Charles Brown was a pioneer of postwar rhythm and blues who not only had many hit recordings but influenced countless blues and pop artists. He was also identified with several Christmas songs that have become standards. To celebrate today, I have a playlist of some of his Christmas blues classics. Here he is part of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers' with the original Merry Christmas Baby.
Another famous Charles Brown recording was Please Come Home For Christmas.
Here is Christmas (Comes Once a Year) that Charles co-wrote with Amos Milburn.
Here is Its Christmas Time from the album Charles Brown Sings Christmas Songs.
Here is Let's Make Everyday a Christmas Day.
When his career took off again in the 1980s and 1990s, Charles recorded a new album of Christmas blues, Cool Christmas Blues, for Rounder's Bullseye Blues label. Here is Santa's Blues.
From this same album is A Song For Christmas.
While Charles redid Merry Christmas Baby for this album, we close this playlist with Charles and Bonnie Raitt performing this classic on the Tonight Show.
Jerry Wexler writes in the notes to John Hammond’s new Pointblank release Trouble No More that Hammond is the greatest roots blues practitioner of this generation and Hammond sings “the deep and natural blues like some blind man on the corner in Opelousas, Louisiana.” Despite Jerry Wexler’s renown as a producer and recording industry mogul, the latter statement will provoke disagreement among some who find Hammond often sounding as if he is trying to sound like a street singer.Regardless of Hammond’s dedication to the blues, his vocals are inconsistent, and some will find him on occasion, irritably contrived, particularly when he tries to sing tough like Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. Admittedly he can be engaging when singing in an unforced manner.
Vanguard has compiled a useful cross-section of his work for that label that dates from the sixties forward, You Can’t Judge a Book By the Cover. After an awful vocal on the title track, this reviewer almost didn’t listen to the rest. While his choked vocal also sounds forced on Muddy Waters’ I Can’t Be Satisfied, he is convincing on Leroy Carr’s Midnight Hour Blues, which also sports solid guitar by the late Billy Butler, and the still active Jimmy Spruill (active when review was originally written and published). While some will find the presence of Mike Bloomfield, Duane Allman and the Hawks (better known as The Band), of interest, there is no electric guitar playing here that tops Butler and Spruill. Those who like Hammond’s vocals will have no reservations about this, and for others, like this reviewer, this does provide a useful sampling and there are a number of engaging performances here.
Hammond’s backing on Trouble No More. on Pointblank includes Little Charlie and the Nitecats on several songs, slide guitarist Roy Rogers on others, and Charles Brown’s piano and Danny Caron’s guitar are on renditions of Brown’s Trouble Blues and Fool’s Paradise. Hammond’s singing is more relaxed here, although occasionally coming across as mannered. He continues to exhibit an eclectic repertoire and his rendition of That Nasty Swing has a bit of Jimmy Rodgers flavor, although Hammond doesn’t attempt a blue yodel. The album’s highpoint is a nice, wistful version of Blind Willie McTell’s Love Changin’ Blues. Trouble Blues is a credible remake, of a Charles Brown classic but Hammond is overshadowed by Brown’s kinetic accompaniment. However, Hammond has produced an engaging and likable release for the Pointblank.
I likely received review copies from the record companies. This review originally appeared in the April 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 190). One may have to purchase theses used or as downloads, although their are other collections of Hammond's Vanguard recordings available. Here is Hammond doing Fool's Paradise from the Trouble No More CD.
Charles Brown
Just A Lucky So And So
Bullseye Blues
Brown’s new Bullseye Blues album adds to the fine body of his recent recordings. The centerpiece of the backing is his excellent band with Danny Caron’s guitar, with its echoes of Oscar Moore as well as T-Bone Walker, and Clifford Solomon’s tenor saxophone, whose solos here show him to be the strongest horn player working in this idiom, with his solo on the remake of Black Nights, being particularly notable.
