As a prolific singer, songwriter, bandleader and record producer, Brown was a pivotal force in the evolution of gospel and rhythm & 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. Brown's music also left its mark on the rhythms of African popular music and provided a template for go-go music.
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 recognised 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.
James Brown 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. 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.
Brown and his family lived in extreme poverty. When Brown was four years old, his parents separated after his mother decided to leave his father for another man. After his mother left the family, Brown continued to live with his father and his live-in girlfriends until he was six 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. 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. Brown managed to stay in school until he dropped out in the seventh grade.
During his childhood, Brown earned money by picking cotton, picking up coal, shining shoes, sweeping out stores, selling and trading in old stamps, washing cars and dishes and singing in talent contests. 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. Between earning money from these adventures, Brown taught himself to play a harmonica given to him by his father, 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. 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. In his spare time, Brown spent time practising 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 centre upstate in Toccoa in 1948.
While Brown was in reform school, he became acquainted with Bobby Byrd, who first saw Brown perform in prison as Byrd watched and admired Brown's ability to sing and perform. Byrd's family helped Brown secure an early release after serving only three years of his sentence. The authorities back then agreed to release Brown on the condition that he (Brown) would try to get a job and not return to Augusta or Richmond County. After brief stints as a boxer and baseball pitcher in semi-professional baseball (a career move ended by a leg injury), Brown turned his energy toward music.
As an adult, Brown legally changed his name to remove the Jr designation. Brown's career went over decades, and his sound and beat profoundly influenced the development of many different musical genres. Brown moved on a continuum from blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly Africanised approach to music making.
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.
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 number five 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 the group was in danger of being dropped by King Records.
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. Little 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 to put the funk in the rock and roll beat. 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.
Brown's group returned to the charts to stay in 1958 with the number one 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. 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.
Defying Nathan's expectations, the album stayed on the pop charts for 14 months, peaking at number two. In addition, Brown recorded a hit version of the ballad 'Prisoner of Love' (his first Top 20 pop hit) 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.