JOE TEX VS. JAMES BROWN
It's hard not to feel a little bad for Joe Tex, a talented and pioneering singer who had the bad luck to share a label with invincible soul dynamo James Brown, inviting comparisons that rarely came out in Tex's favor and sparking a rivalry between the two that got waaay the hell out of hand even by Brown's standards for public scandal.
After being called out by Brown in a local juke joint, Tex first accused Brown of stealing his moves (kicking and otherwise fooling around with the mic during performances) then accused him of stealing his song (Joe recorded a single named "Baby, You're Right;" James covered, rewrote, and arguably improved the song a year later to massive sales success) then accused him of stealing his woman (Brown had recruited a backup singer, Bea Ford, who was once married to Tex; after Brown was done with her he wrote Tex a letter saying he could have her back). Joe paid Brown back first with a diss record appropriately titled "You Keep Her," where he called out Brown by name, and secondly with a prank he pulled at a concert opening for James in his home town of Macon, Georgia.
Joe Tex came on stage wearing a raggedy blanket around his shoulders, fell to his knees shouting and screaming, and sang out "Please! Please! PLEASE get me out of this CAPE!"
That's easily one of the funniest jokes anyone has ever made about James Brown, but if Tex had thought his rival would accept the incident with good humor, he had another think coming. It turned out that you can say anything you want about James Brown himself, but you damn sure never insult his cape, as after Brown finished his performance he went to see Tex at a local juke joint, making a quick detour first to pick up a few shotguns.
The Godfather came in shooting, injuring several bystanders, prompting a scattering of return fire, and rudely interrupting a performance by Otis Redding and the Pinetoppers. Tex, realizing that discretion is the better part of not getting killed by a crazy asshole, beat a hasty retreat out the back, while Brown, realizing that he had just shot seven innocent people because somebody made fun of his cape, ran out the front door to his tour bus, which he drove far enough away to figure out how he might avoid going to prison.
Brown later paid off the club's owners and the injured parties (it's rumored that as he ran out of the club he was throwing $100 bills over his shoulder to try and cover the damages) and even patched things up to a limited extent with Joe Tex.