145 James Brown James Brown James Brown may never have captured the zeitgeist as Elvis Presley or the Beatles did, nor can he be said to have dominated the charts like Stevie Wonder or the Rolling Stones, but by any real measure of musical greatness- endurance, originality, versatility, breadth of influence- he rivals or even betters them all. Brown was astonishingly productive over the five decades that spanned his recording career, churning out more than 100 albums (give or take a few anthologies) as a singer, bandleader, or instrumentalist; many are great, and nearly all are worth hearing. And even though none of the 44 singles he put into the Billboard Top 40 ever made it to #1- indeed, only two cracked the Top 5- in retrospect, that reflects worse on the pop audience than it does on his music. Indeed, Brown has long boasted that his best ideas were years ahead of their time, and history has proven him out. Hip-hop borrowed freely from his catalogue, as rappers such as Rob Base,