James Brown (1951

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Biography

James Talmadge Brown is an American sportscaster, currently the studio host of The James Brown Show and The NFL Today on CBS Sports. He is also a special correspondent for CBS News.

Timeline

The story of James Brown, told in moments.

1956 Event

Released "Please, Please, Please" with the Famous Flames. He dropped to his knees during the performance. The cape routine. He invented it. Every soul singer who followed borrowed the move.

Where did the cape routine come from? Did you know you were inventing soul?

1963 Event

Live at the Apollo recorded in Harlem. The album stayed on the Billboard chart for 66 weeks. He financed the recording himself because King Records didn't think a live album would sell.

What made you finance the Apollo recording yourself? Did King Records regret saying no?

1968 Event

Performed a televised concert in Boston the night after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The mayor broadcast it citywide. Boston didn't riot. Brown's music kept the city calm.

Did you know the Boston concert would prevent a riot? What does it feel like to hold a city together with music?

1970 Event

"Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" dropped. The One. The emphasis on the downbeat of every measure. Funk was born. Hip-hop, disco, house music. It all starts here.

Where did the One come from? Do you understand everything that funk started?

2006 Death

Died of congestive heart failure in Atlanta on Christmas Day. He was 73. He'd been called the hardest working man in show business because he was.

Was dying on Christmas Day the last showman's exit? Were you really the hardest working man in show business?

In Their Own Words (20)

I'm the most sampled and stolen. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too … I got a song about that … But I'm never gonna release it. Don't want a war with the rappers. If it wasn't good, they wouldn't steal it.

"Being James Brown," Rolling Stone Magazine, 2006-06-12., 2006

I would warn against anyone marrying a person with more than a ten-year age difference. It almost never works. It is difficult to find things to talk about, to use similar reference points, and to operate at the same speed of life. Another problem is that both sides usually don't want the same things at the same time.

Brown, J. & Eliot, M. (2005). I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul , pp. 247-248. New American Library: New York., 2005

This is an issue couples have to be straight on and agree on before they walk down that aisle; otherwise there is no way their marriage will survive.

On having children — as quoted in Brown, J. & Eliot, M. (2005). I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul, p. 248. New American Library: New York., 2005

To make it in life, you and your wife need to be in the same business. That has been my problem all along. My wives didn't know what I was doing. I would come back home from the road to a stranger. That's no good.

Brown, J. & Tucker, B. (2003). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, p. 266. Thunder's Mouth Press: New York., 2003

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.

Brown, J. & Tucker, B.B. (1986). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul. Macmillan: New York., 1986

Artifacts (15)

H Beard Print Collection

Largillière, Nicolas

18th century

vam View

James I

Palmer, James (Sir)

1623

vam View

James Brown, Sr.

Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

1808 · Engraving on paper

Smithsonian View

Dancing for Eels

James Brown|E. & J. Brown

1848 · Lithograph and watercolor

The Met View

General Sir Charles James Napier G.C.B.

Brown, Alfred

ca. 1852

vam View

James Brown: The Godfather of Soul

In this updated edition, the Godfather of Soul tells--with pride and humor--his own rags-to-riches story of survival and artistic achievement. From his boyhood in a Georgia whorehouse, where Brown...

1997

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I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul

From one of the most important, iconic and influential musicians of the 20th century, James Brown, comes this honest and fascinating biography. Though Brown's career is well covered in the music...

2005

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Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894

On September 1, 1894, two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping more than two thousand people. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds,...

2007

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The Indifferent Stars Above LP: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

In April of 1846, Sarah Graves was twenty-one and in love with a young man who played the violin. But she was torn. Her mother, father, and eight siblings were about to disappear over the western...

2009

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This River: A Memoir

“Continues where Brown’s first memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries, left off. It’s molten stuff, the story of his efforts to control his river of rage.” —Los Angeles Times Award–winning author James Brown...

2011

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The Boys In The Boat

Cast aside by his family at an early age, abandoned and left to fend for himself in the woods of Washington State, young Joe Rantz turns to rowing as a way of escaping his past. What follows is an...

2013

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James Brown - The Ultimate Collection (Songbook)

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Artist Songbook). "Get Up Offa That Thing" and play some funky hits! This superb collection assembles two dozen classics from the Godfather of Soul in piano/vocal/guitar format:...

2013

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The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

This book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions...

2016

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Facing the Mountain: An Inspiring Story of Japanese American Patriots in World War II

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's "Books We Love" of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Christopher Award “Masterly. An epic story of four...

2022

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The Boys in the Boat (Movie Tie-In): Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney The #1 New York Times bestselling true story about the American rowing triumph of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin—from the author of Facing the...

2023

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