James Brown Get on the Good Foot: Birth of Breakdancing
James Brown Get on the Good Foot hit the charts in 1972 as a two-part funk single.
It reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went gold, Brown's first single ever to do it.
The song's title came from Brown's own footwork on stage that year.
Fans who copied it started calling the move the Good Foot.
Within a few years, young dancers in the Bronx had turned it into something else entirely.
This is the real path from one 1972 funk single to the earliest roots of breakdancing.
Built from this site's own Billboard data and outside chart history.
James Brown at Schiphol airport, January 12, 1977. Image credit: Photo by Koen Suyk / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
James Brown Get on the Good Foot Was Recorded in a Single Day
James Brown Get on the Good Foot came together fast, even by Brown's own standards.
He recorded it on May 9, 1972, at Soundcraft Studios in North Augusta, South Carolina.
Brown wrote it with trombonist Fred Wesley and Joseph Mims.
Wesley arranged the song's polyrhythms, the interlocking horn stabs and rhythm parts stacked on top of each other.
That arrangement is what made the track so easy to dance to.
Polydor Records released it that same month as a two-part single, Part 1 built around the vocal, Part 2 stretched into a horn-driven jam.
Fred Wesley, who arranged Get on the Good Foot, performing live in 2007.
Image credit: Photo by Alex Const, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Brown's First Gold Record
The single reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100.
This site's own year-end Billboard data confirms it also landed at number 99 on the 1972 year-end Hot 100 recap.
It topped Billboard's R&B chart at number one that same year.
It became Brown's first single certified gold, a first for him at that point in his career.
Hear the James Brown Get on the Good Foot deep cut on this site's own jukebox.
The Good Foot Dance That Became the B-Boy Stance
The song's real legacy goes past its chart numbers.
It's the dance James Brown Get on the Good Foot left behind.
From a Stage Move to a Named Dance
Brown's own footwork during his 1972 stage shows is where the song's title came from in the first place.
He'd break into fast, syncopated steps timed to Wesley's polyrhythms.
Fans in the crowd started copying it.
They gave the move a name of its own: the Good Foot.
How the Good Foot Reached the Bronx
Young dancers, especially in New York's Bronx, picked up Brown's footwork within a few years of the song's release.
They built on it, turning it into standing, battle-style routines.
That style got a new name: the B-boy.
Not long after, it became known as breaking, and later, breakdancing.
Early breaking stayed on its feet at first, closer to toprock than the floor-spinning style breakdancing is known for today.
Use the Mood Song Matcher to line up other pumped-up, dance-floor tracks from the same stretch of the decade.
Dance historians widely credit this exact chain as one of the direct roots of hip-hop dance.
Three stages carried the Good Foot from Brown's stage to the block parties of the 1970s.
- 1972: Brown's own stage footwork on Get on the Good Foot, fans name it the Good Foot.
- Mid-1970s: Bronx dancers rework the steps into standing routines known as the B-boy style.
- Late 1970s onward: the style becomes breaking, then breakdancing, a foundational pillar of hip-hop culture.
Read more about James Brown's own take on this rhythmic idea, the concept he called the One, over on Music of the 70s.
James Brown Get on the Good Foot on the 1972 Charts
James Brown Get on the Good Foot landed at an unusual chart intersection for 1972.
It cracked the pop Top 20 while also topping the R&B chart outright.
Few of Brown's singles from that stretch of the decade managed both at once.
Rolling Stone later placed it at number 15 on its 2022 list of the 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.
That ranking cited the same polyrhythmic groove that built the Good Foot dance in the first place.
The song's funk arrangement also sits squarely inside the sound covered on this site's own 70s Funk genre page.
| Chart or Honor | Result |
|---|---|
| Billboard Hot 100 | Peaked at No. 18, 1972 |
| Billboard Hot 100, 1972 year-end recap | No. 99 (this site's own Billboard data) |
| Billboard R&B chart | No. 1, 1972 |
| Certification | Gold, Brown's first single to reach it |
| Rolling Stone, 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time | Ranked No. 15, 2022 list |
Where This Song Fits Brown's Wider 1972
James Brown was in the middle of one of his most productive stretches when this single hit.
He'd already rebuilt his backing band two years earlier around the J.B.'s.
James Brown Get on the Good Foot became the title track of a double album released later that same year.
That LP compiled outtakes, jams, and singles from across his Polydor run, not one tight studio session.
Try the Random 70s Song Generator to land on another cut from the same funk era, this time picked at random instead of by chart position.
Brown would keep pushing the same rhythmic template through The Payback the following year and beyond.
One single, built in a day, ended up outliving its own chart run by turning into a dance move that still shapes hip-hop today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Get on the Good Foot James Brown's first gold single?
Yes, Get on the Good Foot was James Brown's first single ever certified gold.
It came out in May 1972 on Polydor Records as a two-part 45.
His album The Payback later became his only certified gold album, a separate milestone two years afterward.
Together the two records mark his two biggest commercial certifications of the decade.
How did the Good Foot dance turn into breakdancing?
Brown's own energetic footwork on stage in 1972 gave the song its title and its dance.
Fans who copied the move called it the Good Foot.
Young dancers, especially in the Bronx, expanded it into standing footwork battles dubbed the B-boy style.
Dance historians widely credit that lineage as the direct root of breaking, the style now known as breakdancing.
Who wrote and produced Get on the Good Foot?
James Brown, trombonist Fred Wesley, and Joseph Mims wrote the song together.
Wesley arranged its polyrhythms, the interlocking horn and rhythm parts that made it so danceable.
Brown recorded it in a single day, May 9, 1972, at Soundcraft Studios in North Augusta, South Carolina.
Polydor released it that same month as a two-part single.
Where did Get on the Good Foot peak on the charts?
The single reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on Billboard's R&B chart in 1972.
This site's own year-end Billboard data confirms it also landed at number 99 on the 1972 year-end Hot 100 recap.
That combination of a pop chart placement and an R&B number one was rare even for Brown at his commercial peak.
Did Get on the Good Foot win any lasting recognition?
Rolling Stone ranked Get on the Good Foot number 15 on its 2022 list of the 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.
That ranking cited the same polyrhythmic groove that shaped the Good Foot dance five decades earlier.
It remains one of the clearest links between a specific 1970s single and the earliest roots of hip-hop dance.
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