Roy Brown And His Mighty Mighty Men - 'Long About Midnight / Whose Hat Is That

Roy Brown walked into stardom backwards, influencing the likes of Elvis Presley, Jackie Wilson, Ricky Nelson and of course the legendary James Brown who would have been nothing without the shoulders of Roy to stand on.

Roy was first noticed at an amateur contest where he impersonated Bing Crosby at the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angels, but that was in the late 40’s, a bit ahead of my time. Nevertheless, once in, he nailed an astonishing fifteen top ten hits between the years 1948 and 1951, a feat accomplished by very few, and I haven’t even gotten into his groundbreaking crossovers between R&B, blues and swing, or that he’s among a handful of artists under consideration as being one of those who was on the cusp for the beginnings of rock n’ roll.

And if that weren’t enough, he auditioned the recording for “Good Rocking Tonight” by sining the song over the telephone to DeLuxe Records (in New Jersey) executive Jules Braun. Brown was a star before Little Richard even knew what a star was, decked out in flashy clothes along with an outrageous uninhibited stage presence, he was a true rock pioneer.

Sadly, this influential musician would go on to make a series of Fats Domino inspired records, and that’s a downright shame, because it was Roy Brown who sparked the career of the Fat Man, before Roy’s own career took a nose dive into obscurity. That being said, Roy Brown broke ground as a rock revolutionary, why he was even the first musician to sue a record label for back royalties, and that was in 1952.

So, there are many reasons to source the early recordings of Roy Brown, as they’re the best, the apex of a career that should have been so much more. “Long About Midnight” is a boogie woogie piano laden slow drag bluesy number laced with a mellow trumpet backed with the down dirty and very sexual essence of a striptease. This song is one of the primary foundation blocks on which rock was built. To that end I’d suggest discovering Roy through his singles and not his compilations, as those compilations are infused with later material that’s simply not that good. And if you can find one of the ten inch 78 rpms, complete with surface noise, that’s the way to hear it, filled with an earthy grittiness and swagger, where for the first time in musical history, one can put a finger down and say, ”This artist was beholding to no one.”

Review by Jenell Kesler