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Wild Man Fischer - Wildmania 1977

This is the second collection from Larry Fischer (aka Wild Man Fischer), and was released a decade after he had initially made a name for himself with the decidedly demented Frank Zappa-produced An Evening With Wild Man Fischer in 1968. Similarly notable is that 1978's Wildmania would be the first long-player from Rhino Records, which was still just a Los Angeles retail record shop at the time. WhileFischer possesses an undeniable talent for simply being himself, the very nature of capturing his essence is cause for some degree of celebration in and of itself. To be clear, Fischer is less of a traditional musician than a counterculture phenom. Denizens of L.A. in the late '60s and '70s could find him in local hot spots such as laundromats, convenience stores, and especially Dodger Stadium. In fact, that is the locale used in the introductions to "My Name Is Larry," "Who's Your Favorite Singer," "Go to Rhino Records," "Disco in Frisco," the terminally entertaining "Wild Man Fischer Impersonation Contest," and the audience poll "What Do You Think of Larry?" The shorter works "I Light the Pilot," "I'm a Truck," and "Josephine" bear some of the edgy Dadaist qualities of Don Van Vliet's Captain Beefheart persona. The reinventions of Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man" and the popular music standard "Young at Heart" retain a charm and innocence defying apt description. A quarter-century after being unleashed onto an unsuspecting public, Collectors' Choice Music reissued Wildmania onto CD -- although it was one of the components in the limited-edition Fischer King box set released in 1999. AMG.

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The Foundations - From The Foundations 1967

The Foundations were a surprisingly obscure late-'60s outfit, considering that they managed to reach the tops of the both the British and American charts more than once in the space of a year and had a solid three years of recordings. At the time of their debut in mid-1967, they were hailed as being among the most authentic makers of soul music ever to emerge from England -- the best practitioners of the Motown sound to be found on the far side of the Atlantic -- and were also accepted in jazz circles as well. "Baby Now That I've Found You," "Build Me Up Buttercup," and "In the Bad, Bad Old Days" were the biggest hits for this multi-racial octet, made up of Londoners and West Indians.
The Foundations were formed in January 1967 in the basement of a local coffee bar in Bayswater, gathered together through advertisements in Melody Maker. Lead singer Clem Curtis was a former boxer from Trinidad, while lead guitarist Alan Warner had been making his living in the printing trade in London while waiting for music to pay off. Flautist/saxman Pat Burke hailed from Jamaica, tenor saxman Mike Elliott had played with Colin Hicks (brother of Tommy Steele) in his band the Cabin Boys, as well as in several jazz bands, and trombonist Eric Allan Dale was another jazz veteran. Tony Gomez (keyboards), Peter Macbeth (bass), and Tim Harris (drums) rounded out the lineup. They selected the name Foundations based on their surroundings, a rehearsal space in the basement of a building.
The group made very little headway during their first few months together, although they did manage to get an audition at the Marquee Club. It was at their regular spot at a much smaller club called the Butterfly -- where they played one legendary gig on the last night of the Stax/Volt European tour -- that led to their breakthrough. They were spotted by record dealer Barry Class, who was impressed enough with what he heard to become their manager. He arranged a meeting with Pye Records producer/songwriter Tony Macaulay, who was working with Long John Baldry with some success, but also was desperately looking for a new act to break for the label. He'd written a song with his partner John Macleod called "Baby Now That I've Found You," which seemed to suit the Foundations.
The resulting single, issued in the summer of 1967, got no reaction from the public or on the airwaves until it got picked up by the BBC's newly founded Radio 1, by a stroke of pure luck. The station wanted to avoid any records being played by the pirate radio broadcasters, and looked back at recent releases that the pirates had missed. "Baby Now That I've Found You" was the immediate beneficiary, along with the group -- by November, the single held the number one spot on the British charts. The group's timing was as perfect as the song -- there had been a soul boom in England since late 1965, and the subsequent Motown and Stax/Volt tours by American R&B stars only heightened the public's interest.
The Foundations were hailed for being the first British band to come up with an authentic soul sound, and the fact that they were first multiracial band to top the British charts only made their success that much more impressive (at a time when England was beginning to come to grips with its own racial attitudes). What's more, the group had the goods to back up the press' accolades. Their performances revealed a seasoned, well-rehearsed, exciting stage presence and a bold, hard soul sound that most British bands managed to imitate only in the palest manner, if at all.
Meanwhile, their debut single got to number 11 on the American charts in the hands of MCA's Uni label, and it was equally well-received in the rest of the world, selling something more than three-and-a-half million copies. Suddenly, the Foundations were a British phenomenon and had a world-wide following.

