Mr. Brown is a three-figure hitmaker with 114 total entries on Billboard's R&B singles charts and 94 that made the Hot 100 singles chart. Seventeen of these hits reached number one, a feat topped only by Stevie Wonder and Louis Jordan. Mr. Brown is still putting that "Good Foot" forward with new recordings and protoges such as Derrick Monk, Laurice Monica and Roosevelt Johnson.

Mr. Brown's life history contains many triumphs over adversity.

He was born in South Carolina during the Great Depression. As a child, he picked cotton, danced for spare change and shined shoes. At 16, he landed in reform school for three years where he met Bobby Byrd, leader of a gospel group and life-long friend. Mr. Brown tried semi-pro boxing and baseball, but a leg injury put him on the path to pursue music as a career.

James Brown joined his friend Bobby Byrd in a group that sang gospel in and around Toccoa, Georgia. After seeing Hank Ballard and Fats Domino in a blues revue, Byrd and Brown were lured into the realm of secular music. Naming their band the Flames, they formed a tightly knit ensemble of singers, dancers and multi-instrumentalists.

Over the years, while maintaining a grueling touring schedule, James Brown amassed 800 songs in his repertoire.

Mr. Brown became an icon of the music industry. With his signature one-three beat, James Brown directly influenced the evolutionary beat of soul music in the Sixties, funk music in the Seventies and rap music in the Eighties.

Mr. Brown instilled the essence of R&B with recordings under the King and Federal labels throughout the Sixties. With albums such as "Live at the Apollo", Mr. Brown captured the energy and hysteria generated by his live performances. People who had never seen him in person could hear and feel the excitement of him screaming and hollering until his back was soaking wet. Convinced that such an album would not sell, King Records refused to produce the album.

Mr. Brown put up his own money and recorded the performance at the Apollo Theater in 1962.

Released nearly a year later, "Live At The Apollo" went to Number Two on Billboard's album chart, an unprecedented feat for a live R&B album. Radio stations played it with a frequency formerly reserved for singles, and attendance at Mr. Brown's concerts mushroomed.

As the leader of the James Brown Revue (The J.B.'s), James Brown sweated off up to seven pounds a night through captivating performances. His furious regimen of spins, drops, and shtick such as feigning a heart attack thrilled crowds. The ritual donning of capes and skintight rhythm & blues became part of his personal trademark as a performer.

Mr. Brown's transformation of gospel fervor into the taut, explosive intensity of rhythm & blues, combined with precision choreography and dynamic showmanship, defined the direction of black music from the release of his first R&B hit ("Please Please Please") in 1956. In 1965, Brown scored his first Top 10 pop single with "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," and the hits kept coming one after another for the next decade.

The gospel and blues structure of his early records gave way to rhythmic vocals and a complex funk sound. His innovations during this period had a profound influence on popular music styles around the world, including funk, rock, Afro-pop, disco and eventually rap.

James Brown's status as "The Godfather of Soul" remains undiminished. He continues to influence new generations of fans who often hear his funk grooves as samples on rap recordings. A charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mr. Brown added to his collection of accolades when he received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 1992.

BIOGRAPHY - www.godfatherofsoul.com

James Brown's Inductee Timeline

May 3, 1933
James Brown is born in Barnwell, South Carolina. He is raised in poverty in Augusta, Georgia, 40 miles away.

1953
James Brown joins the Gospel Starlighters, a vocal quartet led by Bobby Byrd, after completing a four-year stint in prison for robbery. The group will change its focus from gospel to R&B and its name to the Famous Flames, as Brown becomes the focal point of the act.

November 1, 1955
The Famous Flames record "Please Please Please" at the studio of WIBB in Macon, Georgia.

January 23, 1956
Producer and talent scout Ralph Bass travels to Macon to sign James Brown to the King/Federal label, beating Leonard Chess (of Chess Records) to the punch.

February 4, 1956
James Brown and the Famous Flames cut "Please Please Please" at King/Federal studios in Cincinnati, backed by the label's crack house band. James Brown's recording debut rises to #5 on the R&B chart.

March 3, 1956
"Please, Please, Please," James Brown's first single for Syd Nathan's Federal label (a King subsidiary), is released, thereby launching the career of this legendary soul singer.

April 11, 1956
"Please Please Please" by James Brown and the Famous Flames reaches #6 on the R&B charts.

