The Life of James Brown

Geoff Brown

Summary

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 incarcerated in his teens. between the two internments is the compelling story if 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 includes a comprehensive discography.

Available since: 11/11/2009.

Other books that might interest you

Art of Kissing

Will Rossiter

The Art of Kissing is both a history of and a manual for the probably most widely practised enjoyment on the planet. (Summary by Availle )

Show book

The Platoon - An Infantryman on...

Joseph Johns Steward

John Joseph Steward fought in the Great War, from the Battle of the Somme to the final offensives of 1918, and he was an acute, unflinching observer of the conflict he took part in - of life and death on the Western Front. He was a writer, too. He recorded his experiences in accurate detail and later in life he wrote a graphic fictionalized account of his wartime career - the story of his war, his comrades and his platoon. His narrative is published here for the first time, edited, annotated and with an introduction by Andrew Robertshaw and Steve Roberts. Their research into Stewards story is a fascinating example of how such work can be used to give a vivid insight into the experiences of a Great War ancestor. About the EditorsAndrew Robertshaw is Curator/Manager of The Royal Logistic Corps Museum in Deepcut, Surrey. For the past twelve years he has been coordinating a group conducting an archaeological dig of British trenches and other sites on the Somme. He frequently appears on television as a commentator on battlefield archaeology and the soldier in history. His publications include A Soldiers Life, The Somme 1st July 1916, Digging the Trenches (with David Kenyon) and Ghosts of the Somme (with Alastair Fraser and Steve Roberts).Steve Roberts is a retired police officer and an ex-regular soldier. He has a keen interest in military history and as a result of his grandfathers service a particular passion for the Great War. He specializes in researching the individuals who served during the period and has worked in this field on a number of television projects. He is a founder member of the Great War archaeology group No Mans Land and also a battlefield guide regularly taking groups to France and Belgium. He has previously co-authored Ghosts on the Somme (with Alastair Fraser and Andrew Robertshaw)

Show book

Flappers - Six Women of a...

Judith Mackrell

By the 1920s, women were on the verge of something huge. Jazz, racy fashions, eyebrowraising new attitudes about art and sex—all of this pointed to a sleek, modern world, one that could shake off the grimness of the Great War and stride into the future in one deft, stylized gesture. The women who defined this the Jazz Age—Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Tamara de Lempicka—would presage the sexual revolution by nearly half a century and would shape the role of women for generations to come.In Flappers, the acclaimed biographer Judith Mackrell renders these women with all the color that marked their lives and their era. Both sensuous and sympathetic, her admiring biography lays bare the private lives of her heroines, filling in the bold contours. These women came from vastly different backgrounds, but all ended up passing through Paris, the mecca of the avant-garde. Before she was the toast of Parisian society, Josephine Baker was a poor black girl from the slums of Saint Louis. Tamara de Lempicka fled the Russian Revolution only to struggle to scrape together a life for herself and her family. A committed painter, her portraits were indicative of the age's art deco sensibility and sexual daring. The Brits in the group—Nancy Cunard and Diana Cooper— came from pinkie-raising aristocratic families but soon descended into the salacious delights of the vanguard. Tallulah Bankhead and Zelda Fitzgerald were two Alabama girls driven across the Atlantic by a thirst for adventure and artistic validation.But beneath the flamboyance and excess of the Roaring Twenties lay age-old prejudices about gender, race, and sexuality. These flappers weren't just dancing and carousing; they were fighting for recognition and dignity in a male-dominated world. They were more than mere lovers or muses to the modernist masters—in their pursuit of fame and intense experience, we see a generation of women taking bold steps toward something burgeoning, undefined, maybe dangerous: a New Woman.

Show book

Don't Unplug - How Technology...

