I found out he was going to perform in my city in January (touring Canada) and I was planning on getting a ticket.

I was totally shocked when i heard the news. I had a JB Christmas album for a present.

RIP James and thankyou for everything you gave us.

peace and blessing to brother james and his family.

"say it loud"

The first record I remember hearing was "Get On The Good Foot" by the man James Brown. If you have listened to any music made by a Black artist you heard James Brown.If you are Black he gave us our national anthem "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud". If they created a Black Mt. Rushmore he would be there with Martin Luther King,Malik Shabazz( Malcolm X), Muhammad Ali,and Harrett Tubman.
He was the greatest performer of ALL TIME.
He is the Godfather of Soul...
The Daddy of Disco...
The Founding Father of Rap
The Creator of the Funk...
and lastly
Soul Brother number 1 !!!

Rest on my brother !!!

James was set to perform at BB. Kings Blues Club in New York on New Year's Eve.
People have been signing their names and expressing condolences on the billboard outside, announcing the show. One fan wrote,
"The Day The Funk Stood Still".


I feel saddened by this loss. Like when Ray died on June 8, 2004. But this digs deeper. I feel uncomfortable, and empty. The funk is like a fatherless child today. On the other side, there is comfort to know that his music will never be forgotten. Expect to hear an explosion of James on the airwaves as well as James Sampled and Influenced Music in tribute over the next year. As if he had not influenced enough. Ironic that in death should The Funk be given new life

I was just checking out a James Brown video on youtube - sex machine a couple of days before. Out of nowhere I said "let me see what they've got on JB". I was laughing at how cool he was. How he would push the mic stand away and grab the mic by the cord and yank it back before the stand fell and then drop into a half split. Nasty!

Just a few thoughts cast in the wind ...

It felt almost like a physical blow to get up on Christmas morning and find out that James Brown had passed away ... The man seemed somehow immortal.

He and his bands have been such an inspiration to me as a musician. Of course his shadow looms over everything from funk, hip hop, Afrobeat, reggae (listen to them skankin' rhythm guitars on Bob Marley records if you don't believe me), jazz fusion, rock and electronica and beyond. His rhythms are the DNA of most modern pop music, black, white, blue or green.

But now, on reflection, I feel less sad, but more a feeling of respect, for a great musician and performer, and all he has contributed to the world of music and beyond. A flawed human being yes, but who, to me, always seemed to just keep on going, because if he stopped, there wouldn't be anything else ... An inspirational example of never giving up, and getting stronger from your mistakes and mishaps(or aspiring to at least).

For me, James Brown is in the top five of the most brilliant and influential musical figures in the history of recorded pop music, (along with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, the Beatles and Elvis Presley).

I know it's impossible to really say, but JB, 1969-71 especially - the most powerful, dynamic live performer in pop history?? I'd build a time machine to go back there ... He also had the funkiest records ever made.

In the late 60s/ early '70s, he was up there with, like Martin Luther King and Muhammed Ali as true black American icons and role models. He personified a certain dignity and commanded respect for his presence and sayings.

I can almost see him now, looking down on everybody, musing and smiling in that challenging, perfect toothed way of his -'They'll remember me alright. James Brown, he died on Christmas Day ...' That brother made a show out of everything. He even died on the 'one' - Xmas day.

James Brown - The President of Funk. Funk will never die, 'cos you lived.

sad to see one of the greats pass.....he will be missed

It hasn't really hit me yet, it just seems like some people will be here with us forever. I know musically and spiritually he will be here with us. I truly feel as tho I have lost a close member of the family.

Rest Godfather I love you, and we will all miss you very much.

I asked Ben if he would mind changing the homepage to show our respects as a website as a whole, it seems he liked the idea.

Go check it out.

BananaCologne said:

i was wondering where that banner came from!

What a shock on Christmas Day.

I remember last New Year's Eve watching JB on television do a 2-hour performance and not missing a beat. Unbelievable.

My husband's sad 'cause that was his MAN! The first Christmas present I bought for him after we were married in 2001 was the "Star Time" compilation. I was just thinking that I need to replace it because my husband has worn those CD's plum out.

God Bless You, JB. You will be missed.

Rhondab said:

Amen, chile.

BananaCologne said:

It shows up in the chat room too

this is too sad for words...honestly

R.I.P.

James Brown

What a sad day for the world

NWF said:

.....or MC Hammer, Eddie Murphy, Bootsy Collins, Sly Stone, & George Clinton.

[Edited 12/27/06 19:49pm]

well, it only took three days but finally cnn.com put brown's death as its featured homepage article...

in the past they have used britney's coochie, tom cruises marriage and every other person's death as its feature...

sosgemini said:

it was on there the day he died. that's how i found out. by the way, how in the world did it take three days? didn't he die early yesterday morning?

Respects 2 the Brown family...

James... U'll b missed by many...



Hold on 2 ya souls y'all... The party about 2 get seriously FUNKY upstairs



Love & Peace.

