James Brown (musician)

In December 2004 Brown was diagnosed with prostate cancer which was successfully treated with surgery. Currently, they are on a joint-tour with the band Earth, Wind and Fire. In short, James Brown's reputation as an innovator is now commonplace, and his personal appearances still draw crowds; a testament to his stature as both musician and entertainer. The group continues to tour in big and small venues worldwide. The 1991 four-CD retrospective Star Time is a synopsis of his career; nearly all his earlier LPs have been re-released on CD, often with additional tracks and informed commentary by scholars familiar with Brown. And as a new century turned, the band sold their entire recorded output to Rhino Records (after years with Columbia Records as well as their own label). Brown was a recipient of Kennedy Center Honors for 2003, and a scheduled 2004 unveiling of a statue of Brown in Augusta was delayed because of James Brown's ongoing legal problems. Lead singers have changed from time to time (ranging from Bill Champlin to Jason Scheff), but the group still keeps active more than three-and-a-half decades after its founding.

A street in downtown Augusta is named James Brown Boulevard in his honor. The episode put more emphasis on the death of Terry Kath than their entire career combined, and Cetera completely disowned the special and went so far as to not allow VH1 to use all the songs he composed for the band, even declining to be interviewed (although stock news footage of a Cetera interview does appear). Brown still makes his home in the Augusta area, and is a prominent figure in that community. The show, however, was not without its difficulties. Imprisoned for firearms and drugs offences, as well as for the repercussions of his flight, he was released in 1991 to find the sampled rhythms and drum beats from his records almost ubiquitous in rap music; a 20-second drum solo near the end of the song "Funky Drummer" is perhaps the single most sampled piece of music in history. In 2002, the group (minus Cetera) had the opportunity to tell their story in an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. In 1985 he managed another hit single, "Living In America," but in 1988, he was arrested following a high-speed car chase through the streets of Augusta. concert in 1997, they teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon".

While 1977's Mutha's Nature and 1978's Jam 1980's generated no charted hits, 1979's The Original Disco Man LP is nonetheless a worthy late addition to his oeuvre, containing the song "It's Too Funky in Here," which was his last top R&B hit of the 70s. During a L.A. Ironically, the disco movement, which Brown anticipated, and some say originated, found relatively little room for Brown; his 1976 albums Get Up Offa That Thing and Bodyheat were his first flirtations with disco-fied rhythms incorporated into his funky repertoire. In 1995, they attempted to merge their unique sound with Big Band music for their album Chicago: Night And Day (Big Band), which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington (from whom the album mainly got its inspiration). Nevertheless, key musicians such as Bootsy Collins began to depart. The band continued to be innovative in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. His 70s Polydor recordings were a summation of all the innovation of the last twenty years, and while some critics maintain that he declined artistically during this period, compositions like "Funky President," "The Payback," and "Stoned to the Bone" are among his best. During 1989, they did a joint concert tour with The Beach Boys (who had years earlier sung back-up vocals for "Wishing You Were Here").

By the mid-70s Brown's star-status was on the wane. Records, was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was never released officially, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album have surfaced worldwide, including over the Internet. Selected tracks from the unreleased album have since been officially released on a compilation greatest hits CD box set. The early 70s marked the first real awareness, outside the African-American community, of Brown's achievements; Miles Davis and other jazz musicians began to cite Brown as a major influence on their styles. Their record company at the time, Warner Bros. These recordings are as much a part of Brown's legacy as those released under his own name, and most are noted examples of what might be termed James Brown's "house" style. By the end of the decade, the group planned and recorded a concept album, Stone Of Sisyphus. In the early 70s he began recording for Polydor Records, and many of his sidemen and supporting players, such as Fred Wesley (and the JB's, Brown's backing group), Bobby Byrd, Lyn Collins, Myra Barnes and Hank Ballard, released records on Brown's subsidiary label, People, which started up in 1971. But the conflict between Peter Cetera's style of composing and those of the rest of the group caused Cetera to leave the band in 1985 for a solo career (he topped the charts with the "Karate Kid Part II" theme song "The Glory of Love" and a duet with Amy Grant, "Next Time I Fall (In Love)").

As Brown's musical empire grew (he bought radio stations in the late 1960s), his desire for financial and artistic independence grew as well. The group also contributed to movie soundtracks, such as "Two Of A Kind", "Summer Lovers", and "Days Of Thunder". By 1970 and his "Get Up (I Feel Like Being) a Sex Machine" (recorded in Nashville, Tennessee), his "classic" '60s band, featuring guitarist Jimmy Nolen, saxophonist Maceo Parker, and trombonist Fred Wesley, had left him, and he employed a new band that included Bootsy Collins, and later, Fred Wesley (as trombonist and musical director). Chicago itself guested on a Paul Anka song, "Hold Me 'Til The Morning Comes", while the horn section made an appearance on the Bee Gees' album Spirits Having Flown. He would also add socio-political commentary on songs like "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" (1968) and "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I'll Get It Myself)" 1970). For example, Al Green guested on a bonus track on the Chicago VI CD, while The Bee Gees guested on a track off of "Hot Streets". As the 1960s progressed, Brown would refine this style further with "Licking Stick-Licking Stick" (recorded in 1968), and "Funky Drummer" (recorded in 1969). From time to time, other artists contributed to Chicago recordings.

