British rock 'n' roll icon Mick Jagger says he remembers -- even if it isn't with perfect clarity -- the night his band the Rolling Stones closed the multi-artist T.A.M.I. Show featuring American funk legend James Brown in 1964.
The moment in music history is chronicled in the new big-screen James Brown bio-picture Get On Up, which Jagger produced, alongside Brian Grazer.
"My recall of it is about 50 years ago. My recall of it is not perfect. You'll forgive me," Jagger laughed when asked at a New York press conference about the time the Stones irked Brown by closing a concert when he wanted to do it.
"It was a very exciting show. James Brown was definitely the star of the show, but there were many other people in the show that I was really interested to meet for the first time. I never met Marvin Gaye before, for instance. And I got an opportunity to chat with him. There were a lot of us on the show and it was a pretty crazy day," Jagger said. "And the experience was... that James was a bit annoyed about not being the last on the show and as I was the only one that had met him before -- of all the people working on the show, including the producers of the show -- I was like the fall guy. I was like 20 or something and they said: 'You go and talk to him. You know him. You go and call him out; you chew him out.' And when you're 20, you say, 'Sure.' There's no saying, 'That's not my job.' Now I'd say: 'That's not my job. That's your job. You're producing.' But when you're 20, you go, 'Sure, OK, I'll do it.' And, of course, it didn't work. It might have somewhat assuaged his... but it played out and it was what it was. He did this amazing performance and we went on after, but, in the end, I don't think it really mattered. We had to work harder and he worked harder, so maybe it was a better show because of it."
Directed by Tate Taylor and starring Chadwick Boseman, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis, Get On Up opens nationwide Aug. 1.
Brown died in 2006 at the age of 73.