Brown, Joe – Britain’s favourite cockney rocker is an honorary Yellowbelly

Joseph Brown, MBE (b 1941)

Joe Brown was a rock n roll singer and guitarist for more than five decades. He was a stage and television performer in the late 1950s and a UK recording star in the early 1960s.

He was born in Swarby although his family moved to London when he was two and ran the Sultan public house in Grange Road, Plaistow.

He admits he has never been to the village since, although once flew over it.

In 1956, Brown formed The Spacemen skiffle group, which lasted until the skiffle movement faded towards the end of the 1950s.

He worked for British Railways at their Plaistow Locomotive works for two years in the late 1950s, becoming a steam locomotive fireman.

He left the job because “the smell of the diesels drove me out when they took over from steam”.

In 1958 He was spotted by television producer Jack Good who hired him as lead guitarist in the orchestra of his new TV series, Boy Meets Girls.

Brown signed a management agreement with Larry Parnes – who also manged Grantham’s Vince Eager –  and signed to Decca Records.

Parnes tried to get Brown to change his name in line with his other stars – Fury, Eager, Wilde, Pride etc something Parnes told him should ‘roll off the tongue’.

“Like Spittle” said Brown retaining his own name.

During this period he backed a number of U.S musicians such as Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran on their UK tours.

He charted with “The Darktown Strutters Ball” in 1960 and had UK Top 10 hits on the Piccadilly label in 1962–63 with “A Picture of You”, “It Only Took A Minute” and “That’s What Love Will Do”.

Piccadilly’s release of Brown’s “Crazy Mixed Up Kid” in April 1961 was the label’s first single.

Brown’s recording band was a collection of session musicians, and was named the Bruvvers by Jack Good to give Brown the identity of having his own backing band for record releases.

It was in 1962 when he needed a band to tour with him that ‘Joe Brown and the Bruvvers’ was cemented, containing two members of the Spacemen, brothers Tony and Pete Oakman, who had also remained with him in the “Boy Meets Girls” band.

He is highly regarded in the music business as a “musician’s musician” who “commands respect and admiration from a wide spectrum of artists”.

Brown was voted ‘Top UK Vocal Personality’ in the 1962 NME magazine poll.

During the 1960s Brown appeared in a number of films, pantomime and stage musicals.

In December 1963, the film What a Crazy World, based on a stage play, starring Brown and Marty Wilde among others, had its world premiere in London, while he also starred in the hit musical Charlie Girl in the West End between 1965 and 1968, and starred in the musical comedy film Three Hats for Lisa in 1965, alongside Una Stubbs, Sophie Hardy and Sid James .

He also made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1964 film The Beauty Jungle, and presented the children’s television series, Joe & Co, on BBC Television, three series of The Joe Brown Show for ITV.

In 1972, he formed another band, Brown’s Home Brew, which played rock and roll, country and gospel music and featured his wife, Vicki Brown, who died of cancer in 1991, and Pete Oakman from the Bruvvers.

In the 1980s, Brown presented a daytime quiz show on Granada TV called Square One; its success led him to recording a pilot for the prime time game show The Price Is Right but ATV selected Leslie Crowther for the full-time presenting role when the series launched.

He made a brief appearance as Dudley, a crooked club owner, in the 1986 film Mona Lisa, opposite Bob Hoskins.

Brown still performs and makes occasional television appearances. In 2005 he co-wrote a musical, Don’t You Rock Me Daddio, with songwriter Roger Cook, while in December 2006, he was one of three guest hosts of Sounds of the 60s on BBC Radio 2 during the absence of host Brian Matthew, having already presented two series on rock and roll for the same station.

His album More of the Truth was released in the UK on 13 October 2008, and in 2009 the US musical instrument manufacturer Kala launched a series of ‘Joe Brown’ ukuleles. At the Mojo magazine’s awards in London on 11 June 2009, Brown was presented with the lifetime award for outstanding contribution to music after 51 years’ recording. Mojo’s album, Harrison Covered (November 2011), to mark the tenth anniversary’s of George Harrison’s death, included Brown’s recording of the former’s “That’s the Way It Goes”.

Brown married Vicki Brown, a singer with both The Vernons Girls and The Breakaways, before she became a session singer, who died of cancer in 1991. Their daughter, Sam Brown, is also a singer and their son, Pete Brown, is a record producer who produced all but one of Brown’s nine most recent albums and also tours with him.

Joe subsequently married Manon Pearcey, partner of former Small Faces singer Steve Marriott and mother of singer Mollie Marriott, in 2000. George Harrison was best man.

Brown was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours for services to music.