Music career James Brown's career spanned over five decades, and his sound and beat profoundly influenced the development of many different musical genres.[18] Brown moves on a continuum from blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly Africanized approach to music making..[15] Brown performed in concerts, first making his rounds across the "chitlin' circuit," and then across the country and later around the world, along with appearing in shows on television and in movies. Although he contributed much to the music world through his hitmaking, Brown held the record as the artist who charted the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 without ever hitting number one on that chart.[9][19] [edit] Beginnings of The Famous Flames In 1955, Brown and Bobby Byrd's sister Sarah performed in a group called "The Gospel Starlighters". Eventually, Brown joined Bobby Byrd's vocal group, the Avons, and Byrd turned the group's sound towards secular rhythm and blues. After the group's name was changed to The Flames, Brown and Byrd's group toured the Southern "chitlin' circuit", and the group eventually signed a deal with the Cincinnati, Ohio-based label Federal Records, a sister label of King Records. The group's first recording was the single "Please, Please, Please" (1956). The single was a #5 R&B hit, selling over a million copies. Nine subsequent singles released by The Flames failed to live up to the success of their debut, and group was in danger of being dropped by King Records. Brown's group returned to the charts to stay in 1958 with the #1 R&B hit "Try Me". This hit record was the best-selling R&B single of the year, becoming the first of 17 chart-topping R&B singles by Brown over the next two decades.[20] By the time "Try Me" was released on record, the group's billing was changed to James Brown and The Famous Flames. "The Famous Flames" was a vocal group, not a backing band contrary to popular belief. Brown's early recordings were fairly straightforward gospel-inspired R&B compositions, heavily influenced by the work of contemporary musicians such as Ray Charles and Little Richard. Richard's relations with Brown were particularly significant in Brown's development as a musician and showman. Brown once called Richard his idol, and credited Richard's saxophone-studded mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, with being the first group to put the funk in the rock and roll beat.[21] When Richard left pop music in 1957 to become a preacher, Brown filled out Richard's remaining tour dates in his place. Several former members of Little Richard's backup band joined Brown's group as a consequence of Richard's exit from the pop music scene. In 1959, Brown and The Famous Flames moved from the Federal Records subsidiary to King Records, the parent label. Brown began to have recurring conflicts with King Records president Syd Nathan over repertoire and other matters. In one notable instance, Brown recorded the 1960 Top Ten R&B hit "(Do the) Mashed Potatoes" on Dade Records, owned by Henry Stone, under the pseudonym "Nat Kendrick & The Swans" because Nathan refused to allow him to record it for King.[22] [edit] Early and mid-1960s Brown scored on the charts in the early 1960s with recordings such as his 1962 cover of "Night Train". While Brown's early singles were major hits across the southern United States and then regular R&B Top Ten hits, he and the Famous Flames were not successful nationally until his self-financed live show was captured on the 1963 LP Live at the Apollo. Brown financed the recording of the album himself, and it was released on King Records over the objections of label owner Syd Nathan, who saw no commercial potential in a live album containing no new songs. Defying Nathan's expectations, the album stayed on the pop charts for fourteen months, peaking at #2.[23] In addition, Brown recorded a hit version of the ballad "Prisoner of Love" in 1963 and founded (under King auspices) the fledgling Try Me Records, Brown's first attempt at running a record label. Brown followed the success of Live at the Apollo with a string of singles that, along with the work of Allen Toussaint in New Orleans, essentially defined the foundation of funk music. Driven by the success of Live at the Apollo and the failure of King Records to expand record promotion beyond the "black" market, James Brown and fellow Famous Flame Bobby Byrd formed a production company, Fair Deal, to promote sales of Brown's record releases to white audiences. In this arrangement, Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, was used as a vehicle to distribute Brown's music. Smash released his 1964 hit "Out of Sight", which reached #24 on the pop charts and pointed the way to his later funk hits.[24] Its release also triggered a legal battle between Smash and King that resulted in a one year ban on the release of Brown's vocal recordings.