Chris Dancy

In Don't Unplug, Chris Dancy, the world's most connected person, inspires listeners with practical advice to live a happier and healthier life using technology. 
In 2002, Chris Dancy was overweight, unemployed, and addicted to technology. He chain-smoked cigarettes, popped pills, and was angry and depressed. But when he discovered that his mother kept a record of almost every detail of his childhood, an idea began to form. Could knowing the status of every aspect of his body and how his lifestyle affected his health help him learn to take care of himself? By harnessing the story of his life, could he learn to harness his own bad habits? 
With a little tech know-how combined with a healthy dose of reality, every app, sensor, and data point in Dancy's life was turned upside down and examined. Now he's sharing what he knows. That knowledge includes the fact that changing the color of his credit card helps him to use it less often, and that nostalgia is a trigger for gratitude for him. 
A modern-day story of rebirth and redemption, Chris' wisdom and insight will show listeners how to improve their lives by paying attention to the relationship between how we move, what we eat, who we spend time with, and how it all makes us feel. But Chris has done all the hard work: Don't Unplug shows us how we too can transform our lives.

Show book

Convicted - A Crooked Cop an...

Jameel McGee, Andrew Collins,...

Jameel McGee: "For the next three years not a day went by that I didn't think about my son who I had never seen and the cop who had kept me from him. And for most of those three years I promised myself that if I ever saw this cop again, I was going to kill him. I intended to keep that promise."
Andrew Collins: "I watched this angry man march through a crowd, a little boy and another man struggling to keep up with him....The man walked straight up to me, stopped, and stuck out his hand. I took it. "Remember me?" he asked in a tone that sounded more like a threat than a question. Somehow, a name came to me. 'Jameel McGee,' I replied."
It reads like a gripping crime novel…except this story really happened.
Racial tensions had long simmered in Benton Harbor, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, before the day a white narcotics officer—more focused on arrests than justice-set his sights on an innocent black man. But when officer Andrew Collins framed Jameel McGee for possession of crack cocaine, the surprising result was not a race riot but a transformative journey for both men.
Falsely convicted, McGee spent four years in federal prison. Collins also went to prison a few years later for falsifying police reports. While behind bars, the faith of both men deepened. But the story took its most unexpected turn once they were released--when their lives collided again in a moment brimming with mistrust and anger. The two were on a collision course-not to violence-but forgiveness.
As current as today's headlines, this explosive, true story reveals how these radically conflicted men chose to let go of fear and a thirst for revenge to pursue reconciliation for themselves, their community, and our racially divided nation.

Show book

That Further Shore - A Memoir of...

John D. Feerick

A memoir of a respected constitutional scholar, dedicated public servant, political reformer, and facilitator of peace in the land of his ancestors.

John D. Feerick’s life has all the elements of a modern Horatio Alger story: the poor boy who achieves success by dint of his hard work. But Feerick brought other elements to that classic American success story: his deep religious faith, his integrity, and his paramount concern for social justice. In That Further Shore, Feerick shares his inspiring story. Born to immigrant parents in the South Bronx, he went on to practice law, help frame the US Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment, serve as dean of Fordham Law, and serve as president of the New York City Bar Association and chair of state commissions on government integrity.

Beginning with Feerick’s ancestry and early life experiences, including a detailed genealogical description of Feerick’s Irish ancestors in County Mayo and his quest to identify them and their relationships with one another, the book then presents a survey of the now-vanished world of a working-class Irish Catholic neighborhood in the South Bronx. Feerick’s account of how he financed his education from elementary school through law school is a moving tribute to the immigrant work ethic that he inherited from his parents and shared with many young Americans of his generation. The book then traces Feerick’s career as a lawyer and how he gave up a lucrative partnership in a prestigious New York City law firm at an early age to accept the office of Dean of the Fordham School of Law at a fraction of his previous income because he felt it was time to give back something to the world.

John Feerick has consistently shown his commitment to the law as a vocation as well as a profession by his efforts to protect the rights of the poor, to enable minorities to achieve their rightful places in American society, and to combat political corruption. That Further Shore is an inspiring memoir of how one man helped to make America a more just and equitable society.

Praise for That Further Shore

“An exceptionally well written book and a compelling story of one Irish-American lawyer who loves his Irish heritage, his family, his Church and the law. It took Feerick 18 years to write the book and it was certainly worth the effort.” —Steve Fearon, Irish America

“That Further Shore proves that a great man can be a good man. While living a life of the highest achievement on the world stage?and even changing history a time or two?Dean John Feerick stays rooted in his family, faith, Irish heritage and his commitment to social justice. Inspiring!” —Mary Pat Kelly, PhD, author of Galway Bay, Of Irish Blood, and Irish Above All

Show book