PERSONAL TOP 10: JAMES BROWN
Some appreciation for the Godfather of Soul.
“The Hardest Working Man In Show Business” is but one of the many nicknames earned by James Brown, an earlier icon in modern music who, in the final round of writing and revisions for my next album, became a major influence and source of inspiration in my life.
The thought that James Brown would grow from his humble beginnings to become an international icon, a political force, a successful entrepreneur and one of the most influential artists in music was probably unlikely at best in much of his early life. Yet, and still, that’s exactly what he did. The same man who was famously thought to be dead at birth, the same man who as a child was “dismissed from school because his clothes were too ragged” and the same man who was sentenced to prison in his early teens for petty theft (and later incarcerated as an adult on a separate incident), is the same one who “inspired generations of imitators” as he pioneered a new wave of sound and dance in popular music throughout a five-decade-long career.
NOTEWORTHY RECOGNITION
James Brown, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 alongside performers Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke and Ray Charles (among others), as well as the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000, was…
