by André Depienne

„Godfather of Soul“, „Soul Brother Number One“ or „The Hardest-Working Man in Show business“ these are the titles earned by the Afro-American singer James Brown during his long career. He grew up in a bar in Au- gusta, Georgia, and founded his first band at the age of 13. 8 years later, in 1949 he went to jail for burglary. In 1952 he founded the band “Gospel Starlighters” together with Bobby Byrd. They were active in two musical di- rections, as “Gospel Starlighters” with Gos- pel and as “Avons” with R&B. In 1955 they changed the name into “Famous Flames”. The same year James presented a Demo to a record label with his own song called “Please Please Please” and in January 1956 he was signed by this same label. This title was his first record too and from that moment on he was present in the international charts. In 1974 his popula- rity went down until his big comeback in 1985 with “Living in America”, the title song of Sylvester Stallone’s movie “Rocky IV”. Only one year later James Brown was one of the first artists being elected to the new founded “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”. On December 24th, 2006 he had an appointment at the den- tist. This one realized that James Brown health was in a very bad shape and sent him to the hospital “Emory-Crawod-Long” in Atlanta. He died in the night of the 25th of December due to heart problems caused by pneumonia.