James Brown at the Apollo — Harlem, New York

The Apollo Theater at 253 West 125th Street in Harlem is where James Brown made one of the most important live recordings in American music history: 'Live at the Apollo,' recorded on 24 October 1962 and released in 1963 over the objections of his record label King Records, whose president Syd Nathan believed a live album would not sell. Brown financed the recording himself. The album spent 66 weeks on the Billboard pop chart, reached number two, and became one of the best-selling albums of its era — demonstrating that Brown's audience was enormous, his live performance was the fullest expression of his art, and that the music industry's gatekeepers were wrong about what Black audiences and their music could achieve commercially.

The Apollo had been the premier venue for Black performance in America since the 1930s — the stage where Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and every subsequent generation of African American performers sought to prove themselves. The Apollo audience was famously unforgiving, and success there meant something different from success anywhere else: it meant approval from the most demanding, most knowledgeable, most community-invested audience in American music. Brown's 'Live at the Apollo' captures what that environment produced: a performance of extraordinary sustained intensity, the crowd responding with a fervour that functions as part of the music itself.

The Apollo Theater continues to operate at the same West 125th Street address as one of Harlem's most significant cultural institutions. It hosts regular performances and has maintained its role as a showcase for African American musical talent through the Amateur Night competition that has launched careers from Ella Fitzgerald onwards. The theatre was designated a New York City landmark in 1983 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The recording made there in October 1962 was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003.