James Brown Biography
nicknames the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother Number One
(1933–2006)
Related Works
Albums
1959 Please Please Please
1959 Try Me
1960 Think
1961 The Amazing James Brown 1961 James Brown Presents His Band/Night Train 1962 Shout And Shimmy 1962 James Brown and His Famous Flames Tour the USA 1963 Live At The Apollo 1963 Prisoner of Love 1964 Pure Dynamite: Live at the Royal 1964 Showtime 1964 The Unbeatable James Brown 1964 Grits and Soul 1964 Out Of Sight 1965 Papa's Got A Brand New Bag 1966 I Got You (I Feel Good) 1966 James Brown Plays James Brown Today and Yesterday 1966 Mighty Instrumentals 1966 James Brown Plays New Breed (The Boo-Ga-Loo) 1966 Soul Brother No. 1: It's A Man's Man's Man's World 1966 James Brown Sings Christmas Songs 1966 Handful of Soul 1967 The James Brown Show 1967 Sings Raw Soul 1967 James Brown Plays The Real Thing 1967 Live At The Garden 1967 Cold Sweat 1968 James Brown Presents His Show of Tomorrow 1968 I Can't Stand Myself 1968 I Got The Feelin' 1968 Live At The Apollo, Volume 2 1968 Jams Brown Sings Out Of Sight 1968 Thinking About Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things 1968 A Soulful Christmas 1969 Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud 1969 Gettin' Down To It 1969 The Popcorn 1969 It's A Mother 1970 Ain't It Funky 1970 Soul On Top 1970 It's A New Day - Let A Man Come In 1970 Sex Machine 1970 Hey America 1971 Super Bad 1971 Sho' Is Funky Down Here 1971 Hot Pants 1971 Revolution of the Mind/Live At The Apollo, Volume 3 1972 There It Is 1972 Get On the Good Foot 1973 Black Caesar 1973 Slaughter's Big Rip-Off 1974 The Payback 1974 Hell 1975 Reality 1975 Sex Machine Today 1975 Everybody's Doin' The Hustle and Dead on the Double Bump 1976 Hot 1976 Get Up Offa That Thing 1976 Bodyheat 1977 Mutha's Nature 1978 Jam 1980's 1979 Take A Look At Those Cakes 1979 The Original Disco Man 1980 People 1980 Hot On The One 1980 Soul Syndrome 1981 Nonstop! 1981 Live In New York 1983 Bring It On 1986 Gravity 1988 James Brown And Friends 1988 I'm Real 1991 Love Over-Due 1993 Universal James 1993 Funky President 1995 Live At The Apollo Compilations 1972 Soul Classics 1973 Soul Classics, Volume 2 1977 Solid Gold 1977 The Fabulous James Brown 1981 Can Your Heart Stand It? 1981 The Best of James Brown 1984 The Federal Years, Part 1 1984 The Federal Years, Part 2 1984 Roots of A Revolution 1984 Ain't That A Groove - The James Brown Story 1966-1969 1984 Doing It To Death - The James Brown Story 1970-1973 1985 Dead On The Heavy Funk 1974-1976 1985 The CD of JB: Sex Machine and Other Soul Classics 1986 The LP of JB 1986 In The Jungle Groove 1988 Motherlode 1991 Messin' With The Blues 1991 Star Time 1993 Chronicles - Soul Pride 1996 JB40: 40th Anniversary Collection 1997 On Stage
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Related People
Ray Charles Muhammad Ali Michael Jackson Little Richard Miles Davis Annie Lennox Joss Stone
» More
Related Sites
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Web site
A Tribute to James Brown—including complete discography (born May 3, 1933, Barnwell, S.C., U.S.—died Dec. 25, 2006, Atlanta, Ga.) American singer, songwriter, arranger, and dancer, who was one of the most important and influential entertainers in 20th-century popular music and whose remarkable achievements earned him the sobriquet “the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business.”
Brown was raised mainly in Augusta, Ga., by his great-aunt, who took him in at about the age of five when his parents divorced. Growing up in the segregated South during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Brown was so impoverished that he was sent home from grade school for “insufficient clothes,” an experience that he never forgot and that perhaps explains his penchant as an adult for wearing ermine coats, velour jumpsuits, elaborate capes, and conspicuous gold jewelry. Neighbours taught him how to play drums, piano, and guitar, and he learned about gospel music in churches and at tent revivals, where preachers would scream, yell, stomp their feet, and fall to their knees during sermons to provoke responses from the congregation. Brown sang for his classmates and competed in local talent shows but initially thought more about a career in baseball or boxing than in music.
At age 15 Brown and some companions were arrested while breaking into cars. He was sentenced to 8 to 16 years of incarceration but was released after 3 years for good behaviour. While at the Alto Reform School, he formed a gospel group. Subsequently secularized and renamed the Flames (later the Famous Flames), it soon attracted the attention of rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll shouter Little Richard, whose manager helped promote the group. Intrigued by their demo record, Ralph Bass, the artists-and-repertoire man for the King label, brought the group to Cincinnati, Ohio, to record for King Records's subsidiary Federal. The label's owner, Syd Nathan, hated Brown's first recording, “Please, Please, Please” (1956), but the record eventually sold three million