Known as the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown’s work still influences the music industry more than six years after his death.

A feature film about his life hits theaters Friday, and you might be surprised to learn that the church played a big influence in his life and legacy.

Brown’s story is a real life tale of rags-to-riches, with a few bumps on the journey.

“He had to fend for himself, so he became a hustler,” Gospel music historian Bill Carpenter said.

Carpenter listened to Brown as a child, later covered him as a journalist, and wrote about him in his book, Un-cloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia.

“He grew up in the Great Depression. Born in 1933 in South Carolina, ‘poorer than poor,’ those are his words. He said poor people looked down on him, he was so poor. And he came from a very dysfunctional family, where his parents were not at home. He was raised by his Aunt Honey, who sort of ran a boarding house,” Carpenter said.

And at age 16, long before becoming the “Godfather of Soul,” Brown went from Aunt Honey’s boarding house to a Georgia jail house for armed robbery. It was there that he realized his love for music. It’s a story he shared with CBN, more than 30 years ago.

“They turned me loose to sing Gospel one morning and we went out about five prisoners to sing Gospel and the warden realized that he had turned all of us loose,” Brown told CBN’s Scott Ross.

Carpenter explained, “While he was in prison, he met someone named Bobby Byrd, who went on to become an integral part of his band, and Bobby’s family was deeply in the church. They helped him get out of prison. And when he came out of prison he and Bobby started a Gospel group called The Star Lighters.”

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SOURCE: CBN News
Efrem Graham