Biography of James Brown

James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, as an only child in 1933. His father was a filling station attendant. When James was four, his parents separated and he grew up in the brothel of his aunt, a poor woman in Augusta, Georgia. Brown left school in the seventh grade. He picked cotton, was a shoe-shine boy, washed cars and dishes and swept out stores. At the age of 16, he took part in an armed robbery and was caught breaking into a car. James was sentenced to eight to sixteen years' hard labor. He served a short period in the county jail before being transferred to juvenile work farms. He spent three years in a community home. Afterwards, he tried to work as a boxer. His ambitions to make a career as a baseball pitcher ended with a leg injury. He had been a pitcher for the prison team and that's where he first met Bobby Byrd who played against him in a local game. James Brown started to work with pianist Bobby Byrd in bars and clubs in Toccoa, Georgia. Little Richard's manager Clint Brantley took him under contract and sent him to the Twospot Nightclub in Macon, Georgia. During the day, he worked at Lawson's Motor Company in town, in the evenings, he worked as a drummer and organ player in the club's house band which accompanied Bill Johnson, the Four Steps of Rhythm and the Gospel Starlighters. At that time, they switched from gospel to r&b which was then in the air. Later, James Brown became a member of Bobby Byrd's gospel group Three Swanees which became the Swanee Quintet and later the Swanees. In 1955, the singer Sylvester Keels and the guitarist Nafloyd Scott where part of the group. The band toured Georgia and developed into the Famous Flames, a black music revue in which all members had at least to play two instruments and to act as dancers and singers. In 1956, James Brown took over the direction of the Famous Flames which consisted of Keels and Scott, but also Johnny Terry and Nashpendle Knox (both vocals), Wilbert Smith and Ray Felder