James Brown - Live At The Apollo (1963)

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#24 Live at the Apollo

James Brown (1963)

This document of brown's prowess onstage may be the greatest live album ever recorded. From the breathless buildup of the spoken intro through terse, sweat-soaked early hits such as "Try Me" and "Think" into eleven epic minutes of the raw ballad "Lost Someone," climaxing with a frenzied nine-song medley and ending with "Night Train," Live at the Apollo is pure, uncut soul. And it almost didn't happen. Brown defied King Records label boss Syd Nathan's opposition to a live album by arranging to record a show himself -- on October 24th, 1962, the last date in a run at Harlem's Apollo Theater. His intuition proved correct; Live at the Apollo -- the first of four albums Brown recorded there -- charted for sixty-six weeks.

Total album sales: 1 million

Peak chart position: 2

Rolling Stone.com