The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

Group from United Kingdom

Genres: art rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic soul

About The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown are an English rock band formed by singer Arthur Brown in 1967. The original band included Vincent Crane (Hammond organ and piano), Drachen Theaker (drums), and Nick Greenwood (bass). This early incarnation were noted for Crane's organ and brass arrangements and Brown's powerful, wide-ranging operatic voice. Brown was also notable for his unique stage persona such as extreme facepaint and burning helmet. Their song "Fire" (released in 1968 as a single) sold more than one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart and Canada, and number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as its parent album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown which reached number 2 on the UK album charts, number 6 in Canada, and number 7 in the US. Following the success of "Fire", the press would often refer to Brown as "The God of Hellfire", in reference to the opening shouted line of the song, a moniker that exists to this day. In the late 1960s, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown's popularity was such that the group shared bills with the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Mothers of Invention, the Doors, the Small Faces, and Joe Cocker, among others. However, the band's second studio album, Strangelands, although set to be released in 1969, was shelved by the band's record label due to lacking sales potential (although it would later be released in 1988). The band would soon break up a year later, in 1970, with Crane and fellow member Carl Palmer forming Atomic Rooster, Theaker joining the band Love, and Brown joining the group Kingdom Come. Palmer would later co-found Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Asia, while Brown would briefly join The Alan Parsons Project and Hawkwind. In 2000, the band would reform, this time with Jim Mortimore (bass), Samuel Walker (drums), Z-Star (guitar), Lucie Rejchrtova (keyboardist), and Malcolm Dick (projecter). Ever since their reunion, have released four studio albums (Tantric Lover in 2000, Vampire Suite in 2003, Zim Zam Zim in 2013, and Gypsy Voodoo in 2019) and one live album (2011's The Crazy World of Arthur Brown Live at High Voltage). In 2019, Z-Star, Rejchrtova, and Dick left the group, and guitarist Dan Smith joined that same year. The lineup currently consists of Brown, Mortimore, Walker, and Smith. Although the band only had one major hit, they would be incredibly influential in innovating the shock rock genre and the freak scene aesthetic, and numerous shock rock artists, such as Kiss, Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson, alongside other musicians like David Bowie and Peter Gabriel (of Genesis) would be heavily influenced by the group, and Brown would take part in numerous notable projects, including playing a character in the film adaptation of The Who's Tommy.

Taken from Wikipedia.org