Singer James Brown Begins Work-Release Program

Grammy-winning soul singer James Brown was freed from prison today after 16 months so that he can begin a work-release program.

Brown, 56, who was serving concurrent six-year terms for leading police on a wild, border-crossing chase in 1988, will enter a work-release program Monday, acting as a sort of counselor with the Aiken and Barnwell Counties Community Action Commission. He will be in the office during the day and will return on nights and weekends to the Lower Savannah Work Center in Aiken.

“He will be in a working capacity. It’s not as severe as jail but it’s not as free as the entertainment world,” said Sue Jones, a Community Action Commission director.

Although his exact duties in his work-release job have not been determined, officials said Brown likely will be required to talk with children and adults in the largely rural area and work to increase public awareness of the poor.

Charges against Brown included failure to stop for police officers in South Carolina and Georgia. Authorities said Brown tried to run down officers with his pickup truck during a wild car chase along the border between the two states in 1988.

Brown, who won’t be eligible for parole until March, 1991, had a series of run-ins with his wife and police officers in Georgia and South Carolina in the months before the incident that landed him in prison.

Police said the Sept. 24, 1988, fracas began when Brown burst into a Savannah, Ga., office building he owned and began waving a shotgun at people attending an insurance seminar. Authorities said Brown apparently was angry that someone had used his private bathroom.

Brown, known for such hits as “Please, Please, Please,” “It’s a Man’s World,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and his 1987 Grammy winner “Living in America,” has denied having a drug problem.

However, Brown tested positive for the drug PCP after his September 1988 arrest and pleaded no contest to possession of the same substance following an earlier incident in Aiken County.