Before Alice Cooper, before Kiss, before Klaus Nomi, before Velvet Underground, Bowie, or Sabbath, there was Arthur Brown. Arthur Brown was the original theatrical rock performer, excepting, perhaps, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, but Arthur upped the amperage above anything Hawkins had done.

Arthur Brown was the quintessence of the late-sixties hippie era, performing, basically, a psychedelic brand of soul music. His band's music was good and sometimes great, but his stage show was just plain out-of-this-world. Typically, the shows would open with Brown being lowered onto the stage by a crane, howling in his manic voice, and wearing a suit welded from sheet metal and a fire-helmet ablaze with sparklers and lighter fluid. It was not only a sensational entrance but a risky one. Occasionally his band members had to douse him with beer to put out the flames. During his American tours, he was often required to post bonds against the risk of an uncontrolled fire hazard. [Brown would certainly have been persona non grata here in Rhode Island in recent years after a pyrotechnic-triggered nightclub fire killed nearly 200 a few years ago.] At one of Brown's concerts in Paris, in 1968, several naked girls were passed along the top of the audience to the stage. These were wild times and Arthur Brown knew how to play to them.

Brown was born in Whitby, England in 1944. His father played piano in various pubs in Whitby before moving the family to Cardiff when Arthur was eleven. Arthur sang in the church choir as well as duets with his brother. Brown was devoutly religious and studied philosophy at London University and Reading University before being ordained in the Universal Life Church. His flamboyant music style was an extension of his fire and brimstone variety of religious fervor. In the mid-sixties, Brown began performing R&B style music on the London club circuit, as well as at the Moulin Rouge in Paris and in Spain.

When Arthur Brown returned to London in 1966, he met organist Vincent Crane at a gathering of Bohemians in West Kensington and talked Crane into letting him sing with Crane's Combo for a gig in Brighton. After that, Crane, as he later explained, "felt compelled to work with this mad bastard because he had a rapport with and control of the audience that was quite remarkable." Crane and Brown joined forces with jazz drummer Drachen Theaker. All three were tall men, which added to the band's mythical presence on stage. Crane and Theaker wore hooded grim reaper outfits while they performed, but Brown was the main theatrical attraction. Theaker was later replaced in the group by legendary drummer Carl Palmer, but not until after the present album was recorded in June of 1968. The band was called The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. After acquiring a following at the 7 1/2 in Mayfair, they moved to the famous club UFO, which was the heart and soul of the underground music scene at the time.

The "Fire" track was a huge success as a single. It charted out at number one in the UK and number two in America. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was then much in demand, but Brown was plagued by repeated defections from the group as well as a dearth of new material and a lack of a definitive musical direction. Crane moved on to the band Atomic Rooster and Carl Palmer was later part of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Brown's fame faded as quickly as one of the sparklers on his fire-helmet. He did, however, have three noteworthy albums in the seventies with his new band, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come (not to be confused with another band from the eighties having the same name). Kingdom Come's best album, The Journey, featured experimental rock music. By 1974, Alice Cooper had emerged and essentially robbed Brown of his stage persona. Brown later moved to Texas where he worked as a carpenter, but has continued to perform and record intermittently.

The present album was out-of-print for many years, not receiving its first CD release until 1991. That album included both stereo and mono versions of the suite of five tracks that had comprised side one on the original LP, but the album designers made the mistake of adding the bonus tracks to the beginning of the album rather than the end, which meant that listeners were obliged to listen to the first five tracks twice through before getting to the five songs that had originally comprised side two of the LP. That problem was rectified for the 1997 release. Furthermore, the 1997 release added three bonus tracks, two of which were the A and B sides of the band's first single – a very welcome addition. So, readers are advised to search out the 1997 CD in preference to the 1991 version. Here's a comparison of the track listings for the two versions. There's a pricey Japanese import CD of this album, but diligent buyers can find both the 1991 and 1997 pressings at a reasonable price at various places on the internet.

Track Listing: (1991 CD release on Polygram)

1. Prelude – Nightmare (Mono Version) 3:30
2. Fanfare – Fire Poem (Mono Version) 1:53
3. Fire (Mono Version) 2:55
4. Come And Buy (Mono Version) 5:45
5. Time/Confusion (Mono Version) 5:18
6. Prelude – Nightmare 3:30
7. Fanfare – Fire Poem 1:53
8. Fire 2:55
9. Come And Buy 5:45
10. Time/Confusion 5:18
11. I Put A Spell On You 3:38
12. Spontaneous Apple Creation 2:51
13. Rest Cure 2;39
14. I've Got Money 3:05
15. Child of My Kingdom 5:05

Track Listing: (1997 CD release on Touchwood)

