Joe Brown drifted in and out of my childhood, a seemingly permanent fixture – alongside Roy Orbison and Diana Dors – on variety shows, chat shows, Saturday morning kids’ shows and strange ITV daytime programmes that always seemed to be hosted by Mrs. Michael Parkinson.
Roy Orbison sang – though only ever Oh, Pretty Woman, Crying or Only The Lonely; Diana Dors flounced around and tried to be funny, despite obviously being hard as nails and about as charming; but I didn’t really know what Joe Brown did.
He was a cheeky Cockernee chappie who always seemed to be beaming from ear to ear while looking slightly bemused. My mum told me he’d been a musician while she was a girl, but nobody I knew either owned or could name any of his songs. In fact his wife Vicki seemed to be the more musically active half of the couple, a backing singer of some repute. Eventually Joe and Vicki’s daughter Sam came on the scene as another singer of some distinction.
And until last week, that was about that. He kept popping up from time to time (it’s a law that he’s interviewed for every skiffle documentary made and I remember he played at the George Harrison memorial concert) but I basically knew no more about him now I’m 36 than I did when I was 8.
Then I sat down to watch Pop On Trial: The 50s, part of BBC Four’s impressively and intelligently produced and generally hugely enjoyable Pop! What Is It Good For? season. There he was again. Joe Brown. In the corner. Smiling.
Stuart Maconie led Brown, author/musician/broadcaster CP Lee and – er – Pete Wylie through a genuinely charming and thoroughly entertaining hour of discussion of the rock and pop of the Fifties.
During the course of the discussion and in an absolutely self-effacing way, Brown revealed that he’d played guitar on Britain’s only truly great rock’n'roll record – the much-mourned and supremely talented Billy Fury’s 1960 gem The Sound Of Fury.
As if that wasn’t enough, he then mentioned – again, in passing – that he had played guitar on British tours by rock’n'roll legends Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent in the late Fifties! Apparently the Musicians’ Union wouldn’t allow American singers to use their own bands and instead insisted they hired Brits. As one of the leading British guitarists of the day, the teenage Brown was apparently a natural choice for the gig. Mindfuck!
So, Joseph Roger Brown, the Minister salutes you. As well as being a National Treasure for about 700 years now and an all-round diamond geezer, I have under-appreciated your talent for more than three decades and that’s too long to under-appreciate anyone with a musical pedigree like yours (even if I do still loathe skiffle).
Next time I visit my mum, I’m nicking her copy of The Sound Of Fury in your honour.
I once sat behind Joe Brown on a chartered flight to Geneva. Damn, that story doesn’t go anywhere.
Thanks for this. I’d always thought of him as the bloke whose career never kicked on from the platform given to him by the Pepsi challenge.
I can now add him to the bracket occupied by Chas & Dave: serious musicians who wear their talents lightly and modestly.