Bobby Byrd

For years Bobby Byrd served as James Brown’s indispensable right-hand figure, igniting audiences with his own solo turns before stepping back to sing with the Famous Flames. Byrd’s family had, in the early 1950s, secured Brown’s release from a Georgia prison and given him his first place in the Flames, the vocal ensemble Byrd led until Brown assumed control and pushed the group into the background. In keeping with other longtime Brown associates, Byrd was afforded the chance to cut his own singles under Brown’s supervision, issuing a steady stream of Brown-produced sides from the early 1960s into the early 1970s. Two of those singles reached the R&B Top 20: “We’re in Love” in 1965 and “I Need Help (I Can’t Do It Alone)” in 1970. Brown’s regular band, occasionally joined by Brown himself, supplied most of the instrumental work, so the tracks frequently resembled James Brown recordings fronted by another singer. Byrd himself possessed an unremarkable soul voice, closer in style to a lesser Sam & Dave than to Soul Brother Number One. The performances were often solid, above all the early-1970s hard-funk numbers that regularly featured the J.B.’s, yet the absence of Brown’s own voice left many listeners wishing for the real thing. Devotees of Brown’s signature groove nevertheless discover much to admire in Byrd’s strongest cuts, just as they do in the James Brown’s Funky People anthologies that Brown produced without singing lead. Eric B. & Rakim paid such close tribute to one standout Byrd track, 1971’s “I Know You Got Soul,” that the borrowing triggered legal proceedings. Byrd parted ways with Brown in 1973 and thereafter recorded only intermittently while continuing to perform, especially across Europe; his final album, On the Move, appeared in 1994. He succumbed to cancer in September 2007, having sung at Brown’s memorial service a few months earlier.