Mixed in with his more famous rhythmic essays of the era were ballads and even Broadway show tunes.
. He was noted for his ability as a bandleader and songwriter to marry the simplicity and drive of R&B to the rhythmic complexity and precision of jazz. In 1988, they topped the charts yet again with the Diane Warren composed single, "Look Away". Brown employed musicians and arrangers who had come up through the jazz tradition. The following album, Chicago 17, became the biggest selling album of the band's history, with two more Top Ten singles, "You're The Inspiration" and "Hard Habit To Break". "Cold Sweat" (1967) marked a radical departure into more abstract music, and critics have come to see this recording as a high mark in the music of the 1960s, although at the time the innovations of Brown were overshadowed by the work of the Beatles. This second phase of the band's career lasted through the 1980s with a new producer, David Foster, and again topping the charts with "Hard To Say I'm Sorry/Get Away" (from Chicago 16).

In addition, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" saw Brown utilizing technology; the released version of the single was sped up to make the song more commercial. The release also marked a move somewhat away from the jazz-rock direction favored by Kath and towards more pop songs and ballads. "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)," both from 1965, featured the deceptively simple riffs of guitarist Jimmy Nolen, which played off the bass guitar and drums. Kath's death could have meant the end for the band, but instead the group stood strong and later that year recorded and released Hot Streets, their first album without Kath and Guercio and their first album with a title rather than a roman numeral (they would return to the old naming scheme immediately afterward, for the most part). 1964's "Out of Sight" was a harbinger of the new James Brown sound. Then, singer/guitarist/group founder Terry Kath died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, delivering a devastating blow to the band. Brown followed this success with a string of singles that, along with the work of Allen Toussaint in New Orleans, essentially defined funk music. The year began with an acrimonius split with long-time manager Guercio.

During this time Brown recorded for the Cincinnati, Ohio-based King Records, presided over by Syd Nathan. 1978 was a tragic and transitional year for the band. Brown's early hits, such as "Please Please Please," recorded 1956, and "I'll Go Crazy," recorded 1959, were fairly straightforward gospel and R&B compositions marked by a rhythmic acuity and sharpness of vocal and instrumental attack that would later become even more pronounced and would lead to the style called "funk". Brown's trademark screams and stage act are renowned for generating a positive and highly excited response from the audience. While these early singles were local hits, and performed well on the R&B chart, the band was not nationally successful until this live show was captured on record, on Brown's self-financed Live at the Apollo in 1963. That was the song which won the group their only Grammy award for Best Rock Performance by a duo or group in 1977. He began to tour relentlessly (Brown often calls himself The Hardest Working Man In Show Business) and the band built a following with their live shows. But for all their effort, none of their singles went to number one until the group's tenth album (Chicago X) in 1976, when Cetera's slow, exquisite ballad "If You Leave Me Now" went to the top of the charts. After a brief stint as a boxer and then baseball pitcher ended by a leg injury, Brown turned his energy toward music, transforming the vocal band The Gospel Starlighters into the first generation of The Famous Flames. That summer saw a very successful joint tour across America with the Beach Boys, with each act performing some of the other's material.

He secured an early release after three years with the help of Byrd's family under the condition that he not return to Augusta or Richmond County and that he would try to get a job. The next year's release, Chicago VIII featured the political allegory "Harry Truman" and the nostalgic "Old Days". At 16, he was convicted of armed robbery and made the acquaintance of Bobby Byrd. 1973's Chicago VI also topped the charts bouyed by hits "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Just You and Me". Chicago VII, the band's double-disc 1974 release, featured the Cetera-composed "Wishing You Were Here" (sung by lead guitarist Terry Kath, with background vocals by The Beach Boys). Brown grew up in the poverty of Depression era Augusta, Georgia. Other successful albums and singles followed in each of the succeeding years. Snippets of his 800-some songs were recycled into hundreds of rap songs and continue to appear in electronic music to this day. The group bounced back from this misstep in 1972 with their first single-disc release, Chicago V, a diverse set that reached number one on both the Billboard pop and jazz albums charts and yielded the radio hit "Saturday In the Park".

With the advent of hip hop in the late '70s, James Brown's grooves became the foundation for rap music and breakdancing, as DJs such as Grandmaster Flash looped and extended the drum breaks from earlier JB favorites like "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose." In the late 1980s, James Brown's music experienced a renaissance with the rise of sampling by Hip Hop producers. The performances and sound quality were judged sub-par; in fact, one group member went on record to say that "the horn section sounded like kazoos". By the mid- '70s, several of his key band members (Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, and Maceo Parker), had left his employ and joined forces with George Clinton, whose so-called P-Funk groups (Funkadelic, Parliament, Parlet, the Brides of Funkenstein) were a looser, wilder and more self-consciously counterculture version of Brown's bands. 1-4 (Chicago IV) (consisting of music from their first three albums). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, his irresistible sound spawned countless imitators. Some fans say a low point of the group's early career came when they released a quadruple-album live set, At Carnegie Hall, Vols. James Brown's musical innovations, developed in tandem with the many skilled musicians who passed through his bands (the Flames, the James Brown Band, the JB's), used the basic building blocks of earlier African-American music; his career is a case study in change and self-determination. With that, the pattern had been set: the band, ever prolific, recorded and released music at a rate of more than two LP discs per year (always titled with the band name and a Roman numeral) from their debut in 1969 through the 1970s.