGA has chosen to shunt James Brown aside. Here’s one of the most influential musicians this country has produced in the last half-century, a Dawg fan who created an iconic song about Georgia football that’s not even a footnote at games anymore. It would seem that the least the school could do is play the song at the season opener when they dedicate the field to Coach Dooley.
But I digress. Again.
Oh, the shirt? Jason has something about that, too.
If I remember correctly (and this might be in the video or it might have been in private conversation), Coach Dooley mentioned to me that he always had trouble finding ‘G’ logo clothing, so he found Gucci with its ‘G’ and bought a lot of that to wear.
To think that if Gucci had played its cards correctly, it could have been Nike before Nike. Ah, well.
I am grateful to Jason and his good work here. You should be, too.
Many thanks also to reader Boz, who spoke with a friend in the athletic department who independently confirmed the above.
And if there’s anyone out there who can tell us anything about the banner, I’m still interested.
Get The Picture 
Any idea if a high-res copy of the photo exists anywhere?
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I love the idea that they should play the song when the playing surface is dedicated to Coach Dooley.
James Brown … DGD.
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James Brown is/was a wife beater. Bad guy.
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I had forgotten about that … I withdraw the sentence above.
The song still should be played for the field dedication.
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Yeah my guess is some of these historians found out some things about The Godfather and just let him quietly fade into history.
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That is putting it mildly. He allegedly kidnapped, beat, and raped a woman in a van as well. I can understand UGA not wanting to associate with him in any way.
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Nobody is talking about erecting a statue to the man.
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That is one of the craziest stories I have ever read (I happen to believe her). It would make a hell of a movie…
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/02/us/james-brown-death-questions/
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What a long dang winding story.
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He got juiced up on coke and PCP, threatened a bunch of people in the office next to his with a shotgun for using his shitter, then led the Augusta police on a high speed chase across the state line. They shot out two of his tires and he kept going for 6 miles on the rims. Ummm, yeah….lets not include him after all.
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Getting hyped up on pcp has long been a bucket list item. Ahhh… the 80s
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I know I don’t think about him the same way after reading that story.
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Yes, but if we only play music by people without a record, or even only those without a more serious history like James Brown’s, we’re not going to have much left. Fact is the same mental problems that lead to very bad behavior also can lead to much of the great art we know and love.
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Valid points…
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So, we kick Holloman the team for assaulting a woman and then turn around and celebrate the opening of the season by playing a song performed by a notorious wife beater. Got it.
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I thought the song is about UGA football. I didn’t realize it’s about assault. Thanks for explaining.
Again, if we’re going to disqualify art on the basis of the nature of the artist, there won’t be much art left.
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You are welcome for the explanation. Too bad you needed one.
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You’ve made me see things in a whole new light.
Eric Clapton and Duane Allman were heroin abusers and Jim Gordon murdered his mother in a psychotic breakdown. My Layla record is going in the trash can as soon as I get home today. My soul already feels purer. And I owe it all to you.
Maybe we can do one of those good old fashioned record burnings together. Sounds righteous!
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Look, if you don’t see the hypocrisy in connecting our University
via college football, a sport that has way too many cases of violence/rape against women to a song performed by an artist who abused women his entire life then you go ahead and do you. I don’t agree, and your Clapton-Allman analogy sux.
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Why do you get to decide what is appropriate here? It’s one thing for you to say you don’t want to hear the song; it’s entirely another to be judge and jury as to everyone else.
I see a difference between a song and the life of the artist who performed it. Nobody is arguing that the school should promote James Brown the person — although, if you’ll get off your high horse and remember, there was a halftime tribute to Brown just a few years ago — but refusing to play a song about Georgia football because Brown did some reprehensible things during his lifetime is a different story.
And again, YMMV and that’s fine by me as far as your personal preference goes. Just leave me out of your condemnations, unless you’re prepared to accept the logical consequences, which you don’t appear ready to embrace.
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“Nobody is arguing that the school should promote James Brown the person”
“I still find it a shame that UGA has chosen to shunt James Brown aside.”
LMAO. Try to keep track today OK?
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Oh, look — the grammar police is on my ass. Why, it’s almost as if you neglected to read the rest of the paragraph!
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Grammar Police? You contradicted yourself!! Look, it seems pretty dumb to ban a kid from playing football, which we could actually consider his “art” (after all, not many can do it and it is beautiful to behold at times), because he beat a woman in an isolated incident, while at the same time playing a song at the game in front of 90K, performed by a man who CONSTANTLY beat women. Shit, his estate will still be getting paid every time we play it right? That’s fair. I mean, if you want to take the “I don’t care about their personal life, I care about the art” stance then we should never kick anyone off of the team for any problems outside of the game. Fuck, who cares what they do in their personal life as long as the product on the field looks good, same as we look at the product on the radio or on the wall right? I listen to music by drug users and shitty individuals on my personal time often, but that doesn’t mean I want some of it tied to the university.
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If you think I meant that UGA should honor Brown personally, I don’t know what to tell you other than you’ve misunderstood what I’ve written.
I take it you’ll lead the charge to make sure that no one ever sees another replay of any Georgia game with Holloman in it, right? I mean, hell, he’s wearing the damned jersey in them.
Playing a song doesn’t equal endorsement of an individual’s lifestyle — unless the song in question is a celebration of the individual’s lifestyle.
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I hope I don’t regret wading in here, I’m just trying to have some civil discourse, so here goes…
First, I don’t see where dudemankind ever claimed that the song was about assault.