An album, From the Foundations, was duly recorded and featured some superb material, embracing both current soul and the then-popular discotheque sounds. The covers included everything from Joe Tex ("Show Me") to Tony Hatch ("Call Me," in a version worthy of Motown), as well as some new Macaulay/Macleod numbers. The debut album never made the British charts, but it remained in print for years, a perennial seller that held up well over time.
Unfortunately, a follow-up single, "Back on My Feet Again," didn't crack the British Top Ten, despite very heavy airplay and promotion, and barely made the U.S. Top 50. In retrospect, it may have been too similar to "Baby Now That I've Found You," which had sold in enormous numbers. Its relative failure led to the beginnings of a split between the group and Macaulay, as both songwriter and producer, exacerbated by the latter's decision -- as their producer -- not to permit the group to record any of their own songs, even as B-sides. Additionally, they felt that Macaulay reined in their "real" sound, making them seem more pop-oriented than they were.
These disagreements occurred at just about the same time that the group itself began experiencing internal fractures. It seemed to Curtis, in particular, that some of the other members, having topped the charts and chalked up an international hit, weren't putting out the same effort they'd been giving to the group when they were still struggling.
Curtis was persuaded to pursue a solo career, ironically right after he'd recorded perhaps the best track he ever cut with the group, a killer rendition of "It's All Right," a number they'd been knocking crowds dead with on stage all along. (They also released a live album, Rocking the Foundations.) Additionally, saxman Elliott quit as well, and was never replaced. Curtis was succeeded by Colin Young, a good singer in his own right who fit in perfectly with the group's sound, and the reconstituted group hit once more in early 1969 with "Build Me Up Buttercup," written by Macaulay with Mike D'Abo, which reached number two in England and number one in America. "In the Bad, Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me)" was yet another hit, reaching the U.K. Top Ten and the U.S. Top 30.
The band's success finally faltered when Macaulay exited Pye Records. As he later revealed, he was still being paid solely as a producer and he received no royalties for his songs, despite millions of copies sold. With his departure, the group was cut off from the only composer who'd written all of their hits. Additionally, the sounds of soul were changing faster than the group could assimilate it all -- they tried for a funkier, James Brown-type sound on their last recordings together in 1970 but failed to attract any attention.
The Foundations split in 1970, and by the middle of the decade that followed, Curtis revived the band -- but so had Young, and both outfits were called the Foundations. A lawsuit resulted in Curtis getting the rights to the original name, while Young was allowed to use the New Foundations. The group remains fondly remembered, if not often written about, in England, and it achieved some fresh international recognition in 1998 when "Build Me Up Buttercup" appeared prominently in the hit movie There's Something About Mary. Curtis continues to perform in a revived version of the group, and he and Warner have recorded new versions of the Foundations' classic numbers. AMG.

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The Monkees - Pisces,Aquarius,Capricorn & Jones Ltd 1967

After wresting control of the Monkees from Don Kirschner and recording the very good Headquartersalbum as a mostly self-contained unit, the bandmembers returned to using studio musicians to augment their sound as well as looking outside the group for the majority of the songs on their fourth album,Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. Whatever the reason for the decision, the resulting album is one of their best. Filled with hooky pop like "She Hangs Out" and the Harry Nilsson-penned "Cuddly Toy," psychedelic ravers "Daily Nightly" and "Star Collector" (both of which feature the newly invented Moog synthesizer), Mike Nesmith-produced rockers ("Love Is Only Sleeping"), and ballads (the lovely "Don't Call on Me"), the album is filler-free and fun-filled. That it contains three of their finest songs ("Words," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," and the song that "invented" country-rock for better or for worse, "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?") means that not only is it one of the Monkees' best, it is one of 1967's best. To think that both this album and Headquarters came out the same year! Most bands would be lucky to have two albums this good come out their entire career. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. is a must-have for any fan of smart, fun, and exciting '60s pop. It doesn't get much better than this. [Rhino's 1995 reissue of the album adds seven previously unreleased songs including alternate versions of "Daily Nightly" and "Star Collector."] AMG.

