Impressionistic biography of James Brown, concentrating on the Augusta/Savannah River world that produced him (and which ejected his extended family to build the Savannah River Power Plant), the chitlin' circuit of the 1950s, sharecropping and the Civil Rights movement, the intertwined population of church and popular musicians and the tangled estate which, a decade after Brown's 2006 death, has enriched no one but lawyers and has prevented Brown's body (currently in one daughter's front lawn) from being buried. McBride's previous work on race, family and the complexities of African-American community are an unorthodox but ultimately useful background for viewing the Hardest Working Man in Show Business.

This was a very interesting book. Thinking at first that this was going to be like a normal bio I was wrong. The author takes you on a journey through the South and its racism, and good old boy system. To find out the history of James Brown, but also why the trust he set up over 100 million dollars for poor children of South Carolina to go to college has not been spent. What has been spent is millions upon millions of fees by lawyers. Who have filed and refiled against the estate by family members mostly. The same family members who could not decide where to have his funeral so they had three. His tomb is in the front yard of one of his daughters. The same family that sued the men who actually saved his career and got him out of his tax problem, and then helped him make money. Because of their law suit against that man he is now in finical ruin, his was killed in an accident, his wife tried to kill herself, and the list goes on for him. That is just one person. The shady deals and politics of South Carolina even made the State of Georgia bow out of their claim to money that was left by his estate. The way the author takes you on this journey and brings you into a small town dinner to sit down and talk to a man, that is what makes this book. It his journey through the South and the people that he meets and you meet along with through this journey. James Brown music lives on and will always. I did enjoy his looking back at the musicians that played in his band, all of them were excellent ones and most went on to have or continued to have long jazz careers. That was a nice tid bit. Overall a good book well written.