September 24, 2004

• 16 YEARS AGO TODAY

  
  

  

  
  

  Sep 24 1988

  
  

  High on PCP and brandishing a shotgun, James Brown interrupts an insurance seminar next door to his business office in Augusta, Georgia and accuses the attendees of using his private restroom. The resulting 90-minute interstate pursuit ends only after police shoot out his truck tires. He ends up serving two years in prison.
  

  The Godfather Of Soul, the Hardest Working Man In Show Biz, Mr. Dynamite, Soul Brother Number One--they were probably all titles among the many Brown thought up for himself, but that doesn't make them any less fitting. With a live-wire stage show based on stamina, style, sex and turn-on-a-dime syncopation, Brown led American black music into ever-harder and meatier territory.

  
  

  

  
  

  A hardluck dropout born in 1928 in Macon and raised in Augusta, Georgia, Brown's famous screech made its debut in gospel choirs at the local church. At 20, after leading several imitative vocal groups and receiving a conviction for armed robbery, Brown joined with noted gospel singer Bobby Byrd to form the Flames, which became James Brown & His Famous Flames after the vocal quartet scored a 1956 million-seller with the torchy future show-stopper "Please Please Please"

  
  

       

  
  

   Brown went on an adventurous streak that yielded new, intricate beats and jazz-informed horns. His increasing knack for extemporaneous composing meant studio tapes often captured the bursting creative fire of interactions with his like-minded band. Song lyrics were replaced by chants, grunts, howls and screams while extended grooves chugged over spots where verses would normally change to choruses. "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good) hit the top 10, and funk was born.

  
  

  For the Millennium issue of Rolling Stone, the magazine's editors asked James Brown: "Who are your 20th Century heroes?"

  
  

  Brown's reply? South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond. "He's like a grandfather to me," said Brown.

  
  

  http://launch.yahoo.com/artist/artistFocus.asp?artistID=1039259

  
  

   

  • 3:58 pm
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