Charles Brown: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Mel Walker
• Amos Milburn
• Cecil Gant
• Sam Cooke
• Floyd Dixon
• Ray Charles
• Lowell Fulson

• Johnny "Dizzy" Moore
• Art Tatum
• Nat King Cole

• Ray Charles
• Johnny Otis
• Willie Mabon
• Prince Phillip Mitchell
• Earl Forest
• Clarence Green
• Dave Alexander

• Eddie Williams

• Jessie Mae Robinson
• Jesse Ervin
• Frank Haywood
• Mack Gordon
• Johnny Moore
• Buddy Johnson
• Sam H. Stept

Born:

Sep 13, 1922 in Texas City, TX

Died:

Jan 21, 1999 in Oakland, CA

Genres:

Music, Blues Music, Classical Music

Decades Active:

1940's|1950's|1960's|1970's|1980's|1990's

Artistic Quality

High

Cultural Impact

High

Popularity

High

Ratings Guide

How many blues artists remained at the absolute top of their game after more than a halfcentury of performing? One immediately leaps to mind: Charles Brown. His incredible piano skills and laidback vocal delivery remained every bit as mesmerizing at the end of his life as they were way back in 1945, when his groundbreaking waxing of "Drifting Blues" with guitarist Johnny Moore's Three Blazers invented an entirely new blues genre for sophisticated postwar revelers: an ultramellow, jazzinflected sound perfect for sipping a latenight libation in some hip afterhours joint. Brown's smooth trio format was tremendously influential to a host of highprofile disciples Ray Charles, Amos Milburn, and Floyd Dixon, for starters.

Classically trained on the ivories, Brown earned a degree in chemistry before moving to Los Angeles in 1943. He soon hooked up with the Blazers (Moore and bassist Eddie Williams), who modeled themselves after Nat "King" Cole's trio but retained a bluesier tone within their balladheavy repertoire. With Brown installed as their vocalist and pianist, the Blazers' "Drifting Blues" for Philo Records remained on Billboard's RB charts for 23 weeks, peaking at number two. Followups for Exclusive and Modern (including "Sunny Road," "So Long," "New Orleans Blues," and their immortal 1947 Yuletide classic "Merry Christmas Baby") kept the Blazers around the top of the RB listings from 1946 through 1948, until Brown opted to go solo.

If anything, Brown was even more successful on his own. Signing with Eddie Mesner's Aladdin logo, he visited the RB Top Ten no less than ten times from 1949 to 1952, retaining his mournful, sparsely arranged sound for the smashes "Get Yourself Another Fool," the charttopping "Trouble Blues" and "Black Night," and "Hard Times." Despite a 1956 jaunt to New Orleans to record with the Cosimo's studio band, Brown's mellow approach failed to make the transition to rock's brasher rhythms, and he soon faded from national prominence (other than when his second holiday perennial, "Please Come Home for Christmas," hit in 1960 on the King label). Occasionally recording without causing much of a stir during the '60s and '70s, Brown began to regroup by the mid'80s. One More for the Road, a set cut in 1986 for the shortlived Blue Side logo, announced to anyone within earshot that Brown's talents hadn't diminished at all while he was gone (the set later reemerged on Alligator). Bonnie Raitt took an encouraging interest in Brown's comeback bid, bringing him on tour with her as her opening act (thus introducing the blues vet to a whole new generation or two of fans). His recording career took off too, with a series of albums for Bullseye Blues (the first entry, 1990's All My Life, is especially pleasing), and more recently, a disc for Verve.

In his last years, Brown finally received at least a portion of the recognition he deserved for so long as a genuine rhythm and blues pioneer. But the suave, elegant Brown was by no means a relic, as anyone who witnessed his thundering boogie piano style will gladly attest; he returned in 1998 with So Goes Love before dying on January 21, 1999.

- Bill Dahl, All Music Guide