SHORT TAKES : Singer Starts Work-Release

Soul singer James Brown sang a medley of his hits and lectured students at a beauty school on the importance of education during his first appearance as a counselor in a prison work-release program.

His supervisor, meanwhile, has denied reports he solicited monetary contributions from reporters in exchange for granting interviews with the singer.

Brown works as a community liaison and counselor with the Aiken-Barnwell Counties Community Action Commission under a work-release program he entered last month.

The singer was transferred to the minimum-security Lower Savannah Work Release Center after serving 15 months of a six-year sentence for aggravated assault and avoiding police during a two-state, high-speed car chase in 1988.

The 57-year-old Brown debuted as a counselor Tuesday at the 25-student Jack’s Beauty College.