Arthur Brown

Biography Brown was born in Whitby where his parents ran a guest house. After attending Roundhay Grammar School in Leeds, Yorkshire, Brown attended the University of London and the University of Reading and studied philosophy and law, but he gravitated to music instead, forming his first band, Blues and Brown, while at Reading.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown By the time the Foundations had been signed to Pye Records, Brown had left the group to form his band, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. The band included Vincent Crane (Hammond organ and piano), Drachen Theaker (drums), and Nick Greenwood (bass). Brown quickly earned a reputation for outlandish performances, which included the use of a burning metal helmet, that led to occasional mishaps, such as during an early appearance at the Windsor Festival in 1967, where he wore a colander on his head soaked in methanol. The fuel poured over his head by accident caught fire; a bystander doused the flames by pouring beer on Brown's head, preventing any serious injury. The flaming head then became an Arthur Brown signature. On occasion he also stripped naked while performing, most notably at the Palermo Pop 70 Festival in Sicily, Italy, July 1970, where he was arrested and deported. He was also notable for the extreme make-up he wore onstage, which would later be reflected in the stage acts of Alice Cooper and Kiss. The song has since seen its opening line "I am the God of Hellfire" sampled in numerous other places, most notably in the Prodigy's 1992 rave anthem "Fire".

Victor Peraino used the EMS VCS 3 synthesizer on the album Journey. The three Kingdom Come albums each have a distinctive character. The first, Galactic Zoo Dossier, was a highly complex concept album apparently on the theme of humanity living in a zoo and being controlled by cosmic, religious and commercial forces. The second, simply titled Kingdom Come, was loosely on the theme of water, which Brown had declared four years earlier would be the subject of the second album by the Crazy World. It was musically more conventional than the first, much less heavy, though stranger in places. The third album, Journey (1973), recorded in Rockfield Studios in Wales, was a space rock album, with Brown playing an early drum machine and thereby replacing a series of drummers. The band also recorded three of its songs in a live Peel Session for the John Peel BBC Radio 1 show on 25 September 1972. This was especially noteworthy on the track "Time Captives". Brown recalled "the whole album is based around the drum machine, and we had a lot of ideas that we wanted to explore using this technology. The drum machine they used was the Bentley Rhythm Ace, the British version of the Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-1.

Overlooked upon release, Journey has received generally positive retrospective reviews from critics. Alan Holmes of Freq said that "Journey was so far ahead of its time that you have to keep checking the sleeve to make sure that it really does say 1973 and not 1983" and that the album was "not only Arthur Brown's masterpiece, but also one of the truly great albums of the seventies."

The stage acts for all three albums featured a wild mix of special effects, dramatic costumes and colourful theatrics, which were sometimes controversial. Brown had declared when Kingdom Come was formed that the intention was to create a multi-media experience and the band always followed that policy. The concepts, the music and the theatrics proved very popular on the university circuit but proved too way-out for a mainstream audience. The band appeared at the 1971 Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England and featured in the Glastonbury Fayre film which was shown in cinemas.

Later career In later years, Brown released several solo albums. In 1973, he was one of the performers on Robert Calvert's album Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, together with a number of other Hawkwind members. Also, In 1979 he moved to Africa and lived there for six months. He directed the Burundi National Orchestra, a nine-piece rock group that played Jimi Hendrix songs and local music.

In the 1980s, Brown moved to Austin, Texas, where his wife came from, and obtained a master's degree in counselling. On 17 January 1987, Brown performed "Fire" on the "Flashback" segment of the television programme Solid Gold. Together with former Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black, he also became a painter and carpenter for some years,

Brown returned to England in 1996. In 1997, he re-recorded "Fire" with German band Die Krupps, while in 1998, he provided a spoken-word performance on Bruce Dickinson's The Chemical Wedding album, reading a portion of three poems by William Blake, and appeared as Satan in Dickinson's music video for "Killing Floor". He was narrator for the Pretty Things' live performance of their album S. F. Sorrow (1998) at Abbey Road Studios. He also appeared on television, guesting on Kula Shaker track "Mystical Machine Gun" several times during 1999.

A further change of musical direction occurred, when he formed an acoustic band and went on tour with Tim Rose in 1999. This band then added Stan Adler (cello and bass) and Malcolm Mortimore (percussion) and produced the album Tantric Lover (2000). However, the lineup did not last, and Brown put a new band together with guitarist Rikki Patten and multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn. In 2002, Brown was asked to support Robert Plant on his Dreamland Tour. By now Patten had been replaced by guitarist Chris Bryant. Brown was getting some more media exposure now. His band was briefly called the Giant Pocket Orchestra, and also Instant Flight. In the middle of this, in 2003, Brown released Vampire Suite (2003), an album with Josh Philips and Mark Brzezicki of the band Big Country, released on Ian Grant's Track Records. Also around this time, Brown's back catalogue was re-released by Sanctuary Records.

In 2001 and 2002, Brown made several guest appearances at live Hawkwind concerts, subsequently touring with them as a guest vocalist. On their December 2002 tour, Hawkwind played several songs by Brown from the Kingdom Come era, along with "Song of the Gremlin", which Brown had sung on Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters; this was documented on the Hawkwind DVD Out of the Shadows.

Brown also provided vocals on two of the tracks on Hawkwind's studio album Take Me to Your Leader, released in 2005. One is the spoken-word "A Letter to Robert", where Brown recalls a conversation with Robert Calvert. In 2007, Brown and Pynn released Voice of Love on the Côte Basque record label, featuring a number of original recordings.

