Soul icon James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006, fifty years after his recording debut. Despite a career slump in the seventies and only intermittent success during his eighties and nineties revival, James Brown had more hits than any other black artist in the history of recording music. At the same time he was the most sampled musician of all time. This is the definitive biography of this extraordinary and controversial superstar, written by Geoff Brown, a former editor of Black Music magazine. For three decades James Brown dominated the changing face of post-war popular black music. Others were as inspirational in the short term, and several of his successors have been bigger pop stars, but none matched Brown's independent authority, sustained influence or commercial longevity. But while another generation danced to the pulse of James Brown, at the end of the eighties the man himself was back in a southern US jail, a country mile or so from where he was first incarcerated in his teens. Between the two internments is the compelling story of a man who, by reaching from his roots and striving determinedly for himself, came to represent in music and personal power the post-war emancipation of black America. Illustrated with many rare photographs, and including a comprehensive discography.