With the hit ballads ' Please, Please, Please' and ' Try Me', Brown built a reputation as a dynamic live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes known as the James Brown Band or the James Brown Orchestra. He rose to prominence in the mid-1950s as the lead singer of the Famous Flames, a rhythm and blues vocal group founded by Bobby Byrd. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.īrown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by various honorific nicknames, some of which include 'the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business', 'Godfather of Soul', 'Mr. James Joseph Brown (– December 25, 2006) was an American singer and musician.
