While I was shopping for Christmas gifts on Amazon, I gave myself a James Brown greatest hits CD--Foundations Of Funk: A Brand New Bag: 1964-1969, which documented Brown's revolution in R&B, creating a stripped down modal sound, much the same as Miles Davis had created in the jazz world just a few years prior. (MIles in turn would be inspired by Brown's funk on 1969's Bitches Brew.)

I was actually listening to James Brown on my iRiver MP3 player on Satuday, driving around Texas. So I was doubly astonished to read that he passed away today at age 73.