"It was 1968 and we were playing in Paris. Some girls had lost their clothes and were being carried over the top of the audience to the stage. It wasn't sexist like it would be today; they were enjoying it. It was part of the fun of being alive."
Thus Arthur Brown described The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in their brief heyday, when "Fire" topped the UK charts, and when he was one of the prime movers behind the British progressive underground. Oxbridge graduate Brown was 'the god of hellfire', fronting a group comprising Sean Nicholas (bass), Vincent Crane (keyboards) and Drachen Theaker (later replaced by Carl Palmer) on drums. Unusually for an R&B based act there was no guitarist.
A devout Christian, Brown always gave his work a strongly religious flavour, daubing his face with diabolic paint and starting his shows wearing his psychedelic robes and flaming 'fire-helmet'. Apart from a rip-roaring version of Screaming Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You", the centrepiece of the set was Brown's five-track mini rock opera about the conflict between the fear of Hell and the comfort of sin, a sequence with the recurring refrain of 'Why is it so cold out here? Let me in!/ The price of your entry is sin.'
The Who's Pete Townshend helped produce their debut album THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN (1968) and Charles Fox of the New Statesman wrote the sleeve notes enthusing that Brown 'could easily be the first genuine artist to come out of our local underground.'
Townshend of course was to produce his own rock opera the following year, and the brass sound used on THE CRAZY WORLD... would resurface five years later on The Who's QUADROPHENIA.
But it all went rather sour for Arthur Brown. He was sued for stealing the tune of "Fire", thus losing most of his royalties. Then midway through the band's first US tour, Crane and Palmer quit to form Atomic Rooster, before Palmer once again moved on, this time to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Undeterred, Brown set up a new Crazy World and recorded STRANGELANDS in 1969, but it would not be issued until 1988. He had now abandoned R&B and was moving in to more impenetrable experimental sounds. When he finally resurfaced in 1971, he was doing 'rock theatre', including his own on stage crucifixion, with his new band Kingdom Come.
Kingdom Come had a rockier, progressive sound, but despite three fine albums, GALACTIC ZOO DOSSIER (1971), KINGDOM COME (1972) and JOURNEY (1973), with some excellent work from Andy Dalby (guitar) and Mike 'Goodge' Harris (keyboards), they never had much success and split in 1973. Brown went on to cut three more albums, all pretty dire, before disappearing to Texas to become a carpenter. There he recorded his last album to date REQUIEM (1982), another concept piece, this time about nuclear war.
Brown resurfaced in 1993 to do a well-received fiftieth birthday tour ('carpentry didn't pay the bills'), and despite the absence of a fire-helmet, he had lost none of his touch for showmanship. His voice still screamed and growled as powerfully as ever, and he must have enjoyed it all, because he was back on the road in late 1995...
In the minds of the general public, Arthur Brown was a strange apparition who once danced around the floor of the "Top of the Pops" studio declaring himself "the God of Hellfire!" A psychedelic novelty act, he seemed to come and go almost as quickly as the movement he supposedly led. But for a so-called one-hit wonder, the legend of Arthur Brown - and the Crazy World that backed him - continues to loom large in the minds of grown-up flower children and their Sixties-obsessed offspring.
In fact Arthur Brown didn't pack up his smouldering head-gear and drift into total obscurity. Not quite. The Crazy World folded after a succession of defections and a distinct lack of musical direction. Brown then formed the equally theatrical Kingdom Come, whose powerful brand of progressive experimental music found favour with the free festival crowds. But in 1974, having seen Alice Cooper rob him of the identity he created and turn it into mass success, Brown returned to basics with the "Dance" album. Since that time, he's struggled to regain his old audience or locate a new one, but has continued to make albums - mainly collaborations - some of which are already proving extremely elusive.
So alas, has the man himself. This feature has been on hold for some time now, hoping to catch Brown when he returned to these shores to record a new album. As this visit still seems some way off, we thought it best to go ahead with the fascinating reminiscences we've already received from Arthur's Crazy World colleagues, drummer Drachen Theaker and organist/composer Vincent Crane. Not long after I conducted the interview with Vince, he died suddenly in 1989, a rather sad man, but one who managed to rise to the occasion for the purposes of this feature. Erratic and unpredictable, he was very much the proud ex-member of one of Britain's top psychedelic bands - and still wore the clothes to prove it.
Arthur Brown's introduction to the joys of music came from his father, who tinkled the ivories of many a Whitby pub piano. The family moved to Cardiff when Arthur was 11, and he quickly progressed from singing duets with his brother in church to playing bass with local R&B and jazz combos like Dave Morgan's Trad Band. During the early 60s, Brown studied philosophy at Reading University, which in no way dampened his enthusiasm for music. He took classical voice lessons, played bass for the University trad band and formed his own R&B group, Blues and Brown.
In late 1965, Brown made his recorded debut with a song on a Reading University Rag Week flexi-disc. On Reading Rag Records (Lyntone LYN771), the disc featured two songs, "You'll Be Mine" by the Diamonds, and "You Don't Know" by Arthur Brown with the Diamonds. One correspondent informed us of this release via our Letters Page, but we've yet to hear from anyone else with a copy - the obvious conclusion being that originals may well have suffered at the hands of shaving foam 'hit squads' and mass merrymaking, which proved too much for a box or two of flimsy records made by a bunch of locals. It's difficult to place an exact value on such an item, but clearly prices of £30 or more would be appropriate for mint copies.
1965 also saw Brown move into the London club circuit, first with the Southwest Five, who soon changed their name to the Arthur Brown Union and