Sadly, James Brown has passed.

I'm not sure if we can ever bestow enough credit upon Brown. "Godfather of Soul" and "Hardest Working Man in Show Business" aptly describe his own achievements as both a musician and community activist. However, his influence far surpasses both of those titles.

Without James Brown, hip-hop wouldn't exist, if only for the fact that he was sampled so frequently. Without Brown and his collaborators, punks wouldn't have learned how to dance and post-punk wouldn't exist as it did. Later on, his sound informed the work of Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and countless others. He made my parents cut a rug just as he did for me. He will be missed.