Joe Brown, singer and guitarist _180
Live music and a sense of humour is still what makes Joe Brown tick. Philip Key reports
WHEN you meet Joe Brown, the years just tumble away. This is clearly the same cheerful Cockney who first came to attention back in 1960 with his appearance on the early pop music show, Boy Meets Girl.
With his spiky blond hair and ever-present grin, he stood out from the crowd. More importantly, he was a consummate musician.
Today, at an amazing 66, Brown is much the same, the grin remains, the happy personality and, above all, his need to perform.
Joe still tours regularly and his latest British tour is set to open at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall on September 15.
He will be glad to be back in the city. “It’s really my second home,” he tells me. His late wife, Vicki, who died of cancer in 1991, was born in the city and her family still live here.
“When I am up, I always stay with my sister-in-law. I like Liverpool, I like the people, I like the sense of humour.”
It was also the place where one of his greatest friends, the Beatle George Harrison, was born. The two shared a love of music and strangely enough, the ukulele. Both played the instrument.
When Harrison died in 2001, Joe was a natural choice to appear on the bill of the Concert for George in London. He virtually stole the show, particularly with his moving finale, in which he played I’ll See You In My Dreams on the uke.
“It’s a very underrated instrument,” says Joe. “Some of the Hawaiians who play are real artists, like Django Reinhardt on the ukulele.
“But because it was also so cheap it often got put into the toy bracket. They are not toys, but great instruments.”
Recent reports suggested that schoolchildren were learning the ukulele rather than the recorder, a bit of news which pleased Joe. “Who would want to listen to one of those recorders? They are all full of spit. I was offered a recorder when I was at school but I declined. But I had a guitar by then.”
The guitar remains his favourite instrument, his first one bought in an East End pub at the age of 10, he explains.
Although born in Lincolnshire, he was “evacuated” to London during World War II – rather the wrong way round for anyone trying to avoid bombing raids. But he survived.
“I was brought up in an East End pub and there was a bloke who used to come in and play the guitar and I was fascinated. Eventually, he sold me the guitar for £1 when I was just 10. The only trouble was, he had a funny way of tuning it. He would tune it until all the strings were tight and think that was it.”
Joe overcame that tuning difficulty but, as soon as he could, he invested in an electric guitar, around 1957 he thinks. Within a couple of years, he was playing professionally on sessions and played lead guitar on Liverpool singer Billy Fury’s 1960 album, The Sound of Fury.
It is guitar work that remains as exciting today as it was then and earned much praise from his peers.
“That did get me some extra work, although a lot was done by word of mouth in those days,” says Joe. “Normally you did not get your name on the album sleeve but I did for that one.”
He had a regular TV date in producer Jack Good’s Boy Meets Girl, and the same year he got his own backing group The Bruvvers.
By the early 1960s, he was a Hit Parade regular with singles like A Picture of You, It Only Took a Minute and That’s What Love Will Do.
But Brown soon turned himself into an entertainer, rather than just another pop performer. By 1965, he had starred in the West End musical Charlie Girl and there were other theatre shows later in his career. There were the films – What a Crazy World among the best – the Joe Brown Show on ITV and various radio series.
He was still touring, almost non-stop, he says.
The result was that Joe Brown has always been a big draw and even today regularly does two 50-date tours a year.
For a while, he appeared in nostalgia tours with people like John Leyton, Marty Wilde and the Vernon Girls. But in recent years he has toured in his own right and done pretty well with it.
His trick has been to never stand still. Along with past hits he does new stuff – his latest album Down to Earth featured some of his favourite songs given a new slant – and he is always ready to produce a mandolin, fiddle or the ukulele, sometimes the banjo-ukulele where he fancies doing a George Formby song.
On this tour, he will be with an old friend Dave Edmunds. “I am looking forward to that as he is a good old rock and roller, a great musician and a great producer as well.
“I have known him for years, but this will be the first time we have worked together.”
He insists that his appearances are not “gigs”, but shows: “It is a proper show and we are just putting it together now. These things take time to work out so we have rehearsals and do the things the way you are meant to do them.
“I do try to move on. I would not want to get stuck in that and-here -are-my-old-hits bit. Besides, I am a 66-year-old man and I can’t be singing teenage songs. I have to have some integrity. Some of my old hits are OK to sing, but some just don't work lyrically for me now.”
Above all, he wants to keep music live.
“I just want to drag people away from the telly and get them out, that’s the deal.
“It is so convenient to sit in front of the TV rather than go out and pay exorbitant prices for a drink and then get a cab home. They don't make it easy for theatre-goers now.
“They often open the bar for the interval but it is closed at the end of the show because fewer people drink and they are not going to make enough profit. But it should be part of the service. The point is that after a show people like to go in a bar, talk and discuss the show. That’s all part of the social evening. Service has gone downhill and that’s just one of the little nails in the coffin of live entertainment.”
Not that Joe thinks that there is much on TV to keep people indoors. He likes the drama shows – Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and American series like Law and Order.
“But there are too many people arguing, cooking and comedy shows with canned laughter where you hear the same man doing the same laugh which means that comedy timing has gone out of the window.”
Today, however, he is very happy with what he is doing. “The whole thing for me is to get up there with a guitar and perform live. That’s what is important to me.”
* JOE BROWN is at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, on September 15.
