James Brown

James Brown’s life began outside Barnwell, South Carolina, on May 3, 1933; raised in Augusta, Georgia, he sang gospel before joining Bobby Byrd’s group, the Gospel Starlighters. Released as James Brown & The Famous Flames, 1956’s “Please, Please, Please” reached the R&B Top Five and eventually sold a million copies, and “Try Me” sat on top of the R&B chart by January 1959. Live at the Apollo , recorded at the theater in October 1962 and released in 1963, shot him to stardom. “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (1965) reached number 8 on the Hot 100, held number one on the R&B chart for eight weeks, and won his first Grammy; “I Got You (I Feel Good)” peaked at number 3; and the Grammy-nominated “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” was another R&B number one. He moved from upbeat soul to funk marathons such as 1970’s “Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine,” which features his band, The J.B.’s, and amplified a message of Black empowerment with 1968’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud).” In 1984 he recorded “Unity, Pt. 1: The Third Coming” with Afrika Bambaataa, and in 1985 “Living in America,” from Rocky IV , reached number 4 on the Hot 100 and won his second Grammy. On December 25, 2006, Brown died. He put 98 songs on Billboard’s Top 40 R&B singles chart, won three Grammy Awards, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992. Live at the Apollo is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and took its place in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2005. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000 and into the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame as an artist in 2013 and as a songwriter in 2017, and Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020) counts the box set Star Time at 54 and Live at the Apollo at 65. Primary Wave Music announced its partnership with his estate in December 2021, including projects for The James Brown 2000 Trust, which he established in 2000 for charitable and educational purposes. He had bought a Knoxville radio station in the late 1960s and renamed it WJBE, and in 2022 he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame as a station owner. The A&E docu-series James Brown: Say It Loud told his story in 2024, and in March 2025 “Bad,” his co-billed collaboration with 310babii built on a sample of “The Boss” from 1973’s Black Caesar , put him on a Billboard chart for the first time since 1993.