Robert Baird

Watched James Brown's widow Tomi (not Tammy, she’s touchy), on Larry King last nite. Larry, who was at low ebb last nite and looked real bored by being used as a platform in a marriage dispute, wasn't buying any of it. Larry, bad manicure and all, looks like he's interviewed enough grieving, flaky–as–hell rock star widows.

Tomi Rae Hynie Brown's story is that she's out thanks to Brown's lawyer Buddy Dallas. A lawyer named Buddy Dallas. It's gotta be a pseudonym. Yet every time I hear it I think that if I were James Brown, I too would want and the kind of criminal attorney who coulda had a bit part on Perry Mason.

Anyway, Tomi, 36, and her kid with James, are locked out and now his older kids are trying to quietly block her from getting any of Brown's cash. That is if there really is any cash. There’s lots of future wealth there though. Just a chip of his publishing would sustain her and her ancestors. And oh yeah, she did mention that James, 73, left her an $80,000 check in case, "anything happened to him." Tomi, by the way, played Janis Joplin in a Dead Rock Legends show. When James died she was in rehab weaning herself off painkillers she'd become addicted to following the recent death of her father. There's also some dispute about the fact that Tomi was never divorced from her first husband when she married James.

Anyway, don't weep too much for Tomi. She's moving to California. Moving in with her pal who's also the drummer in Tomi's band, Hardly Dangerous. Her pal, the female drummer, is married to the male drummer in 70's rock dinos, the Scorpions. The drummer couple used all that heavy metal Scorps money to buy a mansion in L.A., which is where Tomi Rae and son will now reside. Perfect.

And people wonder why I write about music.