Charles Brown

Tony Russell "Charles" Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999) was an American singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced nightclub style influenced West Coast blues in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1949 and 1952, Brown had seven Top 10 hits in the U.S. Billboard R&B chart. His best-selling recordings included "Driftin' Blues" and "Merry Christmas Baby". He graduated from Central High School in Galveston, Texas, in 1939 and Prairie View A&M College in 1942 with a degree in chemistry. He then became a chemistry teacher at George Washington Carver High School in Baytown, Texas, a mustard gas worker at the Pine Bluff Arsenal at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and an apprentice electrician at a shipyard in Richmond, California, before settling in Los Angeles in 1943.

The Three Blazers signed with Exclusive Records, and their 1945 recording of "Drifting Blues", with Brown on piano and vocals, stayed on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart for six months, putting Brown at the forefront of a musical evolution that changed American musical performance. Brown led the group in a series of further hits for Aladdin over the next three years, including "New Orleans Blues" and the original version of "Merry Christmas Baby" (both in 1947) and "More Than You Know" (1948).

Brown left the Three Blazers in 1948 and formed his own trio with Eddie Williams (bass) and Charles Norris (guitar). He signed with Aladdin Records and had immediate success with "Get Yourself Another Fool" and then had one of his biggest hits, "Trouble Blues", in 1949, which stayed at number one on the Billboard R&B chart for 15 weeks in the summer of that year. He followed with "In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down", "Homesick Blues", and "My Baby's Gone", before having another R&B chart-topping hit with "Black Night", which stayed at number one for 14 weeks from March to June 1951. "Please Come Home for Christmas" had sold over one million copies by 1968 and was awarded a gold disc in that year.

In the 1960s Brown recorded two albums for Mainstream Records.

Later career In the 1980s Brown made a series of appearances at the New York City nightclub Tramps. As a result of these appearances he signed a recording contract with Blue Side Records and recorded One More for the Road in three days. Blue Side Records closed soon after, but distribution of its records was picked up by Alligator Records. Soon after the success of One More for the Road, Bonnie Raitt helped usher in a comeback tour for Brown.

He began a recording and performing career again, under the musical direction of the guitarist Danny Caron, to greater success than he had achieved since the 1950s. Other members of Charles's touring ensemble included Clifford Solomon on tenor saxophone, Ruth Davies on bass and Gaylord Birch on drums. and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. He was a recipient of a 1997 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States.

Brown was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album three times: in 1991 for All My Life, 1992 for Someone To Love and 1995 for Charles Brown's Cool Christmas Blues. Between 1987 and 2005, he was nominated for seventeen Blues Music Awards (formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards) in multiple categories, with a win in the Blues Instrumentalist: Piano/Keyboard category in 1991, and wins in the Male Blues Vocalist category in 1993 and 1995. He was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, in Inglewood, California. 3021 "A Long Time" (RR617) (Billboard R&B chart No. 9) b/w "It's Nothing" (RR612), 1949 (Billboard R&B chart No. 13) 3024 "Trouble Blues" (RR613) b/w "Honey Keep Your Mind on Me" (RR600), 1949 (Billboard R&B chart No. 1, 15 weeks) 3030 "In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down" (RR611) b/w "Please Be Kind" (RR616), 1949 (Billboard R&B chart No. 4) 3039 "Homesick Blues" (RR603) b/w "Let's Have a Ball" (RR677), 1949 (billed as Charles Brown & His Smarties) (Billboard R&B chart No. 5) 3044 "Tormented" (RR673) b/w "Did You Ever Love a Woman" (RR679), 1949, released 1950 3051 "My Baby's Gone" (RR1521) b/w "I Wonder When My Baby's Coming Home" (RR604), 1950 (Billboard R&B chart No. 6) 3060 "Repentance Blues" (RR1522) b/w "I've Got That Old Feeling" (RR1529), 1950 3066 "I've Made Up My Mind" (RR1528) b/w "Again" (RR1520), 1950 3071 "Texas Blues" (RR1525) b/w "How High the Moon" (RR607), 1950 3076 "Black Night" (RR1619) b/w "Once There Lived a Fool" (RR1623), 1950, released 1951 (Billboard R&B chart No. 1, 14 weeks) 3091 "I'll Always Be in Love with You" (RR1621) b/w "The Message" (RR1648), 1950, released 1951 (Billboard R&B chart No. 7) 3092 "Seven Long Days" (RR1620) b/w "Don't Fool with My Heart" (RR1527), 1950, released 1951 (Billboard R&B chart No. 2) 3116 "Hard Times" (RR1752) b/w "Tender Heart" (RR1750), 1951, released 1952 (Billboard R&B chart No. 7) 3120 "Still Water" (RR1751) b/w "My Last Affair" (RR602), 1951, released 1952 3138 "Gee" (RR1523) b/w "Without Your Love (RR1531), 1950, released 1952 3157 "Rollin' Like a Pebble in the Sand" (RR2018) b/w "Alley Batting" (RR674), 1952 3163 "Evening Shadows" (RR2017) b/w "Moonrise" (RR1650), 1952 3176 "Rising Sun" (RR2019) b/w "Take Me" (RR676), 1952, released 1953 3191 "I Lost Everything" (UN2125) b/w "Lonesome Feeling" (UN2127), 1953 3200 "Don't Leave Poor Me" (UN2126) b/w "All My Life" (RR1649), not released 3209 "Cryin' and Driftin' Blues" (RR2212) b/w "P.S. I Love You" (RR2215), 1953 (billed as Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers) 3220 "Everybody's Got Troubles (RR2254) b/w "I Want to Fool Around with You" (RR2257), 1953, released 1954 (billed as Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers) 3235 "Let's Walk" (RR2253) b/w "Cryin' Mercy" (RR2214), 1953, released 1954 (billed as Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers) 3235 "Let's Walk" (RR2253) b/w "Blazer's Boogie" (111B) (re-release) 1953, released 1954 (billed as Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers) 3254 "My Silent Love (RR2255) b/w "Foolish" (RR601), 1953, released 1954 (billed as Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers) 3272 "Honey Sipper" (RR2328) b/w "By the Bend of the River" (RR2329), 1954 3284 "Nite After Nite" (RR2331) b/w "Walk with Me" (RR2332), 1954, released 1955 3290 "Fool's Paradise" (CAP2486) b/w "Hot Lips and Seven Kisses (Mambo)" (CAP2484), 1955 (billed as Charles Brown with Ernie Freeman's Combo) 3296 "My Heart Is Mended" (CAP2483) b/w "Trees, Trees" (CAP2487), 1955 (billed as Charles Brown with Ernie Freeman's Combo) 3316 "Please Don't Drive Me Away" (CAP2489) b/w "One Minute to One" (CAP2488), 1955, released 1956 (billed as Charles Brown with Ernie Freeman's Combo) 3339 "I'll Always Be in Love with You" (NO2725) (re-recording) b/w "Soothe Me" (NO2726), 1956 3342 "Confidential" (NO2754) b/w "Trouble Blues" (reissue), 1956 3348 "Merry Christmas Baby" (NO2730) (re-recording) b/w "Black Night" (reissue), 1956 3348 "Black Night" (reissue) b/w "Ooh! Ooh! Sugar" (reissue), 1957 (post-Christmas re-release) 3366 "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" (NO2727) b/w "Please Believe Me" (NO2728), 1956, released 1957 3422 "Hard Times" (reissue) b/w "Ooh! Ooh! Sugar" (reissue), 1958

