50 Fun Facts About James Brown

James Brown was born in 1933 in Barnwell, in which US state?

He was born in a small wooden shack to a 16-year-old mother; the family later moved across the Savannah River into Georgia.

Brown's family moved to which Georgia city when he was four or five?

He shined shoes there as a boy and later bought the local radio station WRDW; the city now has a James Brown Boulevard and a James Brown Arena.

In his teens, Brown briefly pursued which sport as a career?

He also danced for change to entertain troops from Camp Gordon and taught himself piano, guitar and harmonica in the same years.

At 16, Brown was sent to a juvenile detention center in which Georgia town?

He formed a gospel quartet with four cellmates there, and a local businessman's job sponsorship secured his parole in June 1952.

What was Brown's nickname among fellow inmates at the detention center?

Bobby Byrd heard about 'a guy called Music Box' and later said his family helped secure Brown's early release.

Which song began when Little Richard wrote its title on a napkin?

The Famous Flames cut it as a radio-station demo, and the 1956 re-recording on Federal sold more than a million copies.

Which 1958 ballad became Brown's first No. 1 R&B hit?

It topped the chart at the start of 1959 and gave its name to the first record label Brown launched a few years later.

How many of Brown's singles reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart?

He also holds the record for the most Hot 100 entries that never reached No. 1 on the pop chart.

Brown's 1959 Apollo Theater debut was as the opening act for which idol of his?

Three years later Brown would record the live album at the same venue that made him a national star.

Who paid for the October 1962 recording that became Live at the Apollo?

Syd Nathan thought nobody would buy a live album of songs fans already owned; it reached No. 2 and stayed on the chart for 14 months.

On 1964's The T.A.M.I. Show, Brown famously upstaged which closing act?

The Police later name-checked 'James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show' in a 1980 lyric, and the Stones covered 'I'll Go Crazy' on their 2007 tour.

Which 1965 single won Brown his first Grammy Award?

It was also his first top-ten pop hit, and forty years later he sang it as a duet with Will Young at the final Live 8 concert.

Which 1967 track do some critics call the first true funk song?

It was among his first recordings with a drum break and the first to strip the harmony down to a single chord.

Brown took the title 'Soul Brother No. 1' after losing 'King of Soul' to whom?

The contest happened at a Chicago gig two years before the new nickname stuck.

Brown's free televised Boston Garden concert came the day after which event?

Mayor Kevin White had the show rebroadcast on WGBH to keep people home; Brown then demanded $60,000 for the lost gate.

Which bandleader wrote the music for 'Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud'?

Brown wrote the lyrics but later said he would not have recorded it given the choice, because he disliked defining anyone by race.

Bootsy and Catfish Collins joined Brown in 1970 from which Cincinnati band?

Most of Brown's 1960s road band had just walked out over money, and the new recruits became the nucleus of the J.B.'s.

Whose 1972 reelection campaign did Brown endorse, prompting boycotts of his shows?

A Cincinnati show that November was picketed with signs reading 'James Brown: Nixon's Clown', and he later wrote a song about Watergate.

Brown composed the score for which 1973 blaxploitation film?

The following year he returned to No. 1 on the R&B chart with 'The Payback', whose parent album also topped the R&B album chart.

What was Brown's final single to top the R&B chart, in 1974?

All three of his 1974 chart-toppers came in one year; afterwards 'Get Up Offa That Thing' stalled at No. 4.

'Funky President (People It's Bad)' came out in 1974 just as which president took office?

Brown attended a Carter inaugural ball in 1977 and backed Reagan in 1984, yet insisted he was neither Democrat nor Republican.

Who wrote and produced Brown's 1985 comeback hit 'Living in America'?

It was Brown's first Top 40 entry since 1974 and won him the 1987 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

'Living in America' featured in which film, with Brown performing at Apollo Creed's fight?

The scene was shot in the Ziegfeld Room at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and the credits billed him as the Godfather of Soul.

Brown appeared alongside other music legends in which 1980 comedy?

He returned for Blues Brothers 2000, performing his cape routine over the closing credits.

Kurtis Blow called which Brown track 'the national anthem of hip-hop'?

