Get On Up

Aykroyd plays Ben Bart, James Brown’s manager, in Tate Taylor’s Get On Up, the man who is credited with discovering Brown in an Atlanta nightclub. Get On Up tells the story of Brown’s rise from poverty to music stardom. Co-starring Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jill Scott.

So, when Danny Ray came out and dropped the cape on James Brown on Please Please Please, that was a seminal moment for myself and my six friends, who squeezed into one of my friend’s mother’s Mustangs and all came down from Ottawa to see this show. And there was James Brown — his bolero heels like this far from our beers, dancing up and down the Esquire Show Bar. A full band, they had to pack on this small, little stage, but the horns, the rhythm. … So, really early on, I loved him.