How James Brown Saved A City
Perhaps sheer megalomania led Brown to style himself the Godfather of Soul, but he had a case. His first hit, the 1956 “Please, Please, Please,” fused gospel with R&B as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke had done. By 1967, the one-hit wonder Arthur Conley’s tribute to singers of “Sweet Soul Music” was calling Brown “the king of them all, y’all”—and surprising no one. But that was the year the Godfather tossed soul into the oldies bin....