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The Allman Brothers Band - Eat a Peach 1972

A tribute to the dearly departed Duane, Eat a Peach rambles through two albums, running through a side of new songs, recorded post-Duane, spending a full album on live cuts from the Fillmore Eastsessions, then offering a round of studio tracks Duane completed before his death. On the first side, they do suggest the mellowness of the Dickey Betts-led Brothers and Sisters, particularly on the lovely "Melissa," and this stands in direct contrast with the monumental live cuts that dominate the album. They're at the best on the punchier covers of "One Way Out" and "Trouble No More," both proof of the group's exceptional talents as a roadhouse blues-rock band, but Duane does get his needed showcase on "Mountain Jam," a sprawling 33-minute jam that may feature a lot of great playing, but is certainly a little hard for anyone outside of diehards to sit through. Apart from that cut, the record showcases theAllmans at their peak, and it's hard not to feel sad as the acoustic guitars of "Little Martha" conclude the record, since this tribute isn't just heartfelt, it offers proof of Duane Allman's immense talents and contribution to the band. AMG.

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T.Rex - Dandy In The Underworld 1977

Upon its original release in spring 1977, Dandy in the Underworld was widely applauded as Marc Bolan's best album in three years, a blending of his own recent moves toward a rootsier, R&B-inflected sound and the sudden shock of punk rock. It is no surprise, then, to discover that Bolan's demos and rough mixes for the record echoed those same discoveries. Prince of Players (its title taken from a lyric in the title track) follows the standard Edsel procedure of unearthing each of the original album's songs in alternate form, offering up a glimpse of how Bolan arrived at the final cut, but also showing just how disciplined that process was. None of the demos vary too much from the finished thing, but they do pack an unexpected freshness -- the distorted guitar solo which bisects "I Love to Boogie" is positively overwhelming, while the speed with which Bolan was moving is illustrated by the fact that several tracks no longer exist in early studio incarnations, and are replaced by live renditions instead. Equally startling is the realization that for the first time in some years, Bolan was actually recording material as he wrote it, rather than relying on existing compositions as he had in the past. Only two songs on the completed album predated the sessions -- the previous summer's hit "I Love to Boogie," of course, and "Visions of Domino," recounted from the earlier "Funky London Childhood." The regular album is accompanied, as usual, with a smattering of associated singles and B-sides, again in varying states of incompleteness. Most are entertaining, and a couple are vital -- fast-forward, for example, to the rough take of "Celebrate Summer," the last single Bolan released during his lifetime. It was intended as a celebration not only of the season, but also of all the seismic shocks that had shaken British music that year (summer washeaven in 1977) and, if you can get past the tape hiss which betrays the track's homegrown origins, "Celebrate Summer" captures why. Bolan is in his best voice in years, and if you want further evidence of his newfound fire, an instrumental take of the same song is all but indistinguishable in places from the Damned's "Neat Neat Neat." Neither is that an accident -- the young punks supported T Rex on their final U.K. tour. Prince of Players is the final album in Edsel's re-examination of Bolan's 1972-1977 album catalog, meaning that the six albums that Bolan recorded during that period have now spawned 23 different collections -- and, it has to be said, the barrel has been scraped down to the woodwork on more than a few occasions. The alternate, almost-instrumental version of "To Know Him Is to Love Him" is no better than the completed take, and the closing "Weird Strings" is just that. Weird strings and freaked electronics. But even in the face of material that Bolan himself would never have allowed off the shelf, everything is, in its own way, irresistible. And why? Because everyone still loves to boogie. AMG.

