James Brown's Augusta, Georgia

James Brown grew up in Augusta, Georgia — a city on the South Carolina border that became the first city he conquered before conquering the world. Born on 3 May 1933 in a one-room cabin near Barnwell, South Carolina, Brown was raised in Augusta after his parents separated, growing up in conditions of extreme poverty in the Terry neighbourhood. He shined shoes, picked cotton, and absorbed the gospel, blues, and R&B sounds of the Augusta Black community before forming his first group and beginning the performing career that would make him the most influential musician in the history of funk and one of the most significant in American music broadly.

Augusta shaped Brown's performing philosophy in ways that remained constant through his entire career: the work ethic, the demand for precision from his musicians, the understanding of performance as something earned and fought for rather than simply delivered. His early venues in Augusta — churches, clubs, and the WRDW radio station where he sang as a child — were the training ground for one of the most physically and musically demanding live performers in history. The Famous Flames, the group he formed with Bobby Byrd in Augusta and Toccoa in the mid-1950s, were the foundation of everything that followed.

Augusta has acknowledged Brown's legacy with a statue on Broad Street in the downtown area and the James Brown Arena, which bears his name. The city's relationship with its most famous son was complicated during his lifetime — his poverty, his criminality, his larger-than-life personality all made him a difficult figure to memorialise cleanly — but the recognition is now unambiguous. Brown died on 25 December 2006 in Atlanta and is buried at his estate in Beech Island, South Carolina, across the river from Augusta.