The big band charts add considerable punch with Wardell Querzergue’s arrangement on Drifting Blues building upon embellishments found in Johnny Otis’ treatment of the song. Song For Christmas is one of several non-blues and the strings add to Brown’s description of holiday times and spirits. Querzergue’s charts are never stodgy nor syrupy. Gloomy Sunday suggests Billie Holiday’s influence in how Brown delivers the vocal, although this performance sounds a tad lethargic. The Quintet shines on Danger with its New Orleans rhythms and superb solos from Caron and Solomon. Brown continues to show his considerable piano talent here and throughout the record.
There is no claim that this is Charles Brown’s best recent recording, but the handsome production insures that this is not simply more of the same (although excellent) music found on his recent albums.
I am pretty sure I received my review copy from Rounder Records at the time. This review appeared in the April 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 190). Here is a love performance from Charles Brown and his band.
With recordings in much of Europe becoming public domain after 50 years, there has been a prolific amount of reissues of classic blues recordings at very economical prices. Heritage of the Blues is a series of reissues of such material on the Blue Orchard label. Among the reissues on this label are double CDs by Charles Brown and Josh White.
Charles Brown’s Cryin’ Mercy presents 55 tracks by the pioneering pianist and blues balladeer. It ranges from the early Philo-Aladdin recordings by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers to 1956 recordings with many of the greats on so many Rock and Roll sessions present. There is a generous selection of material here with supporting musician's including Maxwell Davis, Oscar Moore, Don Wilkerson, Clifford Solomon, Pete ‘Guitar’ Lewis, Plas Johnson, Lee Allen, Red Tyler, and Earl Palmer. the notes provide the contours of Brown’s career and achievements and also give full personnel information. It is a solid overview of the period of his greatest popularity and includes classic recordings such as Drifting Blues, Get Yourself Another Fool, Black Night, Trouble Blues, Honey Sipper, and Fool’s Paradise and with good sound easily recommended.
Josh White, Blood Red River, is an even more varied release ranging from Wing Wang Harmonica Blues in 1929; the classic Piedmont blues, Blood Red River, in 1932; This Heart of Mine by Josh White as the Singing Christian; School Boy Blues accompanying pianist Walter Roland; Silicosis Is Killing Me as Pinewood Tom; Careless Love with Sidney Bechet & Wilson Meyers; Liza Jane with Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger; Hold On with the Union boys (Tom Glazer,Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and Brownie McGhee); a cover of Strange Fruit; the highly influential The House of the Risin’ Sun; John Henry, and One Meatball. As can be seen its a varied setting for solo blues with wonderful Piedmont fingestyle guitar to sophisticated performances that were at the core of the rise of modern folk music in the cities. White was a sophisticated performer and sang sometimes in a manner that some would consider bland, yet certainly was highly influential and entertaining and this 2-disc set is invaluable in helping to document this very important and greatly overlooked artist.
This review appeared originally in the May-June 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 293). I probably received my review copies from that publication. I believe these are still available.
Others have written obituaries about the late Johnny Otis. One of the best ones appeared in the New York Times and Marc Myers at his blog, jazzwax.com, had a very astute appreciation of the gentleman who was sometimes referred to as “The Godfather of Rhythm & Blues.” But Johnny Otis was so much more. Born in Northern California in a primarily African-American neighborhood, he may have been genetically of Greek ancestry, but he choose to live as an African-American. He played the spectrum of Black American Music (to use a phrase favored by Nicholas Payton), not simply Rhythm & Blues.
His musically chops may have started with Count Matthews and his Blues Band in the San Francisco Bay Area. On the recommendation of Nat King Cole and Jimmy Witherspoon, he moved to Los Angeles to play drums with Harlan Leonard and His Rockets, one of the last big bands to emerge from Kansas City. He himself was leading a big band soon after and recorded “Harlem Nocturne,” the first of a number chart topping records over his career.
He was among those who made the transition from big band to the smaller jump bands that would provider the foundation for post-war rhythm and blues. With Bradu Ali, he soon was operating “The Barrelhouse,” which would feature some of the greatest artists. And he would soon be starting his career as a talent scout, disc jockey, television host, record producer, community leader and organizer, entrepreneur, author, songwriter, recording artist, church leader and so much more.
