"Godfather of Soul" James Brown dead at 73

Posted:
Dec 25, 2006

"The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" died early Christmas morning at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta. James Brown was 73.

An enormous influence on 20th century soul and blues music in the United States and around the world, the pompadoured Brown had been hospitalized on Sunday for severe pneumonia. He died at about 1:45 a.m. Monday from conjunctive heart failure.

His famous songs included "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)."

Classic works that he wrote or performed were heard on the soundtracks of several animated movies.

The soundtrack of the partly animated Garfield The Movie(2004) featured both his "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Call Me Super Bad."

His version of "Get Up Offa That Thing" was on the soundtrack of 2005's Robots. And Hey Arnold! The Movie(2002) included "2 Way," co-written by Brown and performed by Lil' Romeo, featuring Master P.

The partly animated Warner Bros. feature film Osmosis Jones(2001) included "Take it to Da House," performed by Trick Daddy featuring The Slip-N-Slide Express. The song contained excerpts from "The Boss" by Brown.

Brown also could be heard on episodes of cartoon TV series. The 1993 Simpsons episode Bart's Inner Childcast Brown as himself. In the episode, Bart accidentally has the entire town emulating his actions, thanks to a feel-good therapist. Kidney, Popsicle And Nuts, a 1997 episode of Duckman, had Brown as a hostage negotiator. And in Raisins, a 2003 episode of South Park, his performance of Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight's "Living in America" was on the soundtrack.

In (extremely) live action, he was I-feel-good preacher Reverend Cleophus James in The Blues Brothers and sequel Blues Brothers 2000.

"People already know his history, but I would like for them to know he was a man who preached love from the stage," said friend Charles Bobbit, who was with Brown at the hospital. "His thing was 'I never saw a person that I didn't love.' He was a true humanitarian who loved his country."

Three days before his passing, he had taken part in his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, Georgia. He was looking forward to his New Year's Eve show.

The jumping, rough-edged entertainer had diabetes and prostate cancer that was in remission, said Bobbit.

Brown initially seemed fine at the hospital, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. "Last night, he said 'I'm going to be there. I'm the hardest working man in show business,'" Copsidas said Monday.

Along with such icons as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, he was one of the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"He was an innovator, he was an emancipator, he was an originator. Rap music, all that stuff came from James Brown," a longtime friend, entertainer Little Richard, told MSNBC.

"James Brown changed music," said Rev. Al Sharpton, who toured with Brown in the 1970s, and who mimics his hairstyle.

"He made soul music a world music. What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. This is a guy who literally changed the music industry. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. He pioneered it."

"He was dramatic to the end -- dying on Christmas Day," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown's since 1955.

"Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way."

"To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told Associated Press.

In 1992, Brown won a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1992. He won Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and in 1987 for "Living In America" (best R&B vocal performance, male).

Brown lived in Beech Island, South Carolina, near the Georgia state line. He was born James Joseph Brown in poverty in Barnwell, S.C. on May 3, 1933.

As a four-year-old, he was left to the care of relatives and friends. He grew up on the Augusta streets in what he called an "ill-repute area."

By 1949, Brown was in Grade 8 and had served three and a half years in reform school for breaking into cars. While in reform school, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home.

Byrd took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. They shortly changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

Influential Cincinnati label King Records signed the group in January 1956. Four months later, "Please, Please, Please" hit the R&B Top Ten.

Brown's personal life was stormy. It included charges of alcohol and drug abuse.

A drug-fueled 1988 dispute with police culminated in an interstate car chase. Brown spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison, then 10 months in a work release program.

The 5' 6" Brown was married four times. He had three children with his first, Velma Warren, to whom he was married from 1954 until their 1969 divorce.

He had another two children with Deidre Jenkins, his wife from 1971 until their divorce 10 years later.

In 1984, he married his third wife, Adrienne Rodriguez. She charged him four times with felony assault. She died of heart failure in 1996 after plastic surgery.

In 2002, he married Tommy Rae Brown, with whom he had a child. In 2004, he was arrested for allegedly pushing his wife at their South Carolina home. He later filed for an annulment of their marriage.

James Brown III, a son with girlfriend Tomi Raye Hynie, was born in 2001.

He is survived by his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers, and by at least four children, two daughters and sons Daryl and James Brown III, Copsidas said.

Such younger African-American stars as Michael Jackson and Prince emulated his big hair, tight pants and eye makeup. Early rappers sampled his music and imitated his voice.

"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90% of their music is me," Brown told AP in 2003.

Memorial plans were incomplete, Copsidas said.