New York ? Even in death, James Brown can move a crowd.

Thousands of people danced and sang in the streets outside the Apollo Theater on Thursday in raucous celebration of the music legend’s life as his body was displayed to the public on the stage where he made his 1956 debut.

Music thumped from storefronts and portable stereos. Brown’s wails and growls even blasted inside the auditorium as fans marched quietly, single-file past his open gold coffin.

Brown lay resplendent in a blue suit, white gloves and silver shoes. Flanking the casket were giant photographs of the singer performing. An arrangement of red flowers on a white background spelled out his nickname: Godfather.

It was maybe the first time the hardest-working man in show business graced a stage in stillness, but that didn’t stop his fans from partying.

“This is a celebration of his life,” said 41-year-old Bryant Preudhomme, of suburban New York. “James Brown gave you heart. He lifted you up when you were down. He gave you hope.”

‘Say it Loud’

Brown, who died of heart failure Christmas morning at 73, lay in repose in the theater that helped catapult him to fame and was the setting for a thrilling live album in 1962.

At an evening program for family and close friends, the Rev. Al Sharpton said it was difficult to believe that a man who was “so much alive” was dead.

“How could someone with such energy and life really ever be gone?” said Sharpton, a close friend of the Godfather of Soul for three decades. “James wasn’t just No. 1,” Sharpton said, “he changed the beat of music all over the world.”

Earlier, Brown’s body was carried to the theater through the streets of Harlem on a majestic white carriage drawn by two white horses.

Hundreds of fans followed behind the caisson singing the chorus of Brown’s anthem, “Say it Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

The horse-drawn carriage carrying James Brown's casket arrives Thursday at the Apollo Theater in New York. A raucous throng of thousands cheered as the gold casket with the body was carried inside the historic theater, shortly after a white carriage drawn by two white horses carried the Godfather

To many, Brown was more than just an energetic performer. As Norman Brand, of Harlem, waited for the procession to begin, the 55-year-old recalled hearing “Say it Loud” for the first time in his native Alabama.

“It really changed the attitude of most black people. It was like a wake-up call. Before that, if you were called black, it was like an insult,” Brand said. “Just one song and one word can change a whole situation.”

Mourners came from far and wide to attend the first in a trio of services that will keep Brown almost as busy in death as he was in life.

Private ceremony today

His casket left a Georgia funeral parlor Wednesday for an all-night drive to New York. It arrived at Sharpton’s Harlem headquarters just before noon Thursday, and was quickly transferred to the carriage for a 20-block procession to the theater.

Sharpton accompanied the body from Georgia and walked behind the carriage Thursday. He stood at Brown’s side for hours during the viewing.

Today, a private ceremony is planned at a church near Augusta, Ga. A second public viewing of the singer’s body will be held Saturday at the James Brown Arena in Augusta.

Some fans arrived at the Apollo as early as midnight for a chance to pay their respects.

More than 100 people were in line outside the theater by 8 a.m., drawn to a man who left an indelible mark on soul, R&B, funk, disco and rap music. Later, the crowd swelled into the thousands and spilled over onto both sides of 125th Street. The line to get inside the Apollo stretched for blocks.

“He seemed like family, a friend of mine,” said Brenda Harper, who was the first to arrive, shortly after midnight. Fourteen years ago, she said: “I jumped on the stage and he danced with me. I danced with the Godfather that day.”

Musicians attend

Musicians and celebrities slipped in to pay their respects throughout the day: boxer Joe Frazier, band members, including bass player Fred Thomas, and Ali-Ollie Woodson, who was a singer with the Temptations in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s.

Relatives passed through, too, some wiping away tears.

“He was my uncle, but he acted like a big brother to me,” said Brown’s nephew Earl Swindell, 54, who was as a pallbearer. “I loved him, though. I was right there with him till the end. He meant a lot to me.”

Brown, who lived in Beech Island, S.C., continued to work to the end, dying less than a week before he was to perform New Year’s Eve in Manhattan at B.B. King’s blues club. Chaka Khan, the Grammy Award-winning rhythm and blues performer, will play instead.