The performers he discovered as well as those he recorded with are legion and legendary: (Little) Esther Phillips, The Robins (later the Coasters), Mel Walker, Linda Hopkins, Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, Ben Webster, Jimmy Rushing, Johnny ’Guitar’ Watson, Big Mama Thornton, Jackie Wilson, Little WIllie John, Devonia Williams, James Van Streeter, Preston Love, Big Jim Wynn, Pete ‘Guitar’ Lewis, Jimmy Nolen (guitarist on “Willie and the Hand Jive” and inventor of scratch guitar as bassist Christian McBride observed), Etta James, Delmar ‘Mighty Mouth’ Evans, Margie Evans, Jackie Payne, Charles Brown, Johnny Ace, Slim Green, Gene ‘The Mighty Flea’ Connors, Clifford Solomon, Marie Adams, Joe Fritz, Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris, Amos Milburn, Gatemouth Moore, Pee Wee Crayton, and Louis Jordan to throw a few names around.
My first conscious exposure to Otis’ music was the Kent album Cold Shot in DownBeat. That album introduced me to the singing of Mighty Mouth Evans, Johnny’s son Shuggie on guitar (displaying a facility way beyond his years) and Otis himself on piano, vibes and drums. Featured on the instrumental title track was Sugarcane Harris on violin and his performance with Otis at the time would relaunch his career. Cold Shot brought Johnny back to the fore of the blues world and led to a follow-up studio album on Epic (which I do not believe is currently available), as well as albums by Shuggie and Harris and The Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey. This latter album was from a live Monterey Jazz Festival performance where Otis brought together Big Joe Turner, Esther Phillips, Roy Milton, Pee Wee Crayton, Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson and Ivory Joe Hunter for one of the greatest celebrations of this music ever.
Over the next thirty odd years Johnny continued to record, both with new recordings on his Blues Spectrum label by some of these pioneering legends as well as a variety of albums that covered the whole spectrum of blues and jazz. For Arhoolie, he did a loving homage to those Black Big Bands that inspired and influenced him, Spirit of the Black Territory Bands. For Alligator he produced in the early 1980s, The New Johnny Otis Show which introduced vocalists Vera Hamilton and Charles Williams as well as had plenty of Shuggie’s guitar, while Good Lovin’ Blues from 1990 had a fuller band with saxophonist Clifford Scott and vocalist Jackie Payne.
Of course, Johnny Otis was more than simply a musician. He was a painter, a community leader and social activist who also ran for political office (endorsed at the time by Dodger legend Maury Wills). He also ministered at his non-sectarian Church at which folks of any faith (even nonbelievers) were welcome and which carried out a variety of social welfare programs including a community kitchen. He was a disc jockey as well as a performer and in the late 50’s had a popular television show. In addition to recording for a variety of labels, he produced and played on recordings for Mercury-Emarcy, Duke-Peacock, Federal and Capitol Records, and later operated Dog Records. He continued in radio, even after moving back to the San Francisco area, hosting a regular show of music and interviews until the past few years.
Otis championed the pioneers of blues and Rhythm and Blues for his entire life. He conducted a series of interviews for Blues Unlimited with some of these and when he himself was interviewed, always noted the hype and publicity received by imitators and popularizers while the originals were still around. As a songwriter he contributed such classics as Every Beat Of My Heart for Gladys Knight and The Pips. He authored several books, including Listen To The Lambs which contained his reflections after the Watts Riots, and Upside Your Head!: Rhythm and Blues On Central Avenue, where he discussed the music he played such a major roll in. Otis was also a painter with some of his paintings reproduced in Colors and Chords: The Art of Johnny Otis. Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story, is George Lipsitz's excellent biography on Otis.
Otis’ musical legacy consists not only of Shuggie, but also Nicky, drummer with the Steve Edmondson-Jackie Payne Band, and Shuggie’s son, Eric Otis, who is also a guitarist as well as composer and orchestrator with works with his other grandfather, another musical legend, Gerald Wilson.
