“Don’t shoot!”
 
R&B singer, Joe Tex, best known for his hits “Skinny Legs And All” and “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)” had a bitter rivalry with James Brown that went beyond simple diss tracks. At one point the feud became so heated that James Brown attempted to murder Tex with a shotgun, reportedly wounding six or seven people in the process.

The rivalry dates back to the early days of their careers, according to Joe Tex’s Wikipedia page:

The feud between Tex and fellow labelmate James Brown took its origins allegedly sometime in the mid-1950s when both artists were signed to associated imprints of King Records when Brown allegedly called out on Tex for a “battle” during a dance at a local juke joint. In 1960, Tex left King and recorded a few songs for Detroit-based Anna Records, one of the songs he recorded was the ballad “Baby, You’re Right”. A year later, Brown recorded the song and released it in 1961, changing up the lyrics and the musical composition, earning Brown co-songwriting credits along with Tex.

It had to have stung having your song usurped, with a songwriting credit added, and watching it become a bigger hit than your single.
 

 
Brown fueled the fire by hooking up and recording with Tex’s ex-wife. James Brown was kind of a dick:

By then, Brown had recruited singer Bea Ford, who had been married to Tex prior, but had divorced in 1959. In 1960, Brown and Ford recorded the song, “You’ve Got the Power”. Shortly afterwards, Tex got a personal letter from Brown telling him that he was through with Ford and if Tex wanted her back, he could have her. Tex responded by recording the diss record, “You Keep Her”, where he called Brown’s name out.

“James I got your letter, it came to me today. You said I could have my baby back, but I don’t want her that way.”
 
Things soon came to a head at a 1963 gig in Macon, Georgia when Joe Tex aped Brown’s cape act. From Wikipedia:

In 1963, their feud escalated when Brown and Tex performed at what was Brown’s homecoming concert at Macon, Georgia. Tex, who opened the show, arrived in a tattered cape and began rolling around on the floor as if in agony, and screamed, “please - somebody help get me out of this cape!” This allegedly resulted in Brown finding Tex at an after show party at a nightclub and shooting at the place with his gun. Tex would later claim that Brown stole his dance moves and his microphone stand tricks.

Eyewitnesses interviewed in Atlanta’s Creative Loafing magazine, describe the situation as much more dire than “shooting at the place.”

According to these witnesses, Brown took two shotguns into an after-hours juke joint, where Otis Redding and the Pinetoppers were playing, gunning for Joe Tex. He reportedly ended up shooting six or seven people before jumping behind the wheel of his tour bus and taking off. A member of his entourage handed out hundred dollar bills to keep the everyone (including the injured) quiet.

From Creative Loafing:

Newt Collier: Joe Tex could imitate anybody he wanted to. You know how James came out with the cape? Joe had one made up out of a raggedy blanket, with holes all in it. You know how James would break down and fall on his knees? Joe fell on his knees, and all of a sudden, he grabbed his back. He had the cape on and got all tangled up in it, and he was fighting to get out, singing, “Please, please, please, get me out of this cape.” He just made a mockery of James. Here it was, James’ homecoming show, and James didn’t appreciate this at all. He went out to Club 15 after the show, and Joe Tex was out there. And James took a couple of shotguns, and I think six people got shot. James did most of the shooting, and Joe was running back behind the trees and bushes. So that was the end of the Joe Tex/James Brown revue.

Charles Davis: I was the last one to know what was happening. I’m playing drums with my eyes closed and getting down. The crowd was noisy, and I couldn’t hear the shooting. By the time I figured out what had happened, everybody was on the floor, and I’m up there on the stage by myself.

Wayne Cochran: James and somebody else was in there, shooting across the room at each other and reloading. Didn’t neither one of them hit the other. James ran outside, and I saw his tour bus pull out of the parking lot with him behind the wheel.

Johnny Jenkins: Seven people got shot. They were reloading and coming back in. Me and Otis, we were hiding behind a piano. A guy went around later, and I think he gave each one of the injured $100 apiece not to carry it no further. And that just quieted it down.

 

“The big payback!”
 
Later in 1972, in Brown’s track with Bobby Byrd and Hank Ballard, “Funky Side of Town”, Ballard mentions Tex’s name as one of the stars of soul music and Brown responds “who?”

4:00 into this track, the ultimate diss: “Joe Tex!”—“Who?”
 
James Brown somehow got away with shooting six or seven people that fateful night in Macon—and Joe Tex lived on to bump with the big fat women until his untimely death by heart attack in 1982.
 

“I love this fucking post.”
 
H/T WFMU