Charles Brown

Charles Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999), born in Texas City, Texas was an

American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced

the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s. He had several hit

recordings, including "Driftin' Blues" and "Merry Christmas Baby".

In the late 1940s a rising demand for blues was driven by an increasing white teenage

audience in the South which quickly spread north and west. Blues shouters got the attention,

but also greatly influential was what writer Charles Keil dubbs "the postwar Texas clean-up

movement in blues" led by stylists such as T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn and Charles

Brown. Their singing was lighter, more relaxed and they worked with bands and combos that

had saxophone sections and used arrangements.As a child Brown demonstrated his love of

music and took classical piano lessons. Early on, Brown moved out to Los Angeles, where the

great influx of blacks created an integrated nightclub scene in which black performers tended

to minimize the rougher blues elements of their style. The blues club style of a light rhythm

bass and right-hand tinkling of the piano and smooth vocals became popular, epitomized by

the jazz piano of Nat King Cole. When Cole left Los Angeles, California to perform nationally,

his place was taken by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, featuring Charles Brown's gentle piano

and vocals.

Brown signed with Aladdin Records and his 1945 recording on that record label of the

bestseller, "Driftin' Blues", with a small combo was a typical club blues song. The single was

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.[4] His style dominated the influential

Southern California club scene on Central Avenue during that period and he influenced such

performers as Floyd Dixon, Cecil Gant, Ivory Joe Hunter, Percy Mayfield, Johnny Ace and Ray

Charles.

"Driftin' Blues" was the first of several hits. Brown subsequently released "Get Yourself Another Fool", "Black Night", "Hard Times" and "Trouble

Blues", all major hits in the early 1950s on such labels as Modern Records as well as Aladdin. He was unable to compete with the burgeoning

rock and roll sound, though he maintained a small and devoted audience.

Brown's approach was too mellow to survive the transition to rock's harsher rhythms, and he faded from the national limelight. His "Please Come

Home for Christmas", a hit in 1960 on the King Records remained seasonally popular. "Please Come Home for Christmas" sold over one million

copies by 1968, and was awarded a gold disc in that year. During the 1960s Brown recorded a couple of albums for Mainstream Records.

In the 1980s he made a series of appearances at New York's club, Tramps. As a result of these appearances he signed a new recording contract

with Blue Side Records and recorded One More for the Road in three days. Blue Side Records closed soon after but distribution was picked up by

Alligator Records. Soon after the success of One More for the Road, Bonnie Raitt helped usher in a Charles Brown comeback tour.

He began a recording and performing career again, under the musical direction of guitarist Danny Caron, to greater success than he had achieved

since the 1950s. 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 Heritage Fellowship[8] and

the W. C. Handy Award.

Brown died of congestive heart failure in 1999 in Oakland, California, and was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.