Marc Myers had several recommendations of Johnny’s recordings in his blog that I have linked above. I recommend:
The Johnny Otis Rhythm & Blues Caravan; The Complete Savoy Recordings. A 3-CD box set with 77 recordings of which I wrote: “[T]he recommended collection of Otis’ Savoy recordings, not simply because it is so complete, but because it is so good and influential. This is out-of-print but should be available
Midnight at the Barrelhouse - The Johnny Otis Story Volume 1: 1945-57. I have ordered this Ace reissue which was released a few months ago to celebrate Johnny’s 90th Birthday. It is the first of a two disc retrospective of Johnny Otis’ musical career. It includes a variety of his Savoy, Duke, Capital and Dig recordings along with big Mama Thornton’ Hound Dog as well as versions of his songs So Fine and Every Beat Of My Heart. The second volume, On With the Show - The Johnny Otis Story Volume 2: 1957-1974, is scheduled for early February release.
The Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey. As I wrote when this was rereleased on CD in 2000, “There has been hardly anything recorded in this vein since this that has come close to equalling this good rocking time.”
Other releases of note include:
Creepin’ with the Cats. One of several albums from the English Ace label compiled from Otis’ Dig Records and includes vocalists Little Arthur Matthews and Handsome Mel Williams as well as guitarist pete ‘Guitar’ Lewis and Jimmy Nolen on a range of material that was contemporaneous with Otis’ Capitol Recordings. Another Ace reissue in this series from Otis’ Dig group of labels is Dig These Blues with selections from Al Simmons, Slim Green, Sidney maiden The Cats From Fresno and Sugarcane Harris.
Johnny Otis Show: Vintage 1950’s Broadcasts from Los Angeles. Another release from English Ace Records that captures some live location performances with Johnny and his band although with some radio ads of the time (including Maury Wills endorsement of Johnny running for assemblyman).
Cold Shot - A reissue of the album which featured a young Shuggie on guitar, vocalist Delmar Evans and Sugarcane Harris with some fine blues with highlight’s including “Country Girl,” with plenty of swagger in the performance, “Goin’ Back To LA,” a “Sweet Home Chicago” variation and the title track, a strong instrumental showcasing Harris’ violin.
Spirit Of The Black Territory Bands. The Big Band Album Otis recorded for Arhoolie may only be available today as a download. It has strong renditions of songs associated with the big bands of Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, and Jay McShann that influenced and provided inspiration for Otis.
Here is Johnny and company doing "Willie and The Hand Jive" from 1958. It is a different you tube clip than circulating the web.
The following brief review of a compilation of blues recordings, mostly classic tracks from the forties and fifties from the Savoy label, appeared originally in the March-April 2004 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 267) and is still available.
The historic Savoy catalog has been reissued numerous times over the past few decades, making available seminal reissues of blues, jazz, and rhythm and blues. The catalog may now be in new hands and it seems the label is being mined yet again. One of the new releases is Savoy Blues1944-1994 which is a three disc sampler that not only includes classic recordings by Joe Turner, Johnny Otis, Little Esther, Little Miss Sharecropper (Lavern Baker), John Lee Hooker and Big Maybelle, but also recordings by Eddie Kirkland, Robert Lockwood and Charles Brown that reflect the acquisition of the Muse and Trix catalogs to supplement the Savoy classics.
Opening with Hot Lips Page’s Uncle Sam’s Blues and closing with Charles Brown’s I Got a Right to Cry, the three discs cover a wide spectrum of music including Billy Eckstine’s classic Jelly Jelly, Gatemouth Moore’s Walking My Blues Away, Billy Wright’s Stacked Deck, Doc Pomus’ cover of Joe Turner’s Hollywood Bed, Turner’s My Gal’s a Jockey, John lee Hooker’s Miss Pearl’s Boogie, Joe Williams’ In the Evening, Nappy Brown’s The Right Time, Big Maybelle’s Blues Early, Early (Parts 1 & 2), Eddie Kirkland’s Snake in the Grass, and Robert Lockwood Jr.’s Selfish Ways.