In August 2007, during a concert in Lewes, East Sussex, England, Brown once again set fire to his hair. While trying to extinguish the flames, Phil Rhodes, a member of the band also caught fire. Brown carried on after the fire was put out; he had however lost a few chunks of hair. He appeared as a priest in the video for the Darkness song, "Is It Just Me?". In 2009, a roll-out re-release of Brown's back catalogue was commenced by Cherry Red Records' subsidiary Lemon Recordings and continued from 2010 onwards on their sister label Esoteric Recordings.

In 2010, Brown played a set at the Glastonbury Festival in the Glade. On 10 June 2011, days before his 69th birthday, he played at the Ray Davies Meltdown Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London where he invited Z-Star to duet with him. Six weeks later, again in London, he played the High Voltage Festival; the gig was recorded and released (on vinyl only) as The Crazy World of Arthur Brown Live at High Voltage. In 2012, Brown and Rick Patten released The Magic Hat alongside a comic of the same title by Matt Howarth. In 2013, as the result of a successful pledge campaign on PledgeMusic, Brown released the album Zim Zam Zim. In 2018, Brown was a guest vocalist on the first five dates of Hawkwind's UK tour.

In April 2019, it was announced that Brown would join Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy as guest vocalist on "The Royal Affair Tour", starting in June 2019. ELP Legacy's sets on this tour included Brown providing vocals on his signature song "Fire", as well as on the Emerson, Lake & Palmer songs "Knife-Edge" and "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2."

In 2019, Brown has received the "Visionary Artist Award" at the annual Progressive Music Awards.

On 29 March 2022 it was announced that the new Arthur Brown album, titled Long Long Road, would be released on his 80th birthday, 24 June 2022.

Musical style and influence

Brown's music encompasses psychedelic soul, soul, pop, psychedelia, progressive rock, shock rock David Bowie, Diamanda Galás, Peter Gabriel, Marilyn Manson, Kiss, King Diamond, and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, among others, and his songs have been covered or sampled by a range of artists including Ozzy Osbourne, Psychic TV, the Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, the Who and Death Grips.

Brown's voice and in particular his high banshee screams, are a precursor to the banshee screaming of many later heavy metal singers, and his theatrical concepts and stage presence such as the face makeup, especially his black and white face paint (corpse paint), voodoo dancing, and flaming helmet pioneered a lot of what was to become shock rock and progressive rock. Alice Cooper stated, "Can you imagine the young Alice Cooper watching that with all his make-up and hellish performance? It was like all my Halloweens came at once!" Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan has said he was inspired by Brown to incorporate screaming into his singing style, stating "He changed my life".

Mike Knoop, writing for Classic Rock magazine, said that Brown's singing style recalls "Eric Burdon, Bob Calvert, Ian Gillan, Tim Curry, Brian Connolly, and a smidgen of King Diamond all coming out of one person." (by the Amazing World of Arthur Brown) 2012 – The Magic Hat (with Rick Patten; limited edition of 200; an accompanying comic of The Magic Hat by Matt Howarth is also available)

Live albums 1993 – Order From Chaos (by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown) 1994 – Jam (recorded in 1970) (by Kingdom Come) 2002 – The Legboot Album – Arthur Brown on Tour 2011 – The Crazy World of Arthur Brown Live at High Voltage (vinyl only release, limited edition of 1000)

Compilation albums 1976 – Lost Ears (by Kingdom Come) 2003 – Fire – The Story of Arthur Brown

Singles 1965 – "You'll Be Mine" (The Diamonds) b/w "You Don't Know" (Arthur Brown with the Diamonds) (Reading Rag Record LYN 770/771 UK) 1967 – "Devil's Grip" b/w "Give Him a Flower" (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) (Track Records 604008 UK) 1968 – "Fire" b/w "Rest Cure" (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) (Track 604022 UK), (Atlantic Records 2556 US), (Polydor 541012 Can) 1968 – "Nightmare" b/w "Music Man" (aka "What's Happening") (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) (Track 604026 UK)(Polydor 541022 Can / #68 Canada ) 1968 – "I Put a Spell on You" b/w "Nightmare" (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) (Track 2582 US) 1971 – "Eternal Messenger" b/w "I.D. Side to be B Side the C Side" (Kingdom Come) (Polydor Records 2001 234 UK) 1973 – "Spirit of Joy" b/w "Come Alive" (Polydor 2001 416 UK) 1974 – "Gypsies" b/w "Dance" (Gull Records GULS 4 UK) 1975 – "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place" b/w "Here I Am" (Gull GULS 13 UK) 1976 – "Ooh, It Takes Two to Tango " b/w "Rocking the Boat" (Arthur Brown & Aliki Ashman) (Electric INT 111.352 GER)

Soundtrack contributions 1966 – The Game Is Over (two songs) 1975 – Tommy

Other contributions 1974 – Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (Robert Calvert) 1976 – Tales of Mystery and Imagination (the Alan Parsons Project) 1979 – Dune (Klaus Schulze) 1979 – Time Actor (Richard Wahnfried) 1980 – ...Live... (Klaus Schulze) 1994 – Vicar (Green Machine) 1994 – Sonic Lobotomy (Green Machine) 1998 – The Chemical Wedding (Bruce Dickinson) 1999 – Resurrection (The Pretty Things) 2000 – Curly's Airships (Judge Smith) 2007 – Fifteen Years After (All Living Fear) 2013 – Friends for a Livetime (the Hamburg Blues Band) 2014 – Journey in Time (Victor Peraino's Kingdom Come)

Selected filmography 1968 – The Committee 1973 – Superstars in Concert also known as Sound of the City: London 1964-1973 1975 – Tommy