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RE-POST: Crazy Horse - Crazy Moon 1978

Six years went by between the release of Crazy Horse's third album, At Crooked Lake, and its fourth,Crazy Moon, and a lot of water went under the bridge in the meantime. Crazy Horse was, in effect, three different bands on its first three albums because the only constants were bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina as lead singers, songwriters, guitarists, and keyboardists came and went. The band name seemed to be retired by 1973, but in 1974 Talbot and Molina hooked up with singer/guitaristFrank Sampedro as Crazy Horse, leading to sessions with their erstwhile employer Neil Young that resulted in the Young/Crazy Horse album Zuma. At the same time, they recorded some Crazy Horsetracks that sat around for years, finally being finished off in the summer of 1978 for release here. The result is the first album since their debut, 1971's Crazy Horse, that sounds identifiable as the band that backs Young. In part, that's because Young himself is present on guitar on the tracks "She's Hot," "Going Down Again," "New Orleans," "Downhill," and "Thunder and Lighting," and brings along his production associates David Briggs and Tim Mulligan as well as his pedal steel player Ben Keith. But it's also because this is a well-realized effort on which Sampedro proves to be the first of the many successors to original guitarist Danny Whitten to fit in well with Molina and Talbot; because Molina and Talbot have upped their participation beyond providing the rhythm and some vocals, contributing to the songwriting as well; and because the guest musicians include a bevy of Crazy Horse alumni and friends including keyboardist Barry Goldberg (producer of the pre-Crazy Horse band the Rockets); Greg Leroy (Crazy Horse guitarist, 1971-1972); Bobby Notkoff (Rockets violinist); and Michael Curtis (Crazy Horsekeyboardist, 1972). This is something of a Crazy Horse reunion effort, and it shows the band off at its best, or at least probably as good as it could be without co-founder Whitten, who died in 1972. AMG.

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Eddie Floyd - Knock On Wood 1967

In contrast to the 1970s -- when artists ranging from Curtis Mayfield to Parliament/Funkadelic were praised for their albums -- singles defined soul music in the 1960s. It has often been pointed out that many Stax and Motown albums of the '60s had their share of filler -- nonetheless, others were full of gems that should have been released as singles. Reissued on CD in 1991, Knock on Wood is one of Eddie Floyd's best albums. The soul shouter successfully embraced sleeker northern soul on other projects, but here he sticks to the type of raw, hard-edged Memphis soul that Stax was first known for. From the unforgettable title song (a number one R&B hit) to covers of J.J. Jackson's "But It's Alright," Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused," and Wilson Pickett's "634-5789," this CD beautifully illustrates the splendor of down-home Southern R&B. AMG.

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Eternity's Children - Timeless 1968

Eternity's Children's second and last LP, oddly, was only released in Canada. After working with Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen for their first album, they switched to another renowned California producer,Gary Paxton. Surprisingly, perhaps, Timeless is yet more happy-go-lucky than its predecessor, with weaker material, though it retains a chipper male-female sunshine pop harmonic base. The songs are upbeat, though the blue-eyed soul of "Get Outta Here" is an exception (one is even titled "Sunshine and Flowers"), but forgettable even if much effort clearly went into the vocal and instrumental arrangements. There are a couple of unlikely obscure Byrds connections here in songs co-written with Jan Paxton by both Gene Parsons ("Christina in My Dreams") and Clarence White ("Nature's Child"), while the "Nature Boy"-styled Jan Paxton-Ben Benay composition "Gypsy Minstrel Man" provides the sole change of pace from the relentless cheerfulness. This mighty rare album is included on the Cherry Red CD compilation Eternity's Children, which also includes their first album, also titled Eternity's Children, and some tracks from non-LP singles. AMG.

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Charlie Haden, Hampton Hawes - As Long As There's Music 1976

Although one would not immediately associate bassist Charlie Haden with pianist Hampton Hawes, they had performed together on an occasional basis since first meeting in 1957. This Artists House LP, a set of five duets, was their last opportunity to play together because Hawes would pass away the following year. The music includes a fairly free improvisation on "Hello/ Goodbye," the duo's intepretation of the title cut, a collaboration on "This Is Called Love" and two originals from the pianist. This quiet and often lyrical set contains a great deal of thoughtful and subtle music by two masters. AMG.

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Country Joe and The Fish - I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die 1967

The Fish's second album is quite similar to their first in its organ-heavy psychedelia with Eastern-influenced melodic lines, but markedly inferior to the debut, and much more of a period piece. There's more spaciness and less comic energy here, and while the bandmembers were undoubtedly serious in their explorations, some of these songs are simply silly in their cosmic naïveté. To be crueler, there is no other album that exemplifies so strongly the kind of San Francisco psychedelia that Frank Zappaskewered on his classic We're Only in It for the Money. The weeping, minor-key melodies, liquid guitar lines, and earnestly self-absorbed quests to explore the inner psyche -- it's almost as if they put themselves up as a dartboard for the Mothers to savage. For all that, the best songs are good; "Who Am I" and "Thursday" are touching psychedelic ballads. But more notably, the title cut -- whose brash energy is atypical of the album -- was a classic antiwar satire that became one of the decade's most famous protest songs, and the group's most famous track. AMG.

