James Brown's homepage

                              Over a 39 year period, James Brown
                              amassed an amazing total of 98 entries on
                              Billboard's top 40 R&B singles Charts, a
                              record unsurpassed by any other artist.
                              Seventeen on them reached number one, a
                              feat topped only by Stevie Wonder and Louis
                              Jordan, and equaled only by Aretha Franklin.

                              Brown's rise from juvenile delinquent to Soul Brother Number
                              One is among the great modern day American success
                              stories. The only child of a poor backwoods family, he was
                              sent to Augusta, Georgia at age five to live at an aunt's
                              brothel.

                              He earned his keep by running errands for soldiers at nearby
                              Camp Gordon, entertaining them with his buckdancing and
                              enticing them into his aunt's establishment. Singing gospel
                              music and playing piano, drums, and guitar served as an
                              emotional outlet for the young Brown.

                              In 1952, Brown settled in Georgia and joined the Gospel
                              Starlighters, a quartet led by Bobby Byrd. Theirs was a raw
                              southern gospel style inspired by Julius Cheeks and the
                              Sensational Nightingales and Reverend Reuben Willingham
                              and the Swanee Quintet.

                              Eventually, however, the Starlighters evolved into a rhythm
                              and blues outfit. They were originally known as the Avons,
                              them as the Flames. In November 1955, while based in
                              Macon, Georgia, the Flames cut a demonstration record at
                              radio station WIBB of an original tune titled "Please, Please,
                              Please".

                              While passing through Atlanta, record producer Ralph Bass
                              heard the demo and was so impressed with Brown's
                              impassioned lead and the group's hard harmonies that he
                              immediately drove to Macon and signed them to King
                              Records, a Cincinnati company for which two of the Flames'
                              favorite groups, the Midnighters and the 5 Royales, were
                              recording.

                              A session was held in Ohio the following week.Released on
                              King's Federal label two months later, in March of 1956,
                              "Please, Please, Please" reached Number Five on the
                              Billboard's R&B chart.

                              Brown's boyhood dream of escaping poverty was not
                              immediately realized, however. Although he and the Flames
                              continued to make records for Federal, it would be nearly
                              three years before they again hit the national charts. "Try
                              Me", produced by Andy Gibson, hit big during the winter of
                              1958-59, giving the group its first Number One R&B record
                              and enabling Brown to hire a steady backup band.

                              Through grueling rehearsals and barnstorming onenighters,
                              Brown developed the band into the hottest R&B unit in the
                              land. His peak year came in 1965.

                              His musicians' precision timing was geared to accent every
                              blood curling scream, every flying split, every knee drop,
                              every one-legged skate, and every shimmy of Brown's
                              stunning array of acrobatics, which be now had become the
                              visual trademark of the group's stage act. 




Now that's fuckin' goddamn right!