Don Amero recommends The One, a biography of James Brown

Don Amero is a singer-songwriter from Winnipeg, who picked up two Juno Award nominations for his latest album, Refined. Right now he's reading The One, R.J. Smith's 2012 biography of music legend James Brown. 

If you're looking for a book that takes you on an incredible journey, this is it. It's an incredible read — there's so much to James Brown's life that we didn't know, and so much stuff that he's lived through in his time. He comes from a time when black people had no rights and were segregated, and at the same time his career was growing. 

There seems to be some sort of addiction in me to reading books about musicians and musicians' lives. The biggest part of that is that I think I'm always curious to see what path they're on. Being a musician myself, I'm always curious to see if there are some similarities between our two roads. To be honest, one similarity I found with James Brown was the fact that he came from very little, and I myself come from very little. He was a force of nature in the world of music. He was the king in his own world with soul and R&B, and when you get into The One, you really see why he was the king. 

Don Amero's comments have been edited and condensed.