Live At The Apollo

Released in May 1963, Live at the Apollo was recorded at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City on October 24, 1962. James Brown and the Famous Flames played to an eager crowd and made one of the greatest live albums of all time.

Brown had the idea to record a live show and release it as an album, but Syd Nathan, founder and CEO of Brown’s label King Records, saw the idea of a live album as a big gamble, thinking people wouldn’t go to a live show if they had it on record. Nathan rejected the project, forcing Brown to bankroll the performance himself at a cost of nearly $6,000. Brown then sold the album to Nathan, who begrudgingly pressed up 5,000 copies of the album and released it without a radio single.

Brown’s adamance paid off and the album sold millions of copies by word of mouth. Radio DJ’s played the album on air in its entirety due to an overwhelming amount of requests from listeners. A combination of ballads, medleys and short instrumental breaks, Live at the Apollo captures the electricity of the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” The screams and applause from the audience add to the excitement, capturing the raw authenticity of a performance that has stood the test of time.

The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 and spent 66 weeks on the chart. It has received numerous accolades and features on “best of” lists, including Rolling Stone naming Live at the Apollo as the greatest live album of all time, as well as ranking it #25 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time The album is also included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

James Mayock wrote an article in 2003 for the Daily Telegraph detailing the making of the album HERE.