Watch Bobby Byrd - Soul Man 1968

If Bobby Byrd hadn’t been playing basketball against a prison team in Georgia one day in 1952, the history of soul music might have been very different. The pitcher on the prison side was a 19-year-old delinquent serving a stretch of hard labour for burglary. His name was James Brown.

Byrd, who came from a law-abiding and churchgoing family, befriended him and helped to broker Brown’s parole – his family acted as guarantors for his future good behaviour and offered him a home. A talented pianist and singer who had learnt his music in a gospel choir, Byrd then helped Brown to form his first group and went on to serve as right-hand man to the “Godfather of Soul” for more than 20 years, co-writing and singing backing vocals on such Brown hits as Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.

He also enjoyed a successful career as a solo singer in his own right and scored several chart hits in the 1960s. After leaving Brown’s employment in 1973, he continued to tour with his wife, the singer Vicki Anderson, and returned to prominence in the 1990s when his solo work was sampled by a number of rap and hip-hop artists.

Robert Howard Byrd was born in 1934 in Toccoa, Georgia. In his youth he sang in church before forming various gospel-influenced vocal groups, including the Avons and the Swanees. After Brown’s release, he joined Byrds in the latter along with the singers Johnny Terry, Sylvester Keels and Nash Knox and the guitarist Nafloyd Scott. By 1955 they had become the Famous Flames and adopted a more R&B-oriented sound. With Brown emerging as the front man, they made their first recording in 1956, for King Records with Please, Please, Please. With Byrd playing piano and adding backing vocals, the record made the R&B charts, and Brown had taken his first steps to superstardom.

The original Famous Flames lineup soon disbanded, but Byrd stayed with Brown throughout the 1960s, serving variously as warm-up man, backing vocalist, keyboardist, co-writer and arranger. He was the only musician to stay with Brown when the final lineup of the Flames disbanded in 1968 and to make the transition to his new band, the JBs.

In addition to Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, other Brown tracks which credit Byrd as a co-writer include Licking Stick – Licking Stick and Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved. But although Brown regularly paid tribute to Byrd’s contribution to his success in interviews, when it came to royalties more often than not it was a different matter. After ending his association with the singer in 1973, Byrd later took legal action, claiming an uncredited role in the writing of some 40 other tracks. The case was thrown out on the ground that too much time had elapsed between the recordings and the claim.

Byrd’s own career as a hit-maker began with the soulful Baby, Baby, Baby, recorded as a duet with Anna King in 1964. Further hits followed: We are in Love (1965); You’ve Got to Change Your Mind (1968); Hot Pants – I’m Coming, Coming, I’m Coming; I Need Help (I Can’t Do it Alone) and the Brown-produced I Know You Got Soul (all 1971) and Keep on Doin’ What You’re Doin’ (1972).

The split with Brown in the early 1970s also coincided with the end of his own hit-making career, and he did not return to prominence until the 1987 sampling of his I Know You Got Soul by the hip-hoppers Eric B and Rakim. It occasioned a revival of interest and led to the reissue in 1990 of his old hits on the ironically titled compilation Bobby Byrd got soul: the best of Bobby Byrd.

Others to have sampled his solo work have included Public Enemy, Ice Cube, LL Cool J and A Tribe Called Quest.

Finally in 1994 came On The Move, effectively his first proper solo album.

It also featured his wife and the former James Brown backing vocalist Vicki Anderson, her daughter Carleen and other members of his family.

In later years Byrd toured Britain regularly with Anderson and with the Soulpower Allstars. He and his wife also sang at Brown’s funeral in 2006.

Bobby Byrd, musician, was born on August 15, 1934. He died of cancer on September 12, 2007 aged 73