On This Day in 1991, James Brown Performed His First Concert Following His Release From Prison—on Pay-Per-View

James Brown was a complicated man who experienced both the glory of career success and the downfall of a prison term or two. For all of his talents and his well-earned title as “The Hardest-Working Man in Show Business,” he also had a more complex and controversial side to him. Namely, Brown struggled with his criminal history and hard-knock upbringing, as well as substance abuse. When he was just a teenager, he was convicted of robbery. He served a stint in a juvenile detention center in Toccoa. Naturally, he formed a gospel quartet with some of his young cellmates.

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That wouldn’t be Brown’s only run-in with the law. In 1988, he had a few run-ins with the law, which resulted in a prison term after being charged with assault and battery. On September 24 of that year, Brown walked into an insurance seminar, armed with two guns, and demanded that those in attendance leave. He then tried to outrun the police before being apprehended. Brown’s wife would later say that he was on medication for jaw surgery and wasn’t “in his right mind.”

Earlier that year, Brown had been charged with carrying PCP and a firearm. There was no getting out of this one. He was sentenced to over six years in prison. However, he was able to leave after about three.

Shortly after James Brown was released from prison in 1991, he made his very first public appearance since his incarceration. He appeared in a pay-per-view concert special titled James Brown: Living In America.

James Brown Proudly Got Back on Stage Following His Stint in Prison

Following James Brown’s stint in prison, he went to work promoting his upcoming pay-per-view concert experience titled James Brown: Living In America. 

For about $19.95, fans could watch Brown perform at the Wiltern Theater in sunny Los Angeles with a whole host of special guests, from MC Hammer to C+C Music Factory to Bell Biv De Voe to Quincy Jones. En Vogue, Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee, and others also performed during the special.

It was a pretty successful moment in Brown’s career, all things considered. Brown would continue to make music afterward and went on to release the album Universal James in 1993. He would more or less continue to be involved in the music industry until his death in 2006 at the age of 73.

Photo by KMazur/WireImage

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