Joe Brown - Profile

  by Nick Dent-Robinson

published: 8 / 11 / 2019

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Nick Dent-Robinson reflects on the enduring sixty year career of rock legend Joe Brown, who is currently touring the UK.

This autumn and winter Joe Brown is touring the UK again. Joe, now 78, is an enduring original rock legend, a one-off. It is over sixty years since he first started performing publicly with his first band, the Spacemen Skiffle Group. That was in 1958. Joe was 17 and Lonnie Donegan was ruling the UK charts with 'Rock Island Line'. Just three years later Joe was the resident lead guitarist on the groundbreaking 'Boy Meets Girls' TV show before touring with American stars like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochrane and Johnny Cash. Soon the Spacemen became the Bruvvers and the hits started rolling in for Joe. 'A Picture of You', 'It Only Took a Minute' and 'That's What Love Will Do' were all big Top Ten successes and Joe Brown and The Bruvvers were headlining tours with supporting acts like Americans Del Shannon, Dion and the Crystals plus an up-and-coming band from Liverpool called the Beatles. Over subsequent decades Joe starred in the musical 'Charlie Girl' in the West End and in films like 'What a Crazy World', 'Three Hats for Lisa' and then 'Mona Lisa' with Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. There were many TV and radio appearances too. But Joe Brown's first love has always been live performance and throughout the last six decades he has always found time to tour. He has played live with a huge range of people - including Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mark Knopfler, Chas'n'Dave, Marty Wilde, Dave Edmunds, the Everly Brothers, Jeff Lynne, Status Quo, Jools Holland and so many more. Joe's past shows frequently featured his daughter, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Brown and his son Pete who is a brilliant guitarist and acclaimed record producer. Joe says the absolute highlight of his long career was closing the 'Concert for George' - the Albert Hall memorial concert for George Harrison - with his ukulele and a beautifully simple arrangement of 'I'll See You in My Dreams', one of George's favourite songs. Joe now divides his time between homes in Nashville and the village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire. On his present tour he is joined by a great band including accomplished jazz bassist Andy Crowdy and drummer Phil Capaldi. Apart from some of his old classics, Joe will be performing a range of music - including some very attractive acoustic arrangements of Nashville-influenced numbers. There will also be plenty of tales of past times in the music business and stories of present day life in Nashville. Joe is a good raconteur! This is a unique opportunity to hear and see one of the true originals of rock music - so do catch Joe Brown while you can!

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