This Saturday, May 3rd is a special Birthday! It’s my Daughter Rachael’s birthday and the birthday of her first born, Roman, my first Grandchild. It’s also the Birthday of an old friend … the Godfather of Soul, James Brown! The picture above was at a show I did with James Brown, and I took the picture of Mr. Brown and my Rachael at the concert after I told him they shared the same birthday. As many of you already know, James Brown is one of my childhood music heroes. I studied his moves and copied his drum licks and rhythms (on the one!) He was not only the inventor of Funk, early Rap and dance moves of many artists to follow such as Michael Jackson and Prince. He did great things for intercity kids and was an example of how one could be raised in poverty, introduced to the prison system at an early age and rise to wealth and greatness. He owned his own record company, jets and radio stations. With all that he was still just a person, a talented person, but just a person. I remember the show we did at three Rivers Stadium with James Brown as the Headliner. The local radio station asked him to do an interview, and he kindly refused. The Station asked me to see if I could get him to do an interview. I knocked on his dressing room door and was greeted by the King himself. For some reason Mr. Brown liked me and said he would do an interview with me if I could provide Police protection from his dressing room to the mobile unit behind stage. I quickly made contact with some of my Police friends and Mr. Brown and I walked down to the broadcast trailer where he gave me a 40+ minute interview. He then took pictures with the radio staff and some dignitaries before returning to the dressing room. Having the opportunity to talk with the man about music, rhythms, his likes and dislikes was truly amazing … I again was like a sponge absorbing as much as I could gather. After the show we exchanged our contact information never thinking that I would ever hear from him again … guess what … I was wrong from that day on I received Christmas Cards from Mr. Brown but the real surprise was a phone call from him. You see, while I was interviewing James, I asked him to autograph and EP of James Brown Live at the Apollo. He told me that he didn’t even have one and I told him to give me his address, and I’ll send him one since a had two copies. I mailed them to him the next day … a few days later he called me to thank me for the record. He was bigger than life but … he was still just a person. Happy Heavenly Birthday Mr. James Brown. This Sunday night on my Johnny Angel Heavenly Soul Show (jukinoldies.com) I will be spotlighting my hero … tune in at 8:00PM (EST) … and git yerself SOULIFIED!