The Famous Flames
The Famous Flames were an American rhythm and blues, soul vocal group founded in Toccoa, Georgia, in 1953 by Bobby Byrd. James Brown first began his career as a member of the Famous Flames, emerging as the lead singer by the time of their first appearance in a professional recording, "Please, Please, Please", in 1956.
On hit songs such as "Try Me", "Bewildered", "Think", "I Don't Mind", and "I'll Go Crazy", the Flames' smooth backing harmonies contrasted strikingly with Brown's raw, impassioned singing, and their synchronized dance steps were a prominent feature of their live shows. Altogether, James Brown and the Famous Flames numerous R&B hit songs reached the Top 40 on the R&B and pop charts.They also appeared in the Hollywood films T.A.M.I. Show and Ski Party. Members of the Flames also contributed as songwriters and choreographers. In 2012, the Flames were retroactively inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside Brown. On their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page, they are described as "a group of singers, performers and dancers that created the complementary elements of one of the greatest stage shows of all time."
As of 2020, The Famous Flames were also inducted into The National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
The Famous Flames are sometimes erroneously identified as James Brown's "band", a confusion partly fostered by their record companies' inconsistent labeling credit practices. Although members of the group did play instruments in some of their earliest shows and recordings, by 1959 Brown had hired a touring band and from that point on, the Flames contributed primarily as backing vocalists and dancers. The band was billed separately as the James Brown Band, and later as the James Brown Orchestra.
History
Origins
James Brown began singing with the R&B group the Cremona Trio while growing up in Toccoa, Georgia. In 1949, Brown, then sixteen, was sent to a juvenile detention center after committing several offenses of armed robbery. While at the detention center, he formed a group called the Swanees, which included Johnny Terry. The band made their own instruments, including a comb and paper, a washtub bass and a drum kit made from lard tubs, while Brown himself played "a sort of mandolin out of a wooden box." This led to Brown's first nickname, "Music Box".In 1952, Brown's reform school baseball team played another team that featured Bobby Byrd and they soon became friends. Shortly after, Byrd and his family offered to be Brown's sponsors for an early prison release. Brown was paroled on June 14, 1952, on the condition he not return to his hometown. In response, Brown moved into Byrd's parents' home in Toccoa, finding work as a dishwasher and also trying short careers as a boxer.
Around this time, Byrd had formed the gospel vocal group, the Gospel Starlighters. Within a year, the group wanted to perform R&B but was afraid of being confronted by church leaders for "singing the Devil's music". This led the group to perform R&B under the name The Avons, which included members such as Troy Collins, Doyle Oglesby, Sylvester Keels and Willie Johnson. After deciding to focus primarily on R&B, the Starlighters ended.
In 1954, Brown again turned his attention to music with the group the Ever Ready Gospel Singers, which included his old reform school friend, Johnny Terry, who had been paroled at approximately the same time as Brown. However, when the group failed to get a recording deal they disbanded, leading Brown to return to Toccoa. Later in 1954, the Avons faced a tragedy when Troy Collins died in a car accident. Byrd asked Brown to replace Collins. At first, lead vocals were split between Byrd, Keels and Brown. Johnny Terry was also asked to join and he brought in a guitarist, Nafloyd Scott, and Fred Pulliam replaced Willie Johnson. It was around this time that the Avons changed their name to The Toccoa Band in order to avoid confusion with two other groups also named the Avons. Under their manager, Barry Tremier, the group began playing instruments, with Brown playing drums and Byrd the piano.
Early success and initial breakup
By 1955, after seeing a performance by Little Richard, the group left gospel behind and again changed their name, to The Flames. While performing at his club in Macon, Georgia, Clint Brantley advised the group to add "Famous" to their name. That year, Doyle Oglesby and Fred Pulliam left the group and were replaced by Nashpendle "Nash" Knox when Little Richard left Macon for Los Angeles after the September 1955 release of "Tutti Frutti".The group began composing and performing their own songs during this time including a James Brown composition called "Goin' Back to Rome" and a ballad Brown co-wrote with Johnny Terry titled "Please, Please, Please". Before Christmas 1955, Brantley had the group record a demo of "Please, Please, Please" for a local Macon radio station. "Please, Please, Please" came together in two pieces, first, Etta James stated that during the first time she met with Brown in Macon, Brown "used to carry around an old tattered napkin with him, because Little Richard had written the words, 'please, please, please' on it and James was determined to make a song out of it...". The second part of the song's conception came together after Brown and Terry heard The Orioles' rock 'n' roll version of Big Joe Williams' hit, "Baby Please Don't Go", where they got the melody.