[25] During the mid-1960s, two of Brown's signature tunes "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)", both from 1965, were his first Top 10 pop hits, as well as major #1 R&B hits, with each remaining the top-selling singles in black venues for over a month. In 1966, Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" won the Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording (an award last given in 1968). Brown's national profile was boosted further that year by appearances in the movie Ski Party and the concert film The T.A.M.I. Show, in which he and The Famous Flames (Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett and "Baby Lloyd" Stallworth) upstaged The Rolling Stones. In his concert repertoire and on record, Brown mingled his innovative rhythmic essays with Broadway show tunes and ballads, such as his hit "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (1965). [edit] The late 1960s As the 1960s came to a close, Brown continued to refine the new funk idiom. Brown's 1967 #1 R&B hit, "Cold Sweat", sometimes cited as the first true funk song, was the first of his recordings to contain a drum break and the first that featured a harmony that was reduced to a single chord change.[26][27] The instrumental arrangements on tracks such as "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose" and "Licking Stick-Licking Stick" (both recorded in 1968) and "Funky Drummer" (recorded in 1969) featured a more developed version of Brown's mid-1960s style, with the horn section, guitars, bass and drums meshed together in intricate rhythmic patterns based on multiple interlocking riffs. Changes in Brown's style that started with "Cold Sweat" also established the musical foundation for Brown's later hits, such as "I Got the Feelin'" (1968) and "Mother Popcorn" (1969). By this time Brown's vocals frequently took the form of a kind of rhythmic declamation, not quite sung but not quite spoken, that only intermittently featured traces of pitch or melody. This would become a major influence on the techniques of rapping, which would come to maturity along with hip hop music in the coming decades. In November 1967 James Brown purchased radio station WGYW in Knoxville, Tennessee for a reported $75,000, according to the January 20, 1968 Record World magazine. The call letters were changed to WJBE reflecting his initials. WJBE began on January 15, 1968 and broadcast a Rhythm & Blues format. The station slogan was "WJBE 1430 Raw Soul". At the time it was mentioned "Brown has also branched out into real estate and music publishing in recent months." Brown's recordings influenced musicians across the industry, most notably Sly and his Family Stone, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s and soul shouters like Edwin Starr, Temptations David Ruffin, and Dennis Edwards. A then-prepubescent Michael Jackson took Brown's shouts and dancing into the pop mainstream as the lead singer of Motown's The Jackson 5. Those same tracks were later resurrected by countless hip-hop musicians from the 1970s onward. As a result, James Brown remains to this day the world's most sampled recording artist, with "Funky Drummer" itself becoming the most sampled individual piece of music.[28] Brown's band during this period employed musicians and arrangers who had come up through the jazz tradition. He was noted for his ability as a bandleader and songwriter to blend the simplicity and drive of R&B with the rhythmic complexity and precision of jazz. Trumpeter Lewis Hamlin and saxophonist/keyboardist Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis (the successor to previous bandleader Nat Jones) led the band. Guitarist Jimmy Nolen provided percussive, deceptively simple riffs for each song, and Maceo Parker's prominent saxophone solos provided a focal point for many performances. Other members of Brown's band included stalwart singer and sideman Bobby Byrd, drummers John "Jabo" Starks, Clyde Stubblefield and Melvin Parker (Maceo's brother), saxophonist St. Clair Pinckney, trombonist Fred Wesley, guitarist Alphonso "Country" Kellum and bassist Bernard Odum. During this period, Brown's music empire also expanded along with his influence on the music scene. As Brown's music empire grew, his desire for financial and artistic independence grew as well. Brown bought radio stations during the late 1960s, including radio station WRDW in Augusta, Georgia where he shined shoes as a boy. Brown also branched out to make several recordings with musicians outside his own band. He recorded Gettin' Down To It (1969) and Soul on Top (1970), two albums consisting mostly of romantic ballads and jazz standards, with the Dee Felice Trio and the Louie Bellson Orchestra respectively. He recorded a number of tracks with the Dapps, a white Cincinnati bar band, including the hit "I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)". He also released three albums of Christmas music with his own band.