A review of these titles should give an idea of the range of material presented here from the swing and uptempo mood of Hot Lips Page and Gatemouth Moore, to John Lee Hooker’s delta blues boogie and Eddie Kirkland’s mix of soul and delta blues. With good sound and good notes on the performers by compiler Billy Vera, this serves as a solid overview of the riches of the Savoy Catalog and is value priced as well.
I do not recall if I was sent a review copy from Jazz & Blues Report or the record company.
Back in the early 1990s, EMI issued a series of blues reissues that made some important and vintage blues available for blues listeners. In the October 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 195) I reviewed a pair of reissues by Amos MIlburn and Big Joe Turner. These reissues included their important recordings for Aladdin and Imperial which in Milburn’s case was his legacy. I have noted that while the original CD sets (which had wonderful booklets) may be available from used sources, but the music is available as downloads on itunes and amazon (and I presume other sources), so my observations are worthwhile, especially since Milburn is such an important artist whose star has faded. Given that most people today associate Milburn’s big hit “Chicken Shack Boogie” with Pinetop Perkins, these recordings should be a revelation to many. What follows is the pertinent portion of my review from 1994 with a few stylistic changes. {Amos} Milburn’s star has been in eclipse for at least twenty years, yet, in the late forties, he was one of the biggest hit-makers in the rhythm and blues world, with most of his hits included on his collection. Despite Amos Milburn’s importance and influence, Rhino Records included no selections by Milburn on their Blues MastersJump Blues or Texas Blues volumes. With the release of Down the Road Apiece, Milburn’s star will perhaps shine a bit brighter today. Inspired by the boogie woogie threesome of Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson, and Louis Jordan’s jumping jive, Milburn was discovered playing in Houston by Lola Anne Cullum and taken to the West Coast to record at sessions that also produced Lightnin’ Hopkins’ first sides.
His earliest recordings were strong Texas boogie woogie numbers, represented here by the title track, with Milburn’s firm piano and smooth, soulful singing, and a November 1947 session that produced his chart record, Chicken Shack Boogie, which was on the charts for 23 weeks and reached number 1. It would start a period of several years where Milburn consistently was on the Billboard R&B charts, with the boogie instrumentals and uptempo numbers Let’s Have a Party, Roomin’ House Boogie and Sax Shack Boogie (many with Maxwell Davis’ gritty tenor saxophone); Charles Brown influenced ballads and dreary blues including Hold Me Baby, Empty Arms Blues and Bewildered, (some also showing kinship to T-Bone Walker’s blues ballads); and mid-tempo blues like Walking Blues and Thinking and Drinking, the latter one of many recordings he made about booze including Bad, Bad, Whiskey, and One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer.
With the success of his songs about drinking, Milburn’s life imitated art and he started drinking heavily, including shot glasses from his his piano while performing. While he continued to chart records until mid-1954, he wasn’t able to stay on the charts with the advent of rock and roll despite efforts to update his sound. Even a pounding new version of Chicken Shack Boogie, in New Orleans with Dave Bartholomew’s studio band, that rocked with the force of a two-trailer diesel doing 75, could not restore him to his status as a chart topper. It is one of the greatest rock and roll records, and it is unfortunate that EMI did not include it in this collection.
After his tenure with Aladdin ended, Milburn continued performing and he recorded for a variety of labels, including some duets with Charles Brown for Ace. He even did an album for Motown, now a collector’s item. He suffered the first stroke in 1969 while working in Cincinnati. He suffered a second stroke shortly thereafter, and in April, 1971, this writer spent an afternoon with Milburn, then in a wheelchair, at the Cleveland VA Hospital. Somehow Milburn recovered enough use of one hand so that in 1976, with Johnny Otis playing the left hand parts, Milburn recorded for Otis’ Blues Spectrum label, although these cuts were not memorable. He died in 1980.
