I was marked from the getup. You might say that I’ve got a mark on my back that I never knew was there. That’s because they fixed it where I couldn’t see it myself. But now that I can look back on my life, I realize that what I’ve done was no accident.
I was marked a lot of different ways. With names, for example. I was marked with a lot of different names. And each one has a story behind it.
As a kid growing up in a whorehouse, I was known as Little Junior. After I broke my leg a couple of times playing football, I was nicknamed Crip. In prison I was called Music Box.
The name of my first group, the Famous Flames, caused Little Richard to say, “Y’all are the onliest people who ever made yourselves famous before you were famous.”
As a performer, I’ve had names like Mr. Dynamite, The “Please Please Please” Man, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother Number One, The Sex Machine, His Bad Self, The Godfather of Soul, and The Minister of the New New Super Heavy Funk.
My full legal name is James Joe Brown, Jr. Ben Bart, my manager for many years and a man who was like a father to me, always called me Jimmy. Today, I prefer to be called Mr. Brown.
But of all the names I’ve been marked with, James Brown is probably the most mysterious. In school the kids and the teachers always called me by it like it was one word: Jamesbrown. Just like that. But originally my name wasn’t supposed to be James Brown at all. It should have been something else.
When I look back on my life and follow the different bloodlines, it’s almost like I was a planted child, like I was sent here for a reason. I guess we all feel that way. But a lot of strange things have happened in my life, and by looking back I’ve been finding out who I am.
It’s just beginning to come to me.