What a huge loss in the music community. I love soul music and he was it’s godfather. Rest in Peace James Brown.

James Brown, who “made soul music a world music” in a hard-driving career that influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap, died Christmas morning at the age of 73.

The pompadoured dynamo whose classic singles include “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “I Got You (I Feel Good)” had been hospitalized over the weekend for treatment of pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital. He died there early Monday of heart failure, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music.

“People already know his history, but I would like for them to know he was a man who preached love from the stage,” said friend Charles Bobbit, who was with Brown when he died. “His thing was ‘I never saw a person that I didn’t love.’ He was a true humanitarian who loved his country.”

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