Here he is along with the world famous Flames, Mr.

Please Please Please himself, James Brown!

King's most successful artist, hands down, was James Brown, who was signed by Ralph Bass.

Ralph Bass actually said, "I didn't give a sh** if white people bought it."

He wanted to make black music for black people.

He said, "Would you come up and record?"

So we drive from Macon to Cincinnati which was about 600 miles.

So they get in the studio and they start going through their big song.

They came up and they're starting off with Please, Please, Please.

And then Syd is up there in the booth listening, and he says, "I can't believe this!"

And he's furious.

He was in the booth listening to James Brown record it and saying, "Well, where's the rest of the lyrics?"

"All he's doing is just saying, please.

Please, please, please.

Please, what?

Suddenly the door to the studio was kicked open.

G**damnit, this is a bunch of crap.

And Syd Nathan comes charging in, waving his arms, yelling.

What's he singing?

I can't understand a word he said.

You know, all he says is please, please, please.

How are we going to sell something that?

It really comes out of a gospel aesthetic.

Think about quartets singing the word Jesus.

He took that emotion and he mixes it into this secular setting.

And it's a song where he's just saying, please, please, please... It meant something in this live performance that took audiences to this moment of ecstasy.

But I think Nathan, hearing it and not knowing that context would have thought, this is nothing.

Syd was adamant that it was just the worst piece of sh** he'd ever heard.

He was obviously proved wrong.

It wasn't a big, big hit, but it was enough of a hit that it launched James Brown's career.

And within no time at all, of course, Syd was taking full credit for making this record a hit.