"Soul Brother Number One," "The Godfather of Soul," "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" "The Secretary Of Soul," these are mantles that only one man can wear. James Brown is an American cultural giant whose dynamic showmanship remains timeless. Unarguably one of the most influential figures in American music, he has helped shape R&B into Rock and Soul, Soul into Funk, and has influenced the entire hip-hop generation as one of the most sampled artists to date. One of the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, James Brown has more honors attached to his name than any other performer in music history.

Mr. Brown is a three-figure hitmaker with 114 total entries on Billboard's R&B singles charts and 94 that made the Hot 100 singles chart. Seventeen of these hits reached No. 1, a feat topped only by Stevie Wonder and Louis Jordan.

Born in South Carolina during the Great Depression, Brown worked as a child, picking cotton, dancing for spare change and shining shoes. At 16, he landed in reform school for three years where he met future life-long friend and leader of a gospel group Bobby Byrd. Brown tried semi-pro boxing and baseball, but a leg injury put him on the path to pursue music as a career.

James Brown joined his friend Bobby Byrd in a group that sang gospel in and around Toccoa, Georgia. After seeing Hank Ballard and Fats Domino in a blues revue, Byrd and Brown decided to try their hand at secular music. Naming their band the Flames, they formed a tightly knit ensemble of singers, dancers and multi-instrumentalists.
Over next few years, while maintaining a grueling touring schedule, James Brown amassed 800 songs in his repertoire.  The group was signed by Federal/King, and immediately had a huge R&B hit with the wrenching, Gospel-tinged ballad "Please, Please, Please." By now the Flames had become James Brown & the Famous Flames, since the charisma, energy, and talent of Brown made him the natural star attraction.

After a couple of years of flops and searching for the right sound, Brown was on the verge of being dropped from King in 1958. His superhuman work ethic and perseverance finally paid off, however, as "Try Me" became a No. 1 R&B (and small pop) hit, and several follow-ups established him as a regular on the R&B charts.

Mr. Brown instilled the essence of R&B with recordings under the King and Federal labels throughout the next decade. His style of R&B grew more complex as the '60s began, as he added Latin- and jazz-influenced rhythms on hits like "Good Good Lovin'," "I'll Go Crazy," "Think," and "Night Train," alternating these with torturous ballads that featured the type of frenzied screaming rarely heard outside of church.

Legend has it that Brown sweated off up to seven pounds a night onstage. His furious regimen of spins, drops, and shtick, such as feigning a heart attack, thrilled crowds. The ritual donning and throwing off of capes became part of his personal performance trademark. 

With albums such as "Live at the Apollo," Mr. Brown captured the energy and hysteria generated by his live performances. People who had never seen him in person could hear and feel the excitement of him screaming and hollering until his back was soaking wet. Convinced that a live album would not sell, King Records refused to produce an album documenting his upcoming performance at the Apollo Theater in 1962. Although the industry thought he was crazy, Brown put up his own money and recorded the album himself.

Released nearly a year later, Live At The Apollo shot to No. 2 on Billboard's album chart, an unprecedented feat for a live R&B album. Radio stations played it with a frequency formerly reserved for singles, and attendance at Mr. Brown's concerts mushroomed.

Since Live at the Apollo was recorded and released against the wishes of the King label, a disgruntled Brown sought better opportunities elsewhere. In 1964, he ignored his King contract to record Out of Sight for Smash, igniting a lengthy legal battle that prevented him from issuing vocal recordings for about a year. When he finally resumed recording for King in 1965, he had a new contract that granted him far more artistic control over his releases.

Brown's new era had truly begun, however, with Out of Sight, which topped the R&B charts and made the pop Top 40. For some time, Brown had been moving toward more elemental lyrics which threw in as many chants and screams as words, and more intricate beats and horn charts that took some of their cues from the ensemble work of jazz outfits. Out of Sight wasn't labeled as funk when it came out, but in retrospect it contained the essential ingredients. These were amplified and perfected on 1965's Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, a monster that crossed over to the Top 10. The even more adventurous 1996 follow-up, I Got You (I Feel Good), did even better, making No. 3.

These hits kicked off Brown's period of greatest commercial success and public visibility. From 1965 to the end of the decade, he was rarely off the R&B charts, often on the pop listings, and all over the concert circuit and national television, even meeting with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and other important politicians as a representative of the African-American community. His music became even bolder and funkier, as melody was dispensed with almost altogether in favor of chunky rhythms and magnetic interplay between his vocals, horns, drums, and scratching electric guitar (heard to best advantage on hits like "Cold Sweat," "I Got the Feelin'," and "There Was a Time"). The lyrics were now not so much words as chanted, stream-of-consciousness slogans, often aligning themselves with Black pride as well as good old-fashioned (or new-fashioned) sex. Much of the credit for the sound he devised belonged to (and has now been belatedly attributed) his top-notch supporting musicians, such as saxophonists Maceo Parker, St. Clair Pinckney, and Pee Wee Ellis; guitarist Jimmy Nolen; backup singer Byrd; and drummer Clyde Stubblefield.

In late 1969, Brown's band walked out on their bandleader who had a reputation as a harsh taskmaster. As a result, he recruited a young Cincinnati outfit called the Pacemakers, featuring guitarist Catfish Collins and bassist Bootsy Collins. Although they only stayed with him for about a year, the Collins brothers, who would later help define '70s funk as members of the seminal Parliament/Funkadelic, were crucial to Brown's evolution into even harder funk, emphasizing the rhythm and the bottom even more.

In the early '70s, many of the most important members of Brown's late-'60s band returned to the fold, to be billed as the J.B's (they also made records on their own). Brown continued to score heavily on the R&B charts throughout the first half of the 1970s with records like "Make It Funky," "Hot Pants," "Get on the Good Foot," and "The Payback."

By the mid-'70s, Brown's fire started to wane in the face of new trends such as disco, and problems with the IRS and his financial empire. There were sporadic hits, and constant popularity on the road, but by the 1980s, he didn't have a label. With the explosion of rap, however, which frequently sampled vintage James Brown records, he experienced a career reincarnation. He collaborated with hip-hop Godfather Afrika Bambaataa on the critical smash single "Unity," and re-entered the Top Ten in 1986 with "Living in America," which became the highest grossing single of his long career. Brown, now a thirty-plus year veteran in the music industry, finally started to receive the credit he deserved for his role in shaping American music.

Unfortunately, in 1988, Brown's personal life got ugly in a well-publicized incident where he was accused by his wife of assault and battery. After a year skirting hazy legal and personal troubles, he led the police on an interstate car chase after allegedly threatening people with a handgun and indulging in illegal drugs. The episode ended in a six-year prison sentence; he was paroled after serving two years.

Despite this, and other unfortunate run-ins surrounding domestic squabbles in the new millennium, James Brown's status as "The Godfather of Soul" remains undiminished. He continues his annual treks to his hometown every Thanksgiving, where he gives away 100s of free turkeys to help take care of the community. Although beset by prostate cancer in 2004, he still continues to tour to millions of fans around the globe. His collection of accolades includes a 1992 lifetime achievement Grammy Award, and a 2003 Kennedy Center lifetime achievement honor, among a number of other awards and achievements too numerous to mention.

Thanks to James Brown official site - www.godfatherofsoul.com