"I'm Going Away Tonight." I think the last words of James Brown are interesting

Brown died early Monday at Atlanta's Emory Crawford Long Hospital of congestive heart failure, his agent said. He was 73.

"The most difficult thing is for me to stand here without him. We were a team," Charles Bobbit, Brown's personal manager, told reporters Monday.

Pausing to fight back tears, Bobbit said he was at Brown's bedside when he died.

Brown told him, "I'm going away tonight."

Then he took three long, quiet breaths, and closed his eyes, Bobbit said.

Brown probably fought a lot more battles than we will ever know. He was human, made some huge mistakes but taught white folks like my momma (who was a female, white girl singer herself back in the early sixties who loved soul music and the blues and sang it herself, thank you very much) that it was okay for music to make you feel all sexy and feral. Sexy and feral is not a bad thing. And, that my friends, was pretty damned cool.  ¶ 12/25/2006 07:50:00 PM