Imperial releases 5830 "Fool's Paradise" (reissue) b/w "Lonesome Feeling" (reissue), 1962 5902 "Merry Christmas Baby" (reissue) b/w "I Lost Everything" (reissue), 1962 5905 "Drifting Blues" (reissue) b/w "Black Night" (reissue), 1963 5961 "Please Don't Drive Me Away" (reissue) b/w "I'm Savin' My Love for You" (RR2330), 1963

East West (Atlantic subsidiary) release 106 "When Did You Leave Heaven" (EW-2753) b/w "We've Got a Lot in Common" (EW-2755), 1957, released 1958

Ace releases 561 "I Want to Go Home" (with Amos Milburn) (S-253) b/w "Educated Fool" (with Amos Milburn) (S-254), 1959 599 "Sing My Blues Tonight" (S-843) b/w "Love's Like a River" (S-844), 1960

Teem (Ace subsidiary) release 1008 "Merry Christmas Baby" (A-1113-63) b/w "Christmas Finds Me Oh So Sad (Please Come Home for Christmas)" (A-1114-63), 1961, released 1963

King releases 5405 Charles Brown, "Please Come Home for Christmas" (K4912) b/w Amos Milburn, "Christmas Comes but Once a Year" (K4913), 1960 5439 "Baby Oh Baby" (K4992) b/w "Angel Baby" (K4993), 1961 5464 "I Wanna Go Back Home" (with Amos Milburn) (K10607) b/w "My Little Baby" (with Amos Milburn) (K10608), 1961 5523 "This Fool Has Learned" (K10892) b/w "Butterfly" (K10893), 1961 5530 "It's Christmas All Year Round" (K10897) b/w "Christmas in Heaven" (K10947), 1961 5570 "Without a Friend" (K10983) b/w "If You Play with Cats" (K10984), 1961 5722 "I'm Just a Drifter" (K11405) b/w "I Don't Want Your Rambling Letters" (K11406), 1963 5726 "It's Christmas Time" (K10898) b/w "Christmas Finds Me Lonely Wanting You" (K10950), 1961, released 1963 5731 "Christmas Questions" (K10954) b/w "Wrap Yourself in a Christmas Package" (K10956), 1961, released 1963 5802 "If You Don't Believe I'm Crying (Take a Look at My Eyes)" (K11687) b/w "I Wanna Be Close" (K11689), 1964 5825 "Lucky Dreamer" (K11688) b/w "Too Fine for Crying" (K11690), 1964 5852 "Come Home" (K11691) b/w "Blow Out All the Candles (Happy Birthday to You)" (K11692), 1964 5946 "Christmas Blues" (K10948) b/w "My Most Miserable Christmas" (K10955), 1961, released 1964 5947 "Christmas Comes but Once a Year" (K10951) b/w "Bringing In a Brand New Year" (K10949), 1961, released 1964

Mainstream release 607 "Pledging My Love" b/w "Tomorrow Night" , 1965

Ace release 775 "Please Come Home for Christmas" (92772-A) (reissue) b/w "Merry Christmas Baby" (92772-1B) (reissue), 1966

King releases 6094 "Regardless" (K12330) b/w "The Plan" (K12331), 1967 6192 "Hang On a Little Longer" (K12723) b/w "Black Night" (K12724) (re-recording), 1968 6194 "Merry Christmas Baby" (K12725) (re-recording) b/w "Let's Make Every Day a Christmas Day" (K10946), 1968 6420 "For the Good Times" (K14276) b/w "Lonesome and Driftin'" (K14277), 1973