What a text message! That my brother sent me. I was driving my father to church on Christmas morning because he had to sing in the choir. I just didn't believe it.

On Wednesday, last week, I was in Amsterdam (I'm from Germany) to visit my sister in Haarlem and the only 2 things I bought were 2 James Brown double CD's: "Live at the Apollo Volume II (Deluxe Edition)" (Universal 2001, by Alan Leeds & Harry Weinger) + "James Brown GOLD" (Universal International 2005, digitally remastered).
End of October I thought about going to Prague to see James Brown there on 11/4/2006, T-Mobile Arena... Unfortunately I couldn't go... That was wrong, I should have gone!

I have been a James Brown fan for 24 years now, even longer than a Prince fan, and he was my absolute No.1 artist in music! Woody Allen in film, and André Gide in Literature.

And soon another James Brown CD is dropping in my mailbox, that Christmas album, which a friend of mine from Pittsburgh, PA is sending me.

Although James Brown was already 73, it was kind of inconceivable and there were always tour dates on James Brown's godfatherofsoul.com, also for 2007 (with Europe!).

It's just so sad!

I've just read on augustachronicle.com that funeral arrangements are announced: for Augusta, GA and the Apollo Theater in New York!
http://chronicle.augusta....ents.shtml

"I'm three times 7 and then some mo'" (James Brown)

sallysassalot said:

thats what i thought too but cborgman said in gd that he died xmas eve but that the mainstream media didn't pick up on it till yesterday. and i didn't see it on cnn's homepage yesterday...well, except for a online blurb about how brown's wife was being locked out of the house. maybe i missed the big ole featured picture and proper write up...cause it wasn't there the times i checked.

OH NO! Not James Brown! You'd think he'd live forever... He'll be missed...

incredibleD said:

Its so appropriate that James Brown's funeral would include the Apollo Theater in some fashion. God bless his soul. Anyone think funeral services will be televised?

Great Article

Don Rhodes shares his memories of James Brown

By Don Rhodes | Columnist
http://chronicle.augusta....lumn.shtml
Monday, Dec. 25, 2006 11:03 a.m.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don Rhodes, publications editor of Morris Communications Co. and music columnist for The Chronicle, recalls his long association with James Brown.

In my mind's eye I can vividly see James Brown the first day I met him 40 years ago at the peak of his career when he was truly the most exciting performer to take a stage.

And I can still hear in my mind's ears, the great, unmistakable sounds of Mr. Brown and his powerful band and soulful backup singers as they sang his 1966 hit It's A Man's, Man's Man's World on the stage of the University of Georgia's new basketball Coliseum in the mid-'60s.

And I remember standing in the darkened wings near Mr. Brown just before he went on that coliseum stage and watching him lovingly put his hands on two of his young sons --- one of whom was Teddy who would be killed at 19 in a car accident seven years later in June of 1973.

Yet 40 years after that university concert, the charisma and special talent that was James Brown had diminished very little whenever he walked into a room or flashed that warm smile.

Just before 8 a.m. on Christmas Day at the Waffle House in North Augusta, a white waitress in a Santa Claus hat was handing menus to four black customers and saying, "Did you hear that James Brown died this morning?"

That's just how special he was.

To the rest of the world, he was the guy that the cable TV network CNN would call "one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years."

To local residents, he was the guy you would see in local theaters watching afternoon movies, pumping his own gas at a station near his home in Beech Island, S.C., supporting local musicians at area nightspots, eating in local restaurants and just being human instead of being "the superstar."

That meant Augustans saw his human frailties and his bad side as well as his more often kind, funny and giving sides.

I know of few people who gave as much to Augusta as James Brown.

He was there at muscular dystrophy telethons using the title of one of his hit songs to urge people to "please, please, please" call in your pledges.

Yes, there were others who provided the toys and turkeys for his two annual major give-aways, but he was the celebrity who caused them to happen. He would have guests at his annual Christmas parties bring gifts to be later given away to poor children.

He never forgot being poor himself growing up in Augusta. He talked often about dancing on Augusta sidewalks for pocket change from then Camp Gordon soldiers to buy his family food and of walking along local railroad tracks to find pieces of coal so his family could have some heat during the winter.

He was proud of winning his first talent contest at the Lenox Theater on Ninth Street that later would become James Brown Boulevard. He regretted quitting in the fifth grade at Silas X. Floyd Elementary School and would later urge other kids not to do the same in his hit single Don't Be A Drop Out.

But in spite of his few formal years of schooling, he also was one of the smartest guys I ever knew. One time when I was in his office in the early '80s, he wanted to impress on me how big he was in Europe.

He had his secretary call up this music promoter in France, and Mr. Brown blew me away when he started conversing with the promoter in fluent French. Then Mr. Brown handed me the phone, and the promoter in broken English told me how much Mr. Brown was loved all over Europe.

He gave away hundreds of bicycles, and one time --- when he saw a young man in Augusta without a coat on a cold winter day --- he told his driver to stop the car, and he got out and gave the young man his own coat.

James Brown was a man who caused things to happen even when others didn't think they could happen.