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James Brown - It's A New Day, Let A Man Come In 1970

"Soul Brother Number One," "the Godfather of Soul," "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" -- those are mighty titles, but no one can question that James Brown earned them more than any other performer. Other singers were more popular, others were equally skilled, but few other African-American musicians were so influential over the course of popular music. And no other musician, pop or otherwise, put on a more exciting, exhilarating stage show: Brown's performances were marvels of athletic stamina and split-second timing.
Through the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals and the complex polyrhythms of his beats, Brown was a crucial midwife in not just one, but two revolutions in black American music. He was one of the figures most responsible for turning R&B into soul and he was, most would agree, the figure most responsible for turning soul music into the funk of the late '60s and early '70s. After the mid-'70s, he did little more than tread water artistically; his financial and drug problems eventually got him a controversial prison sentence. Yet in a sense, his music is now more influential than ever, as his voice and rhythms have been sampled on innumerable hip-hop recordings, and critics have belatedly hailed his innovations as among the most important in all of rock or soul.
Brown's rags-to-riches-to-rags story has heroic and tragic dimensions of mythic resonance. Born into poverty in the South, he ran afoul of the law by the late '40s on an armed robbery conviction. With the help of singer Bobby Byrd's family, Brown gained parole and started a gospel group with Byrd, changing their focus to R&B as the rock revolution gained steam. The Flames, as the Georgian group was known in the mid-'50s, signed to Federal/King and had a huge R&B hit right off the bat with the wrenching, churchy ballad "Please, Please, Please." By that point, The Flames had become James Brown & the Famous Flames; the charisma, energy, and talent of Brown made him the natural star attraction.
All of Brown's singles over the next two years flopped, as he sought to establish his own style, recording material that was obviously derivative of heroes like Roy Brown, Hank Ballard, Little Richard, and Ray Charles. In retrospect, it can be seen that Brown was in the same position as dozens of other R&B one-shot: talented singers in need of better songs, or not fully on the road to a truly original sound. What made Brown succeed where hundreds of others failed was his superhuman determination, working the chitlin circuit to death, sharpening his band, and keeping an eye on new trends. He was on the verge of being dropped from King in late 1958 when his perseverance finally paid off, as "Try Me" became a number one R&B (and small pop) hit, and several follow-ups established him as a regular visitor to the R&B charts.
Brown's style of R&B got harder as the '60s began; he added more complex, Latin- and jazz-influenced rhythms on hits like "Good Good Lovin'," "I'll Go Crazy," "Think," and "Night Train," alternating these with torturous ballads that featured some of the most frayed screaming to be heard outside of the church. Black audiences already knew that Brown had the most exciting live act around, but he truly started to become a phenomenon with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963. Capturing a James Brown concert in all its whirling-dervish energy and calculated spontaneity, the album reached number two on the album charts, an unprecedented feat for a hardcore R&B LP.
Live at the Apollo was recorded and released against the wishes of the King label. It was this kind of artistic standoff that led Brown to seek better opportunities elsewhere. In 1964, he ignored his King contract to record "Out of Sight" for Smash, igniting a lengthy legal battle that prevented him from issuing vocal recordings for about a year. When he finally resumed recording for King in 1965, he had a new contract that granted him far more artistic control over his releases.
Brown's new era had truly begun, however, with "Out of Sight," which topped the R&B charts and made the pop Top 40. For some time, Brown had been moving toward more elemental lyrics that threw in as many chants and screams as they did words, and more intricate beats and horn charts that took some of their cues from the ensemble work of jazz outfits. "Out of Sight" wasn't called funk when it came out, but it had most of the essential ingredients. These were amplified and perfected on 1965's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," a monster that finally broke Brown to the white audience, reaching the Top Ten. The even more adventurous follow-up, "I Got You (I Feel Good)," did even better, making number three.
