Soul, sermonising and wrestling Satan: James Brown’s 20 best albums – ranked!
As Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag turns 60, we rate the prolific funk/soul powerhouse’s finest studio, live and soundtrack albums
If you want a roll call of James Brown’s formative influences, just check the covers on this album: Hank Ballard, Roy “Good Rockin’ Tonight” Brown, dirty blues supremo Bull Moose Jackson and Billy Ward’s impressively morbid The Bells, which – never knowingly understated – Brown used to perform on stage with a doll representing his lover’s corpse.
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