1. Prelude – Nightmare
2. Fanfare – Fire Poem
3. Fire
4. Come And Buy
5. Time/Confusion
6. I Put A Spell On You
7. Spontaneous Apple Creation
8. Rest Cure
9. I've Got Money
10. Child of My Kingdom
11. Devil's Grip
12. Give Him A Flower
13. What's Happening?
14. Prelude – Nightmare (Mono Version)
15. Fanfare – Fire Poem (Mono Version)
16. Fire (Mono Version)
17. Come And Buy (Mono Version)
18. Time/Confusion (Mono Version)

Track Analysis:

The first five tracks, from Prelude – Nightmare through Time/Confusion, comprise a suite bound together by a common theme, which might best be described as a rock version of Dante's Inferno. It's theatrical rock at its best and really a miniature rock opera. It's probably no coincidence that Townsend was closely involved in the production of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and soon thereafter developed the concept for The Who's classic rock opera, Tommy, in which Arthur Brown had a small but significant part as a priest. The suite's centerpiece is Brown's one and only top-40 hit single, Fire, with its frightening lyrics:

I am the god of hell fire and I bring you:
Fire, I'll take you to burn.
Fire, I'll take you to learn.
I'll see you burn!
You fought hard and you saved and learned,
But all of it's going to burn.
And your mind, your tiny mind,
You know you've really been so blind.
Now's your time burn your mind.
You're falling far too far behind.

This suite of songs is as good as anything recorded in the sixties and had Arthur Brown been able to maintain that standard of musical performance throughout the album or throughout his career, he would have been among the greatest rock stars. As it is, we're left with only this one half of an album that crystallized Brown's artistry at its highest level of perfection. The band had wanted the entire suite to run as a single entity to be entitled "Tales From The Neurotic Nights of Hieronymous," but the producers insisted on inserting bands and giving titles to the five individual parts.

The best of the rest of the tracks is the very next one, I Put A Spell On You. This is an outstanding cover version for a Screamin' Jay Hawkins's song. It has also been covered by other artists, such as Creadence Clearwater, but Brown's is the best ever version, in my opinion. The song fits Brown's frenetic style ideally. Brown's influences included blues, soul, gospel, R&B, and campy theatrics, before the psychedelic rock style took hold. This particular song reveals Brown's experience with soul music. The drum work is spectacular.

Spontaneous Apple Creation is the most experimental of the pieces on this album and is something of a harbinger of the work Brown would later do with Kingdom Come. It's not fully effective, however, despite some creative organ work. Rest Cure, as the name suggests, is something of a ballad and the album's main respite from wildness. I've Got Money is a cover for a James Brown song. It's good, but others have done it better. The tracks from the original vinyl album close with an Arthur Brown original composition, Child of My Kingdom. This love song includes a whistled portion and thematically harks back a bit to the opening suite.

Devil's Grip and Give Him A Flower were the A and B sides of The Crazy World's first single, which never had much of an impact. Nevertheless, these songs and the other bonus track, What's Happening?, are pretty good.

This band's sound was quite distinctive, with the Hammond electric organ providing the main tonal contribution, in the absence of any guitars. Crane and Theaker produced an amazing density of sound for just a two man band, behind Brown's wild vocal flights from the baritone range to his high Banshee-like falsetto. Album producer Kit Lambert insisted on further bolstering the group's sound by adding brass and orchestral flourishes, mainly to six of the tracks. Lambert also insisted on recording the tracks again with another drummer (John Marshall), but Drachen's drum work won out, in the end, for all but two of the tracks. Drachen was so disgusted with the remixes that he destroyed the test pressing that had been sent to the group while it was touring in America. Pete Townshend of the Who was Associate Producer for the album.

Evaluation: Arthur Brown had a powerful and mesmerizing voice with an incredible range, along with a dramatic stage presence and boundless energy. He was a true believer and delivers his fire and brimstone suite with real fervor. Nevertheless, the material will appeal as much to non-believers as believers, since its currency is mainly universal, subconscious, archetypal symbolism. The band, consisting of Vincent Crane at the organ and Drachen Theaker on drums, cranks out an amazing density of music at a frenetic level. The superimposed brass flourishes add to the supernatural aura of the album, regardless of Theaker's objections to the tinkering. Had rock music existed in medieval Europe, the opening suite of this album might very well have been what it would have sounded like. I can't recommend this album too highly. It's magnificent and the suite portion stands up to any number of repeat spins.

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You may want to check out my list of all the Top-50 albums from the sixties:

Metalluk's Top-Fifty Albums from the Sixties Part I (Nos. 1-25)
Metalluk's Top-Fifty Albums from the Sixties Part II (Nos. 26-50)

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Listening