Second, I didn’t take his comments to mean that he was entitled to be judge and jury for everyone else. Instead I took it as an explanation of why the University wouldn’t want to play the song during games. And whether intentional or not, playing the song would be promoting the artist to some degree. Someone who hears it is going to google the artist, or go purchase the song on iTunes or whatever. Of course the university has no control over that, they can only control whether or not they play the song in the first place.
I agree with you to some extent regarding the logical consequences you mentioned. It reminds me of an issue that then-Daily Show host Jon Stewart talked about a few years ago. Some people were upset that the rapper/actor Common was invited to the white house for some event. Stewart’s take was basically that if Common was disqualified from visiting the white house because of his views then a whole bunch of other celebrities would have to be disqualified as well. I suspect that we’d all draw those lines a little differently based on our own personal views.
I apologize if this has veered off into Playpen territory, that wasn’t my intention.
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You’re right — you shouldn’t have waded in here. (I keed, I keed.)
He’s certainly not claiming the song is about assault. That’s the point: he’s claiming performing the song at a Georgia game is tainted because of Brown’s behavior alone.
My point is that that’s one sizeable can of worms he’s opening there, although I certainly understand his point of view even if I don’t agree with it.
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Just stirring the pot here. Maybe the Boy Scouts should have a Michael Jackson song as their theme song. He was a great artist
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100% agree.
We’re going to have to come grips eventually with the fact that so much of art and literature is created by people who are deeply flawed. It’s the same with many historical figures who contributed great works to civilization. You have to separate the creator from the creation. This is kind of like what happened with House of Cards after the Kevin Spacey stuff came out in the open. As you said, we aren’t talking about putting up a statue of James Brown on the UGA campus – we’re talking about playing a song he performed. If folks can’t make a distinction between the two then we are screwed.
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Normal, well mannered people typically make extremely boring art. I don’t think we should limit ourselves to being bored out of our minds in the name of not appreciating art created by people we later find to be very bad.
Now I’m going to go listen to some Michael Jackson.
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And as the song plays, there will be highlights on the jumbotron in which Holloman appears, maybe even features. At some point you have to make a decision; are we going to try to cleanse the past of everything and everyone that has done something bad, or are we going to accept that humanity isn’t 100% pretty, and move on enjoying the better parts?
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Stalin would cleanse…
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Imagine if you couldn’t find clothing with a “G” on it in this day and age…
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perhaps you could recreate the shirt, sell it and send the proceeds to this guy’s library project. just a thought.
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You never hear anyone play Gary Glitter at sports events!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31657929
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I thought about Gary Glitter in the above thread between Dudemankind and the Senator.
If I had the time and energy right now, I could probably go find 5-10 more examples of cringe moments in pop culture.
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Great story. Amazing talent (James AND the band) to just take that and come up with it impromptu. I’d love to hear “Dooley’s Junkyard Dawgs” playing during the home opener. Heck, I’d love to hear it all the time.
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Every time I hear Dooley’s my toe automatically starts tapping!
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Donnan was right.
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I am pretty sure this is the coolest thing I will hear today.
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Great memories of seeing James perform a few times at Sanford during games. Dude had the moves.
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I was at the UGA-KY game where he performed at half time with the Red Coat Band. He sang this song and showed his moves. Think it was in 1975. Prince Charles was in the President’s box at the game. We lost the game but that was always one of my favorite half time shows. Also, when he was in the high speed chase after shooting up the building in Augusta, UGA had played South Carolina that day and as we drove back home after the game Augusta radio was giving minute by minute reports of the chase as he drove back and forth over the river from Georgia to South Carolina. Made for great entertainment. Took over an hour.
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1977 wasn’t it? We almost won the SEC but lost every non-conference game IIRC.
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Was Jason’s dad the band director at Russel Middle School in Winder? Granddad? I student taught there in ‘92 and I’m wondering if Jason was in my drum section, I think he was in 7th grade?
And yeah, the song is awesome, the history is fascinating, and more 70’s funk is always better.
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My 12 year old son has been all over the place in retro music lately – some of it i understand why and some of it I don’t. He is playing Coolio, Skeelo, King Harvest, Bobby Darin, Queen, The Eagles – it goes on & on. With no rhyme or reason to his selections.
I am trying to figure out where he is hearing it & why he is selecting something songs over others. However, for me, the coolest thing has been his additions of James Brown, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke to his catalog. He can put those on repeat and I have no complaints.
I am glad he isn’t playing Stephen Bishop’s On & On though. Hate that song.
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After listening to all the various artists I hope he looks you in the eye and proclaims,”Wow Dad, The Floyd.”
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I understand all the genuine concerns enumerated above. As you know, I take a pretty harsh view of men who hit women. Having said that, if you were in Sanford Stadium watching James Brown perform, like Truck and myself, it’s something you will never forget.
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+1 on that.
BTW, does anyone remember the drum major from the 80’s or early 90’s who used to do the JB moves on the platform during halftime performances? Always thought that was pretty cool too.
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Thomas something. Are you referring the the African-American kid? He was great.
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It’s on every Gameday playlist. Jeez.
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Thank you for the research Senator. That song wakes me every morning and my children know every word. Your column and Jason’s research have been a pleasure. When I click into the comments I always hope to find credible opinions of fellow Dawg fans who regardless of politics, race, or whatever can bond together to share a common pleasure. Unfortunately some of today’s bloggers chose to put a damper on all the fun rather than respect and enjoy a true UGA treasure. I’m sure you’ve written off such nonsense before but I had to leave it this afternoon and revisit these hours later. Long live the best banner out there and RIP to The Godfather.
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