James Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was a vocalist and musician from the United States. He is known as “the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business,” “Godfather of Soul,” “Mr. Dynamite,” and “Soul Brother No. 1” in addition to being the fundamental founder of funk music and a major character of twentieth-century music.
During his more than 50-year career, he influenced the creation of various music genres. Brown was one of the original ten honorees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986, in New York.
How did James Brown Die?
James Brown died of heart failure in the early hours of December 25, 2006, with only his manager, Charles Bobbit, there. He was 73 years old, having consumed cocaine and PCP for much of his life, and as a result, his heart failed.
Following his death, dramatic memorial services were held at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, where he’d performed some of his most legendary performances, and at the James Brown Arena in Augusta, Georgia, where he grew up.
Unofficially, more than a dozen people who were close to him at some point — including the doctor who treated him the night he died — have long felt there was something more nefarious at work.
First and foremost, there was no autopsy. Secondly, a mystery visitor is said to have crept into his hospital room moments before he died. Third, a close friend of Brown claims to still have a vial of the singer’s blood, thinking that it will prove that he was drugged and murdered. Finally, it is unknown where his body is today.
That’s just the start of the questions and misunderstandings surrounding James Brown’s death.
Meanwhile, James Brown was born in a small wooden hut on May 3, 1933, near Barnwell, South Carolina, to 16-year-old Susie (Behling; 1917-2004) and 21-year-old Joseph Gardner Brown (1912-1993). Brown’s name was meant to be Joseph James Brown, but on his birth certificate, his first and middle names were reversed. Brown asserted in his book that he was of Chinese and Native American descent, that his father was of mixed African-American and Native American blood, and that his mother was of mixed African-American and Asian descent.
The Brown family lived in Elko, South Carolina, which was a poor town at the time. When James was four or five, the family relocated to Augusta, Georgia. His family initially resided in one of his aunts’ brothels. They eventually moved into a house with another aunt. Brown’s mother finally left the family and relocated to New York following a rocky and abusive marriage.
He began singing in talent events as a child, first winning at Augusta’s Lenox Theatre in 1944 after performing the ballad “So Long.” Brown performed buck dances for change to entertain troops from Camp Gordon as their convoys passed over a canal bridge near his aunt’s house during the outset of World War II.
It was here that he first heard Howlin’ Wolf, the famed blues guitarist, play guitar. During this time, he learned to play the piano, guitar, and harmonica. After hearing “Caldonia” by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, he was inspired to become an entertainer. Brown briefly worked as a boxer throughout his adolescence.
Source: www.ghgossip.com
