James Brown
Last month the world lost on of music’s greatest legends. Here’s a look back on the “Godfather of Soul’s” path to fame…
By Jess Novak, staff writer
Posted on January 16, 2007

James Brown never had a No. 1 pop hit. He never learned to read music and he never stopped running into trouble with the law or his four marriages. However,  Brown will never be forgotten. He is one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Brown was born May 3, 1933, and died of heart failure after being admitted to an Atlanta hospital for pneumonia on Dec. 25, 2006. During the 73 years in between, he not only rose in status from a cotton-picking shoe-shine boy to international superstar, but he also influenced entire generations of listeners and an incredibly diverse range of musical genres.

The “Godfather of Soul” was born into modest conditions in a small town in South Carolina during the Great Depression. By 16, Brown found himself in a youth detention center, during which time he met Bobby Byrd. After serving only three years of his sentence, Brown was released and joined Byrd’s R&B group, “The Flames.” It didn’t take long for the group to transform into “James Brown and the Famous Flames,” and in 1962 the LP Live at the Apollo was released and was followed by a string of solo singles, which catapulted Mr. Dynamite’s career to greatness.

Brown employed jazz musicians and utilized their sound to combine it with the raw drive of R&B to create a backdrop for his rhythmic yelps and exclamations. Rather than “sing” a song with pitch and melody, Brown developed a unique style driven by feeling instead of being restricted by musical theory, though not lacking in its musical validity. His exciting musical approach allowed him to connect to his audiences in a new way.

But Brown’s audiences went beyond the average listener. Artists across genres of gospel, rhythm-and-blues, soul, funk, rock, jazz, reggae, disco, electronic music and hip hop all attest to his undeniable influence on their art. Even Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson have been known to imitate Brown’s eccentric dance and performance style. Brown has also succeeded as the most sampled artist of all time and his ’70s “Funky Drummer” continues to reign as the most sampled single piece of music.

Yet, Brown’s influence reached beyond the sphere of his energetic performances and various record releases and stretched into the political and social realm as well. He utilized his powerful voice as a musician to work as a tool for societal change. In 1966, Brown released “Don’t Be a Dropout” to discourage students from ending their academic careers prematurely. During the time of the turbulent Civil Rights Movement, he released “Say it Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” declaring, “We won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”

Brown also succeeded in receiving some of the most prestigious musical awards during his half-century-long career. To name a few, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York on Jan. 23, 1986, received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1992 Grammy Awards, obtained the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003, was ranked No. 7 among Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004 and has had various architectural structures named after him.

Brown continued his career as the “Hardest-Working Man in Show Business” until his death, touring 51 weeks a year during his peak as a performer. His passion for performing was unstoppable and incomparable and his influence on music will continue indefinitely. Perhaps Cosmo Baker, one of New York’s most respected DJs said it best: “James is the cornerstone of all of this. He is the genesis of everything that all of us do. Seriously, the world of music without James is like humanity without the discovery of fire. His going to be missed, but I’m not sad. We are all so privileged to have had him on this earth.”