The drum break from its second version, collected on In the Jungle Groove, became a breakdance staple in the early 1980s.

In 1991 Brown appeared in the video for which MC Hammer song?

Hammer had already sampled the rhythms of 'Super Bad' for 'Here Comes the Hammer' and named Brown as his idol.

Brown performed in the halftime show of which Super Bowl in 1997?

That game in New Orleans saw the Green Bay Packers beat the New England Patriots.

Brown made a cameo in which 2002 Jackie Chan film?

In the plot Chan's character accidentally knocks the singer out and has to finish his act himself.

Brown died on which holiday in 2006?

He had been admitted to an Atlanta hospital the day before with pneumonia and still expected to play his New Year's Eve shows.

Which future civil rights leader served as Brown's tour manager from 1973 to 1980?

Brown persuaded him to go by 'Al' rather than 'Alfred', and the two met President Reagan in 1981 to push for a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Brown was buried in a crypt at his daughter's home in which community?

He had spent his last years there, directly across the Savannah River from the Georgia city where he grew up.

Brown entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first class, in which year?

The Famous Flames were left out that night and were only inducted retroactively, without a vote, in 2012.

A bridge named for Brown, 'Soul Center of the Universe', is in which Colorado town?

Residents chose the name in a 1993 poll with 7,717 votes, and Brown showed up for the ribbon-cutting over the Yampa River.

In 2005 Brown's hometown changed its city slogan to what in his honor?

Officials then renamed the civic center the James Brown Arena, and Brown attended its unveiling two months before he died.

Who played Brown in the 2014 biopic Get On Up?

The film grew out of a documentary project Mick Jagger and Brian Grazer had started the year before.

Which Rolling Stone produced the 2014 documentary Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown?

Alex Gibney wrote and directed it; the title borrows one of Brown's earliest stage nicknames.

Brown credited which professional wrestler as inspiration for his cape routine?

'Seeing him on TV helped create the James Brown you see on stage,' he wrote, crediting the wrestler for his concert attire too.

Which longtime MC draped the cape over Brown's shoulders on stage?

At the 2007 Grammys he draped the same cape over an empty microphone to close the tribute to musicians who had died that year.

At his peak, roughly how many shows a year did the James Brown Revue perform?

Between 40 and 50 people traveled by bus with the Revue, and almost every date was a one-nighter.

Brown's hand signals on stage, thought to be dance moves, actually did what?

Unshined shoes, dancing out of sync or a late entrance could all cost a musician money, and Brown owned every uniform.

Which song's success led Brown to a White House meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson?

Brown had been forced out of seventh grade for 'insufficient clothes' and gave the song's royalties to dropout-prevention programs.

In 1971 Brown was made a 'freeman of the city' of which Nigerian city?

Oba Adeyinka Oyekan granted the honor during Brown's first African tour, citing his 'influence on black people all over the world'.

Brown holds which distinction among recording artists?

Late-1960s riffs like 'Funky Drummer' were stripped to their rhythmic bones, which made them perfect raw material for hip-hop producers.

Brown guest-starred in a 1987 episode of which TV series?

The episode, 'Missing Hours', came during the Hollywood revival that followed his sold-out 1982 residency at the Reseda Country Club.

In 2004 Brown opened Hyde Park concerts in London for which band?

He was 71 and still touring relentlessly; two years later his Oxegen festival set in Ireland drew a record 80,000 people.

Hearing 'Caldonia' by which bandleader inspired a young Brown to become an entertainer?

Around the same time he first heard Howlin' Wolf play guitar while entertaining troop convoys near his aunt's home.

Which band's 1980 song name-checks 'James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show'?

The line appears in 'When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around'.

Who presented Brown with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2003 BET Awards?

Jackson called Brown his ultimate idol throughout his career, and the two performed together that night.

A World of Warcraft boss named Bronjahm parodies which Brown nickname?

The Forge of Souls boss drops an item called 'Papa's Brand New Bag' and quotes song titles during the fight.

Brown won a 1944 talent show at the Lenox Theater by singing which ballad?

He was eleven years old; it was his first appearance at a talent show.