Tracklist front / back album covers
James Brown - The Payback
1. "The Payback" 7:39
2. "Doing the Best I Can" 7:42
3. "Take Some...Leave Some" 8:33
4. "Shoot Your Shot" 8:09
5. "Forever Suffering" 5:52
6. "Time Is Running out Fast" 12:47
7. "Stone to the Bone" 10:14
8. "Mind Power" 12:04
James Brown Band Members / Musicians
James Brown - lead vocals, electric piano
St. Clair Pinckney - tenor saxophone, flute
Maceo Parker - alto saxophone, flute
Darryl "Hasaan" Jamison - trumpet
Jerone "Jasaan" Sanford - trumpet
Isiah "Ike" Oakley - trumpet
Fred Wesley - trombone
Hearlon "Cheese" Martin - guitar
Jimmy Nolen - guitar
Fred Thomas - bass
John "Jabo" Starks - drums
John Morgan - percussion
The Payback is the 37th studio album by American musician James Brown. The album was released in December 1973, by Polydor Records. It was originally scheduled to become the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem, but was rejected by the film's producers, who dismissed it as "the same old James Brown stuff." A widely repeated story—including by Brown himself—that director Larry Cohen rejected the music as "not funky enough" is denied by Cohen.[5] On the DVD commentary track for Black Caesar (to which Hell Up in Harlem is a sequel), Cohen states that executives at American International Pictures were already unhappy with Brown for delivering songs much longer than expected on Black Caesar and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off and opted for a deal with Motown Records instead. Cohen said the absence of Brown's music from Harlem still "breaks [his] heart."
