Brown sang in a church choir and in talent shows as a young child and learned how to play piano, guitar and harmonica. At 16, he was convicted of robbery (stealing a car) and sent to a juvenile detention center in Toccoa, GA. Down but not out, he formed a gospel quartet with four fellow cellmates. After a few years he was paroled and had a series of jobs including one a job as a janitor. He continued to pursue his musical interests joining a friend in a group called The Avons and later The Famous Flames where he further developed his powerful and uniquely emotive voice. After several years of playing the club circuit, In October 1958, Brown released a single, the ballad, "Try Me", which hit number-one on the R&B chart in the beginning of 1959, becoming the first of seventeen chart-topping R&B hits. In addition to writing and recording music, Brown toured relentlessly. He performed five or six nights a week throughout the 1950s and '60s, and earned a reputation as an electrifying and tireless live performer. His sliding, gliding, sweat-breaking dance steps and splits and jumps were dazzling. Brown's success peaked in the 1960s with the live album Live at the Apollo and hit singles such as "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "I Got You" and "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". During the late 1960s, Brown moved from blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly "Africanized" beat oriented approach to music-making that influenced the development of funk music. By 1967, Brown's emerging sound had begun to be defined as funk music. That year, he released what some critics cited as the first true funk song, "Cold Sweat", which hit number-one on the R&B chart and became one of his first recordings to contain a drum break and also the first that featured a harmony that was reduced to a single chord. The instrumental arrangements on tracks such as "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose" (recorded in 1968) and "Funky Drummer" (recorded in 1969) featured a more developed version of Brown's mid-1960s style, with the horn section, guitars, bass and drums meshed together in intricate rhythmic patterns based on multiple interlocking riffs. These irresistibly danceable riffs had been stripped down to their rhythmic essence, while at the same time densely layered with sound and emotion. By this time Brown's vocals frequently took the form of a kind of rhythmic declamation, not quite sung but not quite spoken, that only intermittently featured traces of pitch or melody. This would become a major influence on the techniques of rapping, which would come to maturity along with hip hop music in the coming decades. Brown's style of funk in the late 1960s developed further and was based on interlocking syncopated parts: funky bass lines, drum patterns, and iconic guitar riffs. By the early 1970s, Brown had fully established the funk sound after the formation of The J.B.'s with records such as "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" and "The Payback". Brown also became notable for songs of social commentary, including the 1968 hit "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud". Cause Magazine
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