THE PROG INTERVIEW Arthur Brown

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue it’s Arthur Brown. First coming to the attention of the world in 1968 with the international hit single Fire, he’s gone on to forge a wildly eclectic career that’s constantly pushed at the boundaries of both music and performance. Possessing one of the most extraordinary voices in rock, his theatrical stage persona has also been enormously influential on generations of artists, including David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper. With his new album, Long Long Road, just released, the octogenarian looks back on 60 years of musical adventures.

Joe Banks

The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, the group he formed in 1967 with Vincent Crane (later of Atomic Rooster), are absolutely foundational to the development of progressive rock. The Crazy World spiced up their R’n’Bderived sound with classical and jazz influences, and in Brown had an utterly magnetic frontman with a commanding, multi-octave voice who was part-shaman, part-preacher. Even today, there’s a genuine frisson to those performances of Fire on Top Of The Pops and This Is… Tom Jones – in his flaming helmet and robes, Brown cuts an almost demonic figure. But the Crazy World was just the start of Brown’s journey. In 1970, he formed the experimental, avant-rock troupe Kingdom Come before going solo and collaborating widely with artists including The Who, Hawkwind, Robert Calvert, The Pretty Things,…

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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 131

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