Plans for soul singer James Brown to perform in a benefit concert this month while he serves time in a work-release program were nixed twice Wednesday by the state Corrections Department. On Monday, a Los Angeles promoter said Brown would hold a concert May 16 the King Street Palace in Charleston with Gladys Knight, Little Richard, Jermaine Jackson and others. The Corrections Department said no go. A New York concert organizer then said Wednesday that the benefit concert had been moved from Charleston to Aikin. Nope, the Corrections Department said again. Proceeds from the ``James Brown and Friends'' concert were to have gone to the non-profit Aiken-Barnwell Counties Community Action Commission, where Brown works as a counselor, said Peter Paul of the Stephen Cooper Entertainment Corp. in Los Angeles. Brown, serving a six-year sentence for aggravated assault, has been working for the commission since shortly after his April 14 transfer from prison to a work-release program. Corrections Department spokesman Francis X. Archibald said Wednesday the concert ``is not going to happen.'' ``This is inconsistent with his employment with the Aiken-Barnwell community agency. We didn't allow him to perform while he was in prison and we can't let him perform down there just because he's been sent to a work center,'' he said. Archibald said the concert was a commercial venture and not all proceeds would go to the commission. The event was to have been filmed as part of a television special on Brown's life, according to Paul. ``As part of being in prison, your liberties are restricted and you're taken away from your commercial life,'' Archibald said. ``That applies to entertainers, stockbrokers, bankers and anyone else who goes to prison.'' Officials with the King Street Palace and community action center did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. Brown will only respond to written inquiries, center officials said. Later Wednesday, Larry Myers of the Universal Attractions booking agency in New York said concert organizers were now going ahead with plans for a May 16 benefit performance in Aiken instead of Charleston _ despite the department's stance. The concert is to be held at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, said Myers, whose agency has booked concerts for Brown for more than 25 years. The change in location notwithstanding, Archibald said the department was firm in its position. ``Any entertainment Mr. Brown does has to be related directly and solely to his job,'' he said. ``We cannot allow some small benefit (for the commission) ... to be used as a cover for a larger, commercial exploitation.'' Brown, who turns 57 Thursday, was imprisoned in December 1988 to serve concurrent six-year sentences in Georgia and South Carolina for failing to stop for police, aggravated assault and weapons violations stemming from a two-state car chase in 1988. He becomes eligible for parole in South Carolina in May 1991 and in Georgia in March 1992. Brown is known for such hits as ``Papa's Got A Brand New Bag,'' ``I Got You (I Feel Good),'' and more recently ``I'm Real'' and ``Living in America.''
