Sweaty
ThE OtHeR rAmOnE
Arthur Brown Official Website
Discography:
Arthur Brown Set
1966 - The Game Is Over (film soundtrack)
Crazy World of Arthur Brown
1968 – The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
1989 - Strangelands (recorded in 1969)
1993 - Order From Chaos
2000 - Tantric Lover
2003 - Vampire Suite
Kingdom Come
1971 – Galactic Zoo Dossier
1972 – Kingdom Come
1973 – Journey
1994 - Jam (recorded in 1970)
Solo
1975 – Dance
1977 – Chisholm in My Bosom
1982 – Requiem
1983 – Speak No Tech
2002 - The Legboot Album - Arthur Brown on Tour
2007 - Voice of Love
Collaborations
1976 - Tales of Mystery and Imagination (with the Alan Parsons Project)
1979 - Dune (with Klaus Schulze)
1979 - Time Actor (with Richard Wahnfried)
1980 – Faster Than the Speed of Light (with Vincent Crane)
1980 - Klaus Schulze Live (with Klaus Schulze)
1984 – The Complete Tapes of Atoya (with Craig Leon)
1988 - Brown Black And Blue (with Jimmy Carl Black)
2000 - Curly's Airships (with Judge Smith)
2007 - Fifteen Years After (with All Living Fear)
Compilation albums
1976 – Lost Ears (Kingdom Come)
2003 - Fire - The Story Of (Arthur Brown)
Arthur Brown (born Arthur Wilton, 24 June 1942, Whitby, Yorkshire) is an English rock and roll singer best known for his flamboyant, theatrical style and significant influence on Alice Cooper, Kiss and Bruce Dickinson, and for his number one hit in the UK Singles Chart and Canada, "Fire" in 1968.
Check out this version, not quite as good IMO
and the original
Brown attended the University of London and the University of Reading and studied philosophy and law, but he gravitated to music instead. Around the turn of late 1966 to early 1967 he was a temporary member of a London-based R&B/Soul/Ska group that was in the process of changing its name from The Ramong Sound and would soon morph into the hit making soul group The Foundations. At this time the group had two lead singers: Arthur Brown and Clem Curtis, who sang lead on the Foundations 1967 hit "Baby, Now That I've Found You". Brown was only a member of the band for about six weeks. By the time the Foundations had been signed to Pye Records Brown had left the group to form his own band.
Brown earned a fast reputation for outlandish and often macabre performances, which included the use of a burning metal helmet that led to occasional mishaps, such as a Windsor, England show in which the methanol fueling of the helmet crown poured over his head by accident and caught fire; two bystanders doused the flames by pouring beer on Brown’s head, preventing any serious injury. He was also reputed to have stripped naked while performing shows, notably in Italy (for which he was arrested).
By 1968, the debut album, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown by the band with the same name, became a surprise hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Produced by The Who's manager Kit Lambert, and executive-produced by Pete Townshend, it spun off an equally surprising hit single, "Fire," a song whose infamous opening line "I am the God of Hellfire" would be sampled in numerous other places, most notably in The Prodigy's 1992 rave anthem "Fire." The album also included a macabre cover of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins oldie "I Put a Spell on You." The band included Vincent Crane on Hammond organ, Drachen Theaker on drums, and Nick Greenwood on bass. Theaker was replaced by Carl Palmer, later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, during the band's second American tour. Crane and Palmer eventually left to form Atomic Rooster.
Though Brown never managed to release another recording as commercially successful as "Fire," he did release three noteworthy albums with his new band Kingdom Come in the early 1970s (Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come should not be confused with the hard-rock/glam band of the same name). Kingdom Come albums featured a wild mix of progressive rock and demented theatrics, including Brown's simulated crucifixion. Kingdom Come often performed in full costume with makeup, and photos of Brown from this period clearly show him sporting a distinctive eye-makeup scheme. The third and final Kingdom Come album, Journey, is noteworthy for being one of the first rock albums to feature a drum machine.
In later years, Brown released several solo albums and also contributed vocals to the song "The Tell-Tale Heart" on the Poe-based concept album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project. In 1975, Arthur Brown also had a small but meaningful part in The Who's rock opera movie Tommy as "The Priest". In the 1980s, Brown moved to Austin, Texas, and obtained a master's degree in counseling.
In the mid-1990s Brown and fellow counselor Jim Maxwell co-founded Healing Songs Therapy, a unique service that culminates in Brown creating a song for each client about their emotional issues.
Brown returned to England in 1996. In 1997, he rerecorded "Fire" with German band Die Krupps.
In 1998, he provided a spoken-word performance on Bruce Dickinson's The Chemical Wedding album, reading a portion of three poems by William Blake.
Brown appeared on TV, guesting on Kula Shaker track 'Mystical Machine Gun' several times during 1999.
Brown then went on another musical journey of performing with an acoustic band, initially with Rick Patten on guitar and Stuart ? on guitar, and went on tour with Tim Rose in 1999. This band then added Stan Adler (cello and bass) and Malcolm Mortimer (percussion) and produced the Tantric Lover album.
This lineup did not last, and Patten and Brown put a new band together with multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn. Straightaway they started doing festivals and international tours, and in 2002 Brown was asked to support Robert Plant on his Dreamland Tour. By now Patten had been replaced by Chris Bryant.
Brown was getting much more media exposure now as well as playing many gigs all over the world, mostly with his 'Giant Pocket Orchestra' but also with new band Instant Flight, who perform in the same style as the original band in the 1960s. In the middle of this, Brown released Vampire Suite, an album with Josh Philips and Mark Brzezicki of the band Big Country, released on Ian Grant's Track Records. Also around this time, Brown's back catalogue was rereleased by Sanctuary Records.
Brown reunited the surviving members of Kingdom Come (except Des Fisher) in 2005, for a one-off concert at The Astoria in London, performing material from Kingdom Come's album Galactic Zoo Dossier, with an encore of "Spirit Of Joy." This show won Brown the 'Showman Of The Year' award from Classic Rock magazine.
In 2007, Brown and Pynn released, "Voice Of Love" on the Côte Basque record label, featuring a number of original recordings.
In August 2007, during a concert in Lewes, Sussex, Brown once again set fire to his own hair. While trying to extinguish the flames, Phil Rhodes, a member of the band also caught fire. Brown carried on after the fire was put out, he had however lost a few chunks of hair.[6]
He appeared as a priest in the video for The Darkness song, "Is It Just Me?"
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