"Please, Please, Please" was played on Macon radio stations, making it a regional hit by the end of 1955. The recording was sent to several record labels, who promptly passed on the record, though two labels, owned by Cincinnati-based King Records, pursued the group. Ralph Bass of Federal Records eventually won the bidding war, signing the Famous Flames in February 1956. A month later, they re-recorded the song in Cincinnati. Upon hearing it, King Records founder Syd Nathan deemed it unreleasable due to Brown's vocals, and almost fired Ralph Bass on the spot.
"Please, Please, Please" was released in May 1956 and by September, the record had reached number 6 on the R&B charts. Constantly performing the song while the group toured the Chitlin' Circuit kept the record on the charts for a year, and by 1957, it had sold well over 5,000 copies. The record eventually sold between one million and three million. Most of the original Flames' releases after "Please, Please, Please" failed to generate any follow-up success, including "I Don't Know", "No No No", "Just Won't Do Right" and "Chonnie-On-Chon". The group had changed managers and were now with Ben Bart, chief of the Universal Attractions Agency. Bart advised the group to change their name to The Famous Flames with James Brown. Brown and Bart hired members of the vocal group the Dominions to replace the original Flames, after the group quit en masse when they had discovered that James Brown was to be given top billing over the other members. At this point, The Famous Flames became a vocal group exclusively, with no instrumental members...as Brown had hired the JC Davis outfit as his instrumental backup band.
Success
After several other recordings failed to chart, the Famous Flames were in danger of being dropped by Federal in 1958. Johnny Terry gave Brown a ballad that was based on the song "For Your Precious Love" by Jerry Butler & The Impressions titled "Try Me". This song became the turning point in the Famous Flames' career: their first number-one R&B hit in early 1959...and the group's first appearance in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Chart, peaking at #48. Following the song's success, Brown suddenly fired the interim group members of the Dominions/Flames, "Big Bill" Hollings, J.W. Archer, and Louis Madison. These men, along with the returning Willie Johnson, another interim member, went on to form a San Francisco-based splinter group, The Fabulous Flames. This group issued several unsuccessful singles on the tiny "Bay-Tone Records" label, before fading into obscurity. By then, Brown and Terry had asked Bobby Byrd to return, which he did, and they added new Flames members Bobby Bennett and Lloyd Stallworth. This was the longest-lasting lineup of The Famous Flames, which became a straight vocal group exclusively at this point, as Brown, with Byrd's help, had employed the old J.C. Davis outfit, The Bucketheads, as his instrumental backup band. The group then performed at the Apollo Theater in April 1959, Brown's first performance there, opening for Little Willie John.That year, Brown had his first solo hit, "I Want You So Bad", which peaked in the top twenty on the R&B charts. In 1960, Brown and the Flames had a string of successful songs such as "Think", "Bewildered","I Don't Mind", "This Old Heart", and "I'll Go Crazy".
By 1962, three versions of "The James Brown Show" were recorded: James with the Famous Flames, James with his instrumental band, and James as a solo act. In 1962, the Famous Flames had a hit with "Shout and Shimmy", which was their rendition of The Isley Brothers' "Shout", but the song was dismissed by at least one critic as "a truly shameless ripoff of ... basically the fast parts of "Shout" with the gospel inflections removed and the word 'shimmy' added." Nevertheless,"Shout and Shimmy" was a hit, and James and The Famous Flames sang and performed this song on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, on a telecast dated June 11, 1962. Their 1963 live recording at the Apollo Theater was released as Live at the Apollo, which peaked at number-two on the pop album chart. It sold over a million copies and stayed on the charts for fourteen months, a feat unprecedented for an R&B album at that time. In 1964, the group reached a peak in its popularity when they appeared in the 1964 American International Pictures concert film, The T.A.M.I. Show. This star-studded concert film was filmed live, over two days, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California. At this show, Brown & The Flames, debuted their landmark performance of "Please, Please, Please" during that concert, where Brown collapsed on his knees, causing Bobby Bennett and MC Danny Ray to drape a cape on him and walk him off before Brown decided to return to the microphone. This became a trademark in Brown's shows for the remainder of his career.
In 1964, the group recorded another successful live album, Pure Dynamite! Live at the Royal, which like Live at The Apollo, reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Pop Album chart. The Flames also contributed to the recording of the 1964 studio album, Showtime. During this time, the record label's inconsistent billing on various records and albums, led many fans of Brown to believe that the Famous Flames were actually Brown's backing band, instead of the stand-alone vocal group that they actually were. In 1964, James & the Flames had another top 40 hit with the powerful soul/blues ballad "Oh Baby, Don't You Weep", which reached number 23 on the pop chart, and number four on the Cashbox R&B chart. Later that year they released their last recording together, "Maybe the Last Time", which was a B-side of James Brown's recording "Out of Sight". On this last studio release, as on all of their Smash recordings, The Flames did not receive label credit.