Down the Road Apiece collects his hit records and a few other choice items, although obviously ignoring a substantial part of his 160 or so sides for Aladdin (for instance, there is also a great version of Flying Home). Fans of boogie woogie, club blues and jump blues will find plenty to enjoy here, and, if it meets with your approval, you might watch for a rumored Mosaic box set. {The Mosaic Box was a joy, but has been long out-of-print}.
This collection includes liner notes and lists all of the pertinent Aladdin and Imperial recordings. Lacking is personnel and other complete discographical information, although the notes do highlight the important sidemen. Given the absence of available Amos Milburn, Down the Road Apiece, is a particularly important reissue.
As a footnote to my review I should mention that Milburn’s guitarist, Texas Johnny Brown, is still on the scene, laying down his sophisticated, urban blues.
Johnny Otis The Johnny Otis Show Live At Monterey (Epic / Legacy)
This compact disc reissue of Johnny Otis rhythm and blues spectacular from 1970’s Monterey Jazz Festival is long overdue (part of which was in Clint Eastwood’s film,Play Misty For Me). Bringing together some of the giants of the music, (none of these still with us twenty three years later) Big Joe Turner, Eddie Vinson, Roy Brown, Pee Wee Crayton, Ivory Joe Hunter, Roy Milton and Little Esther Phillips, this was not merely some exercise in nostalgia, but rather a first rate afternoon of jump blues. They are all in great form with Turner’s I Got a Girl going back to his KC days, while Cleanhead and Roy Milton keep a nice groove going and Ivory Joe Hunter sings a ballad. Highpoint of the proceedings has to be Esther Phillips’ two songs, showing very much her Dinah Washington roots, but tearing into Cry Me a River Blues (with a great Clifford Solomon tenor solo) and Little Esther’s Blues, a medley of Blowtop Blues, T Bone Blues and Jelly Jelly. Johnny (who is still with us) reprises Willie and the Hand Jive. Also present were son Shuggie, and singers Margie Evans and Delmar Evans, part of Otis’ then current review. Shuggie has a country slide guitar feature, and a rocking electric guitar blues instrumental, Delmar Evans does a credible You Better Look Out, modeled on some Howlin’ Wolf songs, and teams with Johnny for Goin’ Back to L.A., a great take-off on Sweet Home Chicago. Otis put together a killer band, who really jump the blues. There has been hardly anything recorded in this vein since this that has come close to equalling this good rocking time.
This review originally appeared in the December 1993 Jazz & Blues Report, contemporaneous with the reissue of this classic album which I purchased when it first came out. Unfortunately the CD apparently is not currently in print although it is likely available from some vendors that sell to collectors. It is available for download on amazon and itunes and likely other sources. It remains a celebration of classic post-war blues and R&B that will never be equaled. And Johnny Otis is still with us 17 years later after this was reissued. In case you missed it, there is a terrific biography of Otis, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story by George Lipsitz published by University of Minnesota Press and available from amazon and other sources.
Bob Corritore sent the word of this latest sad news to blues folks everywhere in his email newsletter:
RIP Mel Brown 10/7/1939-3/20/2009: This note just in from Eric Thom: "Mel Brown has just passed - around 5pm tonight, but details are still pending. He was to open for Mavis Staplestonight,but has been in St. Mary's Hospital in Kitchener fighting to get his breathing back without the use of a machine. This is a huge loss for the blues, and for the blues world in Canada, specifically".Mel Brown was one of the real treasures of blues guitar and piano. He had a long history of spectacular recordings for labels such as Impulse, Bluesway, Antone's,and in recentyears, for his home base label of the Electro-Fi records. He also recorded as a sideman for some of the greatest of blues artists, including T-Bone Walker, B.B. king, Bobby "Blue Bland," Albert Collins, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Snooky Pryor, Jimmy McGriff, James Cotton, Doug Sahm, Earl Hooker and Charles Brown (could a discography be any more fulfilled than that?) Yet another irreplaceable blues great has left us.
