Charles Brown (musician)

Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHA : Charles Brown (musician)

Charles Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999) was an American blues singer and pianist, originally a member of The Blazers. He stayed with the Blazers until 1948, playing with them on several hits, including "Drifting Blues" and "Merry Christmas Baby".

Brown signed to Aladdin Records and released "Get Yourself Another Fool", "Black Night", "Hard Times" and "Trouble Blues", all major hits in the early 1950s. He was unable to compete with the burgeoning rock and roll sound, though he maintained a small and devoted audience.

This continued until the 1980s, when Bonnie Raitt helped usher in a Charles Brown comeback tour. Brown travelled the world with guitarist Danny Caron, bassist Ruth Davies, drummer Gaylord Birch, and saxophonist Clifford Solomon. He began a recording career again, to greater success than he had achieved since the 50s. Several records received Grammy Award nominations. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received both the National Endowment for the Arts National Hertitage Fellowship and the W. C. Handy Award.

Brown died in 1999 in Berkeley, California.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.