October 1, 1957
After Little Richard abruptly quits rock and roll for religion, James Brown honors pending tour dates in the South in his place. Several members of Little Richard's backup band, the Upsetters, become Famous Flames.

October 1, 1958
James Brown's first #1 hit, "Try Me," is released. It is the best-selling R&B single of 1958—and the first of 17 chart-topping R&B singles by Brown over the next two decades.

May 26, 1962
James Brown hits #35 with "Night Train".

October 24, 1962
Against the objections of Syd Nathan, who felt that no one would be interested in a live album of previously released material, James Brown records his performance at New York's Apollo Theater.

June 15, 1963
James Brown hits #18 with "Prisoner of Love".

June 30, 1963
James Brown's 'Live at the Apollo, Vol. 1,' is released. Reaching #2 on the album charts, it the most successful album issued by Syd Nathan's King Records. This same year, King/Federal releases albums by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Freddy King, Earl Bostic and the Stanley Brothers.

OCTOBER 28-29, 1964
The concert film 'The TAMI Show' is recorded in Santa Monica, CA, featuring James Brown, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones and the Supremes.

February 1, 1965
James Brown records "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," a revolutionary single that ushers in a whole new era of soul music. Released that summer, it tops the R&B chart for eight weeks and even cracks the pop Top Ten.

1965
James Brown reaches #3 with "I Got You (I Feel Good)".

June 4, 1966
James Brown hits #8 with "It's A Man's Man's Man's World".

1967
James Brown hit #7 with "Cold Sweat".

1968
Archie Bell & the Drells hit #1 with "Tighten Up"; Johnnie Taylor hits # 5 with "Who's Makin Love"; James Brown hits # 6 with "I Got The Feelin'" and #10 with "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud"; Sly & the Family Stone hit #8 with "Dance to the Music"

December 19, 1968
James Brown releases an album entitle 'Thinking About Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things,' a tribute to his recently deceased friend and King Records labelmate.

March 8, 1969
James Brown hits #15 with "Give It Up or Turn it Loose".

July 19, 1969
James Brown hits #30 with "The Popcorn".

1969
James Brown hit #11 with "Mother Popcorn".

January 24, 1970
James Brown hits #24 with "Ain't It Funky Now (Part 1)".

1970
"Get Up I Feel Like Being Like a Sex..." by James Brown hit #15.

1971
James Brown hits #15 with "Hot Pants".

July 1, 1971
James Brown signs with Polydor Records, for which he'll record extensively throughout the decade.

September 1, 1972
"Get On the Good Foot" tops the R&B chart for a month and peaks at #18 in the pop Top Forty. A gold-certified million seller, it establishes James Brown as a potent influence on black music in the Seventies—or, as he takes to calling himself, "the Godfather of Soul."

January 5, 1974
'The Payback', the most successful of James Brown's Seventies albums—many of which were double-LPs with lengthy, extended tracks—makes its debut on Billboard's album chart. It is the only gold-certified (500,000 copies sold) album of his career.

September 1, 1974
Lloyd Price stages a music festival in Zaire, Africa, with boxing promoter Don King. The event attracts 120,000 people and offers James Brown, B.B. King, Etta James, Bill Withers, the Spinners and others.

September 1, 1979
James Brown, who has watched his sales figures slip in the disco era, attempts to move in on that market with The Original Disco Man, which only reaches #152 in the album chart.

June 1, 1980
James Brown contributes an unforgettable cameo as a manic preacher in the John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd film The Blues Brothers.

September 1, 1984
Bronx rapper Afrika Bambaataa teams up with James Brown to record the anthemic single "Unity."

January 11, 1986
"Living in America," the theme song from Rocky IV, reaches #4 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, becoming James Brown's biggest pop hit since "I Got You (I Feel Good)" went to #3 in 1965.

January 23, 1986
James Brown is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the first induction dinner, held in New York City.

1986
James Brown hits #4 with "Living in America".

December 15, 1988
James Brown is sentenced to a six-year prison term after a year's worth of arrests on various assault, drug possession and vehicular charges. He leaves prison on parole on February 27, 1991.

February 25, 1992
James Brown receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 34th annual Grammy Awards.

February 25, 1993
James Brown receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at the fourth annual Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards. MC Hammer is his presenter.

May 3, 2003
James Brown turns 70 years old.

December 1, 2003
James Brown receives Kennedy Center Honors.

TIMELINE - www.rockhall.com