He was the son of John "Bubba" Brown, a Delta Blues Artist of note who ha traveled with Tommy Johnson and the Chatmon Brothers, but in order to raise his family, did not pursue music full time. Growing up in Jackson he met numerous blues legends and saw others growing up like Elmore James, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and Sonny Boy Williamson. Mel ended up working several gigs with Sonny Boy in nearby Vaughn, Mississippi "He needed a guitar player, so he came by my house and got me".
In 1958 he moves to LA where he hooks up with Jimmy Beasley and then Johnny Otis. Later he tours with the Olympics and Etta James. At this juncture of his career Mel begins to work steadily in the highly competitive L.A. studio scene appearing on sessions with everyone from Bobby Darin to Doris Day, Bill Cosby to Jerry Lewis. Meanwhile back in the blues world, after impressing T-Bone Walker with his playing one night at the Sands Club, Walker invited Mel to appear on an album , "Funky Town", that he was preparing to record for the ABC/Impulse label . Also impressed with Mel’s guitar work on the T-Bone sessions, producer Bob Thiele summoned Mel back to the studio a week later to record his debut "Chicken Fat". The LP is a flavorsome mix of blues, jazz and funk instrumentals with special guest Herb Ellis along for the ride.
He waxed several more albums for ABC-Impulse as well as records with many blues legends like Bobby Bland (The California Album), Charles Brown (the album "Legend" opposite Earl Hooker), Jimmy Witherspoon (again opposite Earl Hooker) and way too many more. He also worked off and on with Bobby Bland from 1971 to 1981. In 1983, he moved to Austin and becomes part of house band at Antone's including recording as part of the Silent partners. He is heard on a number of Antone's label albums as well as some by Albert Collins.
He moved to Ontario, Canada in 1990 where he remained for the rest of his life. He recorded a number of albums as a leader for Electro-Fi, as well as played on albums by Snooky Pryor and other legends. His 1999 Electro-Fi debut album " "Neck Bones & Caviar," which in 2001 won Mel the W.C. Handy (now Blues Music Award) "Blues Comeback Album of the Year" award."
He was highly respected in the music world throughout his career. I never had the pleasure of seeing him perform, but his legacy as a leader and a sideman is substantial.
The image of Mel is by taLkiN' bLuEs and taken from his website, www.melbrownblues.com
Since writing this I became aware of a Mel Brown obituary on the cbc's website.
I had the pleasure to see Charles Brown a number of times after first seeing him at the New York club Tramps in the Summer of 1982 I believe. Charles Brown was a remarkable pianist and a major influence on many performers. The very first album by him I had the pleasure to own was Legend on ABC-Bluesway that came out in 1969 or 1970. I have had it several times on vinyl as this session with the late Earl Hooker as well as Mel Brown on guitar was an absoulute delight. It was reissued on CD in 1993 or 1994 and here is the review I did for Jazz & Blues Report at the time of reissue. Unfortunately this is out of print and may only be obtained at a premium.
MCA has reissued Charles Brown’s Bluesway album, Legend, that featured the late Earl Hooker, along with Mel Brown on guitar, and Red Holloway on tenor saxophone, on their One Way Out label. One is treated to somewhat lengthy, relaxed jams on such Brown classics as Drifting Blues and Merry Christmas Baby, both with incredibly tasty guitar from Earl Hooker, warm vocal duets with Dottie Ivory on I Want to Go Home, and All Is Forgiven (which Brown claimed in the notes to have written for this session), a high-spirited instrumental The Combination, and a couple of other songs that Brown and group really hit it off with. While these are extended performances, nowhere does one feel that the performances are too long. Its a warm, friendly session with Charles trying to bring back those good old days of Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, B.B. King, Big Joe Turner, and last but not least, Charles Brown, near the end of I Want to Go Home. This album should have revived Brown’s career in the early seventies. Unfortunately it didn’t, but with his well deserved success of recent years, it certainly is nice to have it available again. Recommended.
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