Dressed in a red sport coat accented with a black pocket kerchief, Ray Ward hosted four people in the living room of his modest Airport Heights home Monday to tell stories about his hero, James Brown. There were stories about aspiring to sing and dance like Brown; about meeting Brown; about receiving Brown collectibles “from friends and family all over the world”; about suing the Godfather of Soul over a scrapbook of memorabilia; and, about being caught backstage in a crush of excited fans trying to get closer to Brown.

At 61 years old this is what Ward is about: trying to get closer to James Brown. He wears Brown’s trademark bouffant wave. His jacket is pressed, and the wide collar of his black dress shirt matches the kerchief. He carries a business card with the motto “THE NEW HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS!” You may have seen Ward around Anchorage sporting the bouffant and jacket. You may have nudged your companion, and said, “Hey. There’s that guy who looks like James Brown…” 

Now Ward’s home, at 1927 Norene Street, is “The James Brown Museum” open to the public every Sunday between five and 7 p.m. It’s modest as museums go, but pretty large for a fan-shrine. “I was not able to attend his funeral,” Ward says with a somber tone. Brown died December 25, 2006. “This is one thing that I can do as a tribute to the life legend of James Brown.” Ward strikes both “T” sounds in the word “tribute” as if he’s preaching.

Ward’s first close encounter with James Brown came in January 1969 at the El Paso Coliseum in El Paso, Texas. Ward, who grew up in Anchorage, was attending New Mexico State University at Las Cruces in January and wanted to see James Brown so badly he borrowed cash from a priest on campus for a bus ticket.

“Father Linel was cool,” he says. There were only two other Alaskan students on campus that year, Ward explained. “I was like a foreign student to him, so whenever I needed anything, he’d help me out.”

Ward was tall, thin, and academically ambitious.  “Mr. Professor” was the nickname he had in high school. “I was skinny, and I wore thick glasses because I was near-sighted,” he says. “I took comfort in books, reading about my heroes.”

Ward rattles off a list of heroes: George Washington Carver, Mahatma Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, “and James Brown—Nobody can match his music, not Schubert or Mozart or Michael Jackson.”

Vinyl LPs and 45-rpm singles of Brown’s records crowd shelves and line the floor of his living room. One row is under a giant screen TV that has cracks in its screen repaired with transparent tape. “I Got You (I Feel Good)” is playing on a stereo. “That song,” Ward says, “‘I Feel Good’—that song broke the international color barrier.”

Ward’s look might be adopted—particularly the bouffant wave atop his head—but there’s no doubting his sincerity. “I am not a James Brown impersonator, because nobody can impersonate James Brown. I tell my audience my show is a tribute to James Brown. I tell them I want them to feel good, to feel better, after the show.”

After Ward met Brown by sneaking in the side door at the El Paso Coliseum in 1967 (Father Linel only got the bus ticket—the concert was sold out) Brown would invite Ward backstage whenever he played Anchorage shows and they’d relive the night Brown was mobbed by fans in Texas. “He’d say, ‘You remember El Paso?’ those people down there were about to kill me’—the people were all pulling at him.”

A seven-inch record of Brown’s 1956 breakout single “Please, Please, Please,” is part of Ward’s kitchen-table display. The space is reserved for important stuff, such as the complaint from Ward’s lawsuit against Brown, filed in Anchorage Superior Court. The suit was over a scrapbook chronicling Brown’s career. All that remains of the scrapbook are photos. The Godfather of Soul and the lanky student sit together, backstage at a 1976 concert on Fort Richardson, with the book on their laps. Ward says he loaned the book to Brown that day. His hero wanted it “to lobby Congress” to show politicians the need for moral-boosting concerts at Alaska’s military bases.

Months later, Ward received a telegram in which Brown claims a former manager stole it. The telegram is now part of Ward’s kitchen-table display. Brown signs off: “If there is anything I can do, please contact me at once, James Brown.”

In spring of 1978 Brown returned to Anchorage. His number one fan served him a lawsuit at the airport. “I hated to do that,” Ward says.

Ward was again invited into a private audience with James Brown, this time in a limousine. Ward says Brown was sincere about wanting to return the book, but that was proving impossible.

“He promised, ‘As long as I live, I will try to get it back to you’,” Ward says.

Ward felt better after that exchange, he says. He dropped the lawsuit.

—Scott Christiansen