50 Greatest Singers Of All Time 10. James Brown

The impact of his voice was a simple presentation and didn’t trade on range. And there was that scream. It was like an inner voice. It sounded like an assertion of rights of primitive man: “I am alive, and I can do things.” He used to describe his dancing as “African nerve control.” He had a point. If you go back to his early recordings, he was trying to sing standards. He didn’t quite have what it took.