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James Brown
Singer and bandleader; the Godfather of Soul
The hardest-working man in show business — who invented funk on the way.
The rise
Born on 3 May 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina, he grew up in extreme poverty in Augusta, Georgia. By the mid-1960s his relentless touring, split-second band discipline and rhythmic innovations — shifting the emphasis from melody to groove — had created funk.