Charles Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999), born in Texas City, … Read Full Bio ↴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 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 label of the bestseller "Driftin' Blues" with a small combo was a typical club blues song. The single was on the R&B charts for six months, putting Brown at the forefront of a musical evolution that changed American musical performance. 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'" 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 Alladin. 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. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, he occasionally recorded and tried to regain some prominence. This continued until the 1980s, when 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 and the W. C. Handy Award.
Brown died in 1999 in Oakland, California.
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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 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 label of the bestseller "Driftin' Blues" with a small combo was a typical club blues song. The single was on the R&B charts for six months, putting Brown at the forefront of a musical evolution that changed American musical performance. 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'" 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 Alladin. 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. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, he occasionally recorded and tried to regain some prominence. This continued until the 1980s, when 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 and the W. C. Handy Award.
Brown died in 1999 in Oakland, California.
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Black Night
Charles Brown Lyrics
Instrumental
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Gregory Gibson
He had top notch musicians paying behind him, sometimes that gets lost when you have a vocalist.great sound.
Jaime Acosta
Wow! Hauntingly beautiful. 1950's . Gave a shout out to all the brothers fighting and dying in Korea at that time while most of the music on the radio was good times. My heart and prayers go out to those who were there. Thanks for your sacrifice. Jesus, war needs to stop today.
internetsurfer777
Underrated song. I heard it first time about 20 years ago when i was a young man and depressed at the time. I had sunk down a hole and didnt even know it. I thought it was normal to be this way, though many thoughts was negative. I was living in a big city where i didnt know anyone, so i could relate to being alone and having no one to talk to. I was biking around the city alot, started to be on internet cafe's. Got to know some girl on the internet that brought me out of the depression somehow by just being there, being friendly. This must have been around 1997. I was listening to alot of old blues music those days. This song is very beautiful, and underrated.
jsamc
You was in a sunken place.
Elbert Townsell
Glad you got that groove back to your step my brother
redman840
The blues are fine,as long as you are not living them.
LRWIGHT
Black Night is the flagship song of one of Blues' true masters. He could do anything in 3 chords. I love that very low register tenor sax background.
bronze buckaroo
This actually debuted on the R@B chart in February of 1951 and was # 1 for an astounding 14 weeks.
Andrew Campbell - Blues Piano Player
Love this song! He had such an authentic blues sound and an amazing voice.
Joe Marshall
I'm an Irish American kid who grew up in Brooklyn Ny. Went to school in Buffalo when I was 19 and someone started a Blues Band...I played piano and flute, and sang a few numbers. Then a Jewish kid from Queens came up, and he was so good on the piano, he wound up touring the world with Lionel Hampton a couple of years later....As soon as I heard this song, it touched me really deeply. I said, "That song is mine!" And I sang it. Boy, did Charles ever catch the loneliness of being a young man walking the city streets late at night with a broken heart....I could really identify with THAT. And the whole military thing...and the family problems...Four boys in the family, all dealing with the draft....I'm 62 now, and singing in a band that plays songs of all genres from the old days.....I laid this song on them, and they were hypnotized, just like I was....so the song is still alive in upstate NY where I live now! I only knew Buddy Guy's version til I heard this.....just satin smooth,beautiful, and REAL....thank you Mr Charles Brown.....