VMP Magazine

James Brown was not an albums artist.

That's a bad sales pitch. We're here to talk about Brown's best albums, after all. But any statement to the contrary would be a lie. Brown released nearly 70 albums and most of those came between 1959 and 1976. That's an ungodly number, made a little bit less impressive by the fact that Brown surrounded the wheat of his singles with a hell of a lot of chaff.

Most of his albums feature a few undeniable singles surrounded by tons of re-released, re-recorded or unoriginal material to make one whole long-player. For people who want to avoid this side of Brown's discography, there are a few box sets—shouts to 1991's truly incredible 4-CD collection Star Time—that serve as an overview of his career.

But paring down Brown's career to the indispensable highlights misses something essential about the accurately self-styled "Hardest Working Man In Show Business." More than anything, Brown was a striver.

The South is the land of the short shrift. Ever since people were quite literally convinced to live on swampland, the region has been passed by and glossed over for "cooler" climes (in all senses of the word). Left to their own limited devices after industry and tastemakers alike took one look and said "nah," the region's rockers developed their own unique sound without having to worry about anyone looking for them.