James Brown still artistic, spiritual godfather to many

James Brown was and is known, alternately, as the Godfather of Soul and Soul Brother No. 1. Afrika Bambaataa, the Bronx-bred DJ who played a similarly seminal role in shaping hip-hop, doesn't so much dispute those labels as find them insufficient.

Brown is "the king of soul," Bambaataa says. "We must honor him by putting him in his proper royal place." But even this is an understatement, Bambaataa decides: "James Brown is the DNA of the earth, in the most secret places, even in little babies. I heard James Brown in my mother's womb — and I knew right then I was going to be funky."

An earlier R&B icon, Bootsy Collins, who played bass in Brown's group before joining Parliament-Funkadelic, describes his former boss in similar terms, as "the rhythm of the universe. It was as if he had the DNA of soul power programmed within his soul and then masterfully sprinkled the universe with it."

And Nas, a major figure in rap for two decades, "can't remember a time when James Brown wasn't a household name in my life. His inspirations are countless. He's like a force, man."

Soul, funk, hip-hop, dance music, rock 'n' roll — it is indeed impossible to overstate the influence that Brown, who died in 2006 at age 73, had on all these now frequently interwoven forms. Born into abject poverty in South Carolina, the legendary artist — whose life and career are traced in the biopic Get on Up, out Aug. 1 — shined shoes as a kid and later spent time in a juvenile detention center (for armed robbery), did stints as a semi-professional boxer and baseball player, and sang in a gospel group.

All these experiences informed the unique, complicated identity Brown developed as a musician, performer and cultural icon. "I don't think anybody was as influential in terms of just spreading the funk, bringing the funk to life," says L.A. Reid, who as a producer and label executive has worked with many major artists inspired by Brown. "But it wasn't just the funk; it was the dancing, the energy, the voice. Try singing a song like It's A Man's Man's Man's World.His singing gets far too little credit, how powerful it was."

Reid also points to the combination of raw charisma and meticulously cultivated razzle-dazzle that made Brown popular music's quintessential showman, inspiring successors from Michael Jackson to Bruno Mars. "(Brown) had the cape, the splits, the hair. Can we talk about the hair?"

The hardest working man in show business could, of course, be just as demanding of his band members, in terms of both their sound and look. "Working with Mr. Brown was the best basic training camp ever," says Collins. "Not only did you work your hardest and love it, but you also learned how to keep yourself well-groomed at all times. He was the best father that I never had."

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry remembers discovering Brown's early music in record stores. "I'd be looking for old blues artists, like Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker, and James Brown's records were in some of the same bins. His sounds were drastically different, but they did the same thing to me." Aerosmith included Brown's songs in its early sets, and his grooves and those of descendants such as New Orleans funk band The Meters "had a big influence on my songwriting, and still do," Perry says.

From a technical standpoint, Brown was key in shifting the rhythmic emphasis in his songs to the first and then third beats of the measure, rather than the traditional (in pop) second and fourth. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime friend who officiated at Brown's funeral, recalls, "Late in his life I would say, 'Mr. Brown, it's amazing; you haven't had a big hit since (Brown's 1985 comeback single) Living in America, and yet people still come up to you everywhere.' And he'd say, 'When you change music, you don't need a hit. Every time you hear them playing the one and the three, I made that hit.' "

Brown represented a critical shift, Sharpton adds, in both how black musicians were perceived and their impact on popular music. "Before James Brown, we had black artists who crossed over to the mainstream. He was the first artist that made the mainstream crossover — that made black music in its raw, pure presentation acceptable. Sam Cooke and Motown were softer; James Brown was defiant, in-your-face — which is what hip-hop is about."

Brown's effect on the society around him "was as if not more relevant" than his musical influence," Sharpton says. The civil rights activist recalls when Brown released Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud in 1968: "I was 13, and at school we went from being Negro to black because of that song. No other artist had that kind of influence on what people called themselves, before or since."

If Brown's music could encourage minorities and the disenfranchised to "fight the power," as Sharpton puts it (and as Public Enemy urged in one of countless hip-hop tracks that sample Brown), he also was drawn to patriotic sentiments — such as those expressed in America Is My Home, also released in 1968 — and a few conservative politicians, among them Presidents Nixon and Reagan and segregationist senator Strom Thurmond.

Erik Nielson, assistant professor of liberal arts at the University of Richmond who teaches courses on hip-hop culture and African-American literature, suggests that one "unifying element" linking songs such as Say It Loud to Brown's "willingness to embrace Republican politicians is the idea of self-sufficiency. The Black Panthers were about the black community providing for itself, and some of the militant poetry of the time was written to reject white, Western literary forms and speak directly to and for black people."

Brown's relationship with hip-hop also was complex. Despite a history that included reported drug use, violence and jail time, he "objected to songs that glorified criminality," says Nielson, an observation echoed by one of his Brown's sons, Daryl, who played in his father's band.

"He didn't care too much for rap, if you couldn't bring your mother home to listen to it," the younger Brown says. "He did something with Afrika Bambaataa, but that was a positive message." Daryl recalls that when Snoop Dogg asked Brown's permission to title his 2002 album Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Boss, an allusion to a Brown song, "He said, 'You can do whatever you want, son, as long as you don't curse.' "

Singer/songwriter/rapper Estelle, who toured with Brown in his final years,nonetheless remembers him as something other than a paternal figure. "I was this new rap girl from London, and I got a chance to go on the road with him in Australia. And there he was backstage, in all his caped glory. He was in his 70s, but he still performed with such boldness and joy. You look past Michael Jackson, past Prince — everyone took from him."

For celebrated young R&B star Janelle Monáe, who dons a cape in her own stage act in homage to Brown, he simply "meant revolution. He meant a new way of expressing yourself onstage. He also represented struggle and innovation — true innovation. He was, to me, otherworldly. How could you have all that talent in one body?"

Perry, who still counts shaking Brown's hand at an event "as one of the high points of my career," figures that Brown's enduring impact extends even to young musicians who may never have heard his music directly (outside, perhaps, a hip-hop sample).

"Even when artists don't realize it, or sit down and analyze it, that influence is there," says Perry. "That creative excitement, the idea of getting people to dance. That's the primal side of what we do, and that's what James Brown was all about."

Contributing: Alex Rawls in New Orleans