Brown's Body En Route to Apollo Theater

The Rev. Al Sharpton leaves the C.A. Ried Sr. Memorial Funeral Home where he was helping with plans for the funeral for singer James Brown, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006, in Augusta, Ga. Brown died early Christmas Day, Monday, Dec. 25. He was 73. (AP Photo/W. Mike Adams) (W. Mike Adams - AP)

NEW YORK -- The body of James Brown was en route from Georgia late Wednesday for a final trip to Harlem's Apollo Theater and a historic public viewing of the soul singer, whose innovative music and ferocious energy touched the world for 50 years.

A horse-drawn carriage waited to take Brown's body through Harlem on Thursday morning at the start of three days of wakes, remembrances and a funeral of the kind normally reserved for royalty.

"It's going to be a royal day in Harlem," the Rev. Al Sharpton, Brown's close friend, said by cell phone Wednesday as he accompanied the singer's casket in a van.

He promised "the kind of homecoming we haven't seen in a long time, if ever, in the Harlem community."

Sharpton said the road trip became necessary when logistical problems made it impossible to catch the last flight of the evening.

"We're determined to make sure he makes the Apollo," Sharpton said around 9:30 p.m., shortly after the approximately 12-hour trip began from a Georgia funeral parlor. "He never missed the Apollo. If we ride all night, that's fine."

The Apollo Theater prepared for long lines of people paying their respects to Brown, whose unique style of soul and funk left a large imprint on hip-hop, disco and rap music.

Brown loved that people would line up outside the Apollo for his shows, Sharpton said.

"Every time he played the Apollo, he'd say, `How many people outside?'" Sharpton recalled. "I'd say: `It's around the corner. It's two blocks.' ... My dream is that I can say, `Mr. Brown, they were lined up for you one last time.'"

Brown will lie in repose from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday on the stage where he made his debut in 1956, the quiet of final respects broken only by the sound of his music. From 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., there will be a program for family and close friends, observed by the media.

Apollo historian Billy Mitchell said Brown, who died of congestive heart failure on Christmas morning in Atlanta at age 73, routinely drew the largest crowds of anyone at the theater, which opened in 1934.

The Apollo several times before has been used for a public viewing after a prominent death but always for employees. In August 1992, the theater provided a last chance to honor Ralph Cooper, who founded Amateur Night, the weekly talent contest that launched the careers of Brown, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, among scores of others.