Early life

James Brown, an only child, was born to Susie (née Behlings) and Joseph ("Joe") Gardner Brown in the small town of Barnwell, South Carolina in the Jim Crow South during the Depression era. Although Brown was to be named after his father, his name was reversed mistakenly on the birth certificate. Because of this mix-up during the birth registration, Brown's name instead became James Joseph Brown, Jr.[1] As a young child, Brown was known to his family as Junior, and he was also known as Little Junior when he later lived with his aunt and cousin, since his cousin's nickname was also Junior.[1]

Brown and his family lived in extreme poverty.[9] When Brown was 4 years old, his parents separated after his mother decided to leave his father for another man.[10] After his mother left the family, Brown continued to live with his father and his live-in girlfriends until he was 6 years old. After that time, Brown and his father moved to Augusta, Georgia, and his father sent him to live with an aunt who ran a house of prostitution.[11] Even though Brown lived with relatives, he spent long stretches of time on his own, hanging out on the streets and hustling to get by.[9] Brown managed to stay in school until he dropped out in the 5th grade.[12]

During his childhood, Brown earned money by picking cotton, picking up coal, shining shoes, sweeping out stores, washing cars and dishes and singing in talent contests.[9] Brown also performed buck dances for change to entertain troops from Camp Gordon during the start of World War II as their convoys traveled over a canal bridge near his aunt's house.[10][11] Between earning money from these adventures, Brown taught himself to play a harmonica given to him by his father,[10] and he learned to play some guitar from Tampa Red (who was "dating" one of the girls from his aunt's house), in addition to learning to play piano and drums from others.[10] Brown was inspired to become an entertainer after watching Louis Jordan, a popular jazz and R&B performer during the 1940s, and His Tympany Five in a short film performing "Caldonia".[13]

As an adult, Brown illegally changed his name to remove the "Jr." designation.[14] In his spare time, Brown spent time practicing his various skills in Augusta-area halls and committing petty crimes. At the age of sixteen, he was convicted of armed robbery and sent to a juvenile detention center upstate in Toccoa in 1948.[15]

Brown, who was by then nicknamed "Music Box", formed a gospel quartet while he was incarcerated at the detention center. The group made their own instruments for prisons show, which included a paper-and-comb "harmonica," a "drum set" made of lard tins and a "bass" made of a broomstick and washtub.[10] Brown's quartet performed for the local prison crowd and performed shows for other prisons in the vicinity.[9]

While Brown was in reform school, he became acquainted with Bobby Byrd, who first saw Brown in a prison performance as Byrd watched and admired Brown's ability to sing and perform.[10] Byrd's family helped Brown secure an early release after serving only three years of his sentence on the condition that Brown would try to get a job and not return to Augusta or Richmond County. After brief stints as a boxer[16] and baseball pitcher in semi-professional baseball (a career move ended by a leg injury), Brown turned his energy toward music.[17]

James Joseph Brown

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933[2][3] – December 25, 2006), commonly referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", was an American entertainer recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music. He was renowned for his shouting vocals, feverish dancing and unique rhythmic style. As a prolific singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, Brown was a pivotal force in the evolution of gospel and rhythm and blues into soul and funk. He left his mark on numerous other musical genres, including rock, jazz, disco, dance and electronic music, reggae and hip hop.[6] Brown's music also left its mark on the rhythms of African popular music, such as afrobeat, jùjú and mbalax,[7] and provided a template for go-go music.[8] Brown began his professional music career in 1953 and rose to fame during the late 1950s and early 1960s on the strength of his thrilling live performances and string of smash hits. In spite of various personal problems and setbacks, he continued to score hits in every decade through to the 1980s. In addition to his acclaim in music, Brown was a presence in American political affairs during the 1960s and 1970s, noted especially for his activism on behalf of fellow African Americans and the poor. During the early 1980s, Brown's music helped to shape the rhythms of early hip-hop music, with many groups looping or sampling his funk grooves and turning them into what became hip hop classics and the foundations of this music genre. Brown was recognized by a plethora of (mostly self-bestowed) titles, including Soul Brother Number One, Sex Machine, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk, Mr. Please Please Please, The Boss, and the best-known, the Godfather of Soul.