James Brown

He was born in a wooden shack outside Barnwell, South Carolina, to a 16-year-old mother, and the clerk reversed his first and middle names on the certificate. The family moved to Augusta when he was four or five and settled first in an aunt's brothel. His mother left after an abusive marriage. He danced for coins on a canal bridge in front of soldiers from Camp Gordon, won a talent show at the Lenox Theater in 1944, and was put out of the seventh grade for not owning enough clothes. He boxed for a while. At 16 he was convicted of robbery and sent to a detention center at Toccoa, where he sang with cellmates and met Bobby Byrd across a baseball game. He was paroled on June 14, 1952.

Federal put out a re-recorded Please, Please, Please in March 1956 and it sold a million copies. Try Me went to number one on the R&B chart in 1959, the first of 17 that did. Live at the Apollo appeared in June 1963 and climbed to number two on the album chart. Papa's Got a Brand New Bag gave him a top-10 pop record in 1965. Cold Sweat, in 1967, is the one usually named as the first funk record, the point where the melody surrendered and everything in the arrangement turned into a drum. Say It Loud came in the summer of 1968. He kept a revue of 40 to 50 people on the road for as many as 330 shows a year, and he holds the record for the most Hot 100 entries that never reached number one.

He ran the band as a payroll he could dock. Unshined shoes, a missed note, a late arrival — he called the fine in the middle of the song with splayed fingers, and the audience took it for choreography. He fired musicians for using drugs. Vicki Anderson dated his own PCP use to before 1982, and after he married Adrienne Rodriguez in 1984 the two of them used it together. He was arrested four times between 1987 and 1995 for assaulting her. By January 1988 he was facing four criminal charges inside 12 months. On September 24, 1988 he led police down Interstate 20 in a pickup truck and drew six years for carrying an unlicensed pistol and assaulting an officer. He was paroled on February 27, 1991.

He died of pneumonia in Atlanta on Christmas Day 2006. Three services followed, Al Sharpton officiating all of them, one at the Apollo. Then the family stopped, and he was not entombed until March 2007, in a crypt at a daughter's house in Beech Island, South Carolina. His will left personal effects to his six adult children and named neither Tomi Rae Hynie nor their son, and a separate irrevocable trust held the music. Courts declared Hynie his widow in 2015 and again in 2018, and the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed both rulings in 2020. The family settled in July 2021, 15 years in, on terms nobody disclosed. In 2019 CNN journalists reported claims that he had been killed.

James Brown's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Please, Please, Please song
  Little Richard wrote the title words on a napkin. Brown made a record out of them 1956
• Live at the Apollo album
  Number two on the album chart 1963
• Papa's Got a Brand New Bag song
  His first top-10 pop record 1965
• Cold Sweat song
  Usually named as the first true funk record 1967
• Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud song
  Released in the summer of 1968 1968
• Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine song
  Cut with the newly formed J.B.s 1970

• 1944 aged ~11 Wins a talent show at the Lenox Theater in Augusta singing So Long
• 1949 aged ~16 Convicted of robbery at 16 and sent to a detention center at Toccoa He formed a gospel quartet with cellmates and met Bobby Byrd there.
• June 14, 1952 aged 19 Paroled on a work sponsorship from a Toccoa businessman
• March 1956 aged 22 Please, Please, Please is released on Federal and sells a million
• June 1963 aged 30 Live at the Apollo reaches number two on the album chart
• April 5, 1968 aged 34 Plays the Boston Garden free and televised the night after King is killed The police chief had wanted the show called off.
• September 24, 1988 aged 55 Leads police on a chase down Interstate 20 and is sentenced to six years He was paroled on February 27, 1991.
• December 25, 2006 aged 73 Dies of pneumonia in Atlanta
• July 2021 aged 88 The family settles the estate after 15 years of litigation The terms were not disclosed.

• Little Richard 1932–2020
  Singer and pianist whose explosive performances and recordings helped establish the sound and visual style of rock and roll. gave him the words to his first hit
• Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968
  Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose nonviolent activism ended legal segregation in America. played Boston the night after his assassination
• Lyndon B. Johnson 1908–1973
  36th President who signed the Civil Rights Act and launched the Great Society programs. met at the White House over school dropouts
• Michael Jackson 1958–2009
  Performer whose recordings, choreography, and music videos redefined global pop stardom. attended his memorial
• Prince 1958–2016
  Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose innovation and fight for artistic control influenced generations. attended his memorial
• Jay-Z b. 1969
  Rapper and entrepreneur whose career helped move hip-hop from a subculture to the center of American business and culture. heir in a form built on his records