These hits kicked off Brown's period of greatest commercial success and public visibility. From 1965 to the end of the decade, he was rarely off the R&B charts, often on the pop listings, and all over the concert circuit and national television, even meeting with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and other important politicians as a representative of the black community. His music became even bolder and funkier, as melody was dispensed with almost altogether in favor of chunky rhythms and magnetic interplay between his vocals, horns, drums, and scratching electric guitar (heard to best advantage on hits like "Cold Sweat," "I Got the Feelin'," and "There Was a Time"). The lyrics were not so much words as chanted, stream-of-consciousness slogans, often aligning themselves with black pride as well as good old-fashioned (or new-fashioned) sex. Much of the credit for the sound he devised belonged to (and has now been belatedly attributed to) his top-notch supporting musicians such as saxophonists Maceo Parker, St. Clair Pinckney, and Pee Wee Ellis; guitarist Jimmy Nolen; backup singer and longtime loyal associate Bobby Byrd; and drummer Clyde Stubblefield.
Brown was both a brilliant bandleader and a stern taskmaster, the latter leading his band to walk out on him in late 1969. Amazingly, he turned the crisis to his advantage by recruiting a young Cincinnati outfit called the Pacemakers featuring guitarist Catfish Collins and bassist Bootsy Collins. Although they only stayed with him for about a year, they were crucial to Brown's evolution into even harder funk, emphasizing the rhythm and the bottom even more. The Collins brothers, for their part, put their apprenticeship to good use, helping define '70s funk as members of the Parliament-Funkadelic axis.
In the early '70s, many of the most important members of Brown's late-'60s band returned to the fold, to be billed as the J.B.'s (they also made records on their own). Brown continued to score heavily on the R&B charts throughout the first half of the '70s, the music becoming more and more elemental and beat-driven. At the same time, he was retreating from the white audience he had cultivated during the mid- to late '60s; records like "Make It Funky," "Hot Pants," "Get on the Good Foot," and "The Payback" were huge soul sellers, but only modest pop ones. Critics charged, with some justification, that the Godfather was starting to repeat and recycle himself too many times. It must be remembered, though, that these songs were made for the singles radio jukebox market and not meant to be played one after the other on CD compilations (as they are today).
By the mid-'70s, Brown was beginning to burn out artistically. He seemed shorn of new ideas, was being out-gunned on the charts by disco, and was running into problems with the IRS and his financial empire. There were sporadic hits, and he could always count on enthusiastic live audiences, but by the '80s, he didn't have a label. With the explosion of rap, however, which frequently sampled vintage J.B.'s records, Brown became hipper than ever. He collaborated with Afrika Bambaataa on the critical smash single "Unity" and reentered the Top Ten in 1986 with "Living in America." Rock critics, who had always ranked Brown considerably below Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin in the soul canon, began to reevaluate his output, particularly the material from his funk years, sometimes anointing him not just "Soul Brother Number One," but the most important black musician of the rock era.
In 1988, Brown's personal life came crashing down in a well-publicized incident in which he was accused by his wife of assault and battery. After a year skirting hazy legal and personal troubles, he led the police on an interstate car chase after allegedly threatening people with a handgun. The episode ended in a six-year prison sentence that many felt was excessive; he was paroled after serving two years.

Throughout the '90s Brown continued to perform and release new material like Love Over-Due (1991), Universal James (1992), and I'm Back (1998). While none of these recordings could be considered as important as his earlier work and did little to increase his popularity, his classic catalog became more popular in the American mainstream during this time than it had been since the '70s, and not just among young rappers and samplers. One of the main reasons for this was a proper presentation of his recorded legacy. For a long time, his cumbersome, byzantine discography was mostly out of print, with pieces available only on skimpy greatest-hits collections. A series of exceptionally well-packaged reissues on PolyGram changed that situation; the Star Time box set is the best overview, with other superb compilations devoted to specific phases of his lengthy career, from '50s R&B to '70s funk.
In 2004, Brown was diagnosed with prostate cancer but successfully fought the disease. By 2006, it was in remission and Brown, then 73, began a global tour dubbed the Seven Decades of Funk World Tour. Late in the year while at a routine dentist appointment, the singer was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was admitted to the hospital for treatment but died of heart failure a few days later, in the early morning hours of Christmas Day. A public viewing was held at Apollo Theater in Harlem, followed by a private ceremony in his hometown of Augusta, GA. AMG.

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