When his record company in the '60s told him that his fans wouldn't buy him doing a live recording, Mr. Brown paid out of his own pocket to rent New York City's Apollo Theater and he recorded in 1962 what became one of the greatest-selling albums of all time: Live At The Apollo, Volume I.

It would stay on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues charts for an astounding 66 weeks!

"They didn't think I could do it," he later told me of his then record company executives. "They thought I was crazy. I spent my own money. It cost $5,700. Today, it would cost $400,000. It probably has sold 25 million copies."

He made music like no one ever made before or after him. He was Soul Brother No. 1, The Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, and he lived up to all of those titles.

He loved it when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd brought him back to huge public light in the movie The Blues Brothers as a preacher of all things. He followed it with another cameo appearance in another Aykroyd movie, Doctor Detroit.

In 1985, Mr. Brown was happy informing me about still another recently filmed movie appearance saying, "Sylvester Stallone told me, 'You thought you were hot in Doctor Detroit. We're really going to make you hot.'"

Sure enough, Mr. Brown provided a memorable movie moment and another huge hit single singing the passionate and patriotic Living in America in Rocky IV.

Mr. Brown didn't serve in the military, but his father did, and Mr. Brown was proud of his father's service to his country in the Navy in Okinawa. His father, Joe Brown, would die in the U.S. Veteran's Hospital in Augusta.

And Mr. Brown himself would entertain hundreds of thousands of American soldiers over the years at military bases.

In fact, I was there at Long Binh, Vietnam, in June of 1968 when James Brown sang My Country Tis of Thee to 7,000 black and white soldiers packed into an outdoor amphitheater that only was supposed to hold 5,000.

In spite of intense tropical heat, Mr. Brown performed his high-energy show with a few band members that the U.S.O. had allowed him to bring along.

Back in Augusta several years later, Mr. Brown would tell me that his U.S.O. trip had been arranged by then Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Ebony and Jet magazines owner-founder Bob Johnson.

He also performed in Vietnam at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, the Phan Rang Air Base and the Bear Cat Base of the 9th Infantry Division.

Nineteen years later he would tell me of doing those shows, "I was carrying the pride of America with me --- the pride of humanity from free people throughout the world. ... I take pride in going anywhere to serve God and to try to sooth the savage beast in man."

Honestly, he really said that.

Lord knows that Mr. Brown could be a pill at times like most of us in our darker days. He got mad at me several times and wouldn't talk to me for years, and then when I saw him again unexpectedly in person it was as if nothing had happened between us.

He always introduced me to his band members and friends saying, "You know, he saw me in Vietnam!" And he would never fail to ask, "How's your dad doing?" They had become friends when my father, Ollen Rhodes, was working as a subcontractor in Aiken County and was doing work on Mr. Brown's Beech Island ranch style house. Mr. Brown would want it trimmed in --- what else --- brown paint. My dad and Mr. Brown often talked about the Bible together.

One time when my dad took me over to Mr. Brown's house to talk about a fix-up project, Mr. Brown came outside wearing pink hair curlers in his hair. He said, "You know, there aren't many people I'd let see me like this but your dad is one of them."

In spite of his hell raising and slips of moral character, Mr. Brown was a faithful Christian in his heart who sincerely and often gave God the credit for his talents and for the many good things that happened to him.

"What a beautiful city Augusta has become," Mr. Brown told me in 1986. "When God recognizes you with his blessings, that is the highest honor a man can receive. When your fellow man recognizes you, that is the second highest honor you can receive. ... God is the greatest hit maker in the world. I'd rather be a poor man with religion than a rich man without it."

James Brown had many, many good things happen to him and not just sold out concerts and best selling recordings.

Augusta, in fact, honored him with special days more times than any other individual in Augusta's long history --- in 1969 with a parade on Broad Street, 1986 with James Brown Day at Augusta Riverfront Marina, 1993 with the renaming of Ninth/Campbell Street for him and in recent years with his statue on Broad Street and the renaming of the civic center in his honor.

One of the greatest honors I've had as a journalist was when then Mayor Bob Young asked me to write the wording for the metal marker near Mr. Brown's statue.

And this is what I wrote: "Singer, songwriter, musician and one-of-a-kind performer James Brown has thrilled millions around the world with his hit recordings and electrifying performances. The 1983 Georgia Music Hall of Fame inductee, 1986 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and 2003 Kennedy Center honoree has called Augusta "home" since moving here when he was five. It was in Augusta's Lenox Theater that he first received recognition for his talent by winning an amateur contest. His songs have enriched the world, and his personality and generosity have enriched this city."

What I should have wrote, however, is what he told me in 1986 when I asked what he regarded as the keys for success.

He replied, "Just work hard, give the people their money's worth and be sincere in what you do. It's worked for me."

From the Monday, Dec. 25, 2006 online edition of The Augusta Chronicle

WOW.... NYC... I hope they allow us to pay our respect... I live 4 blocks from the Apollo

banks said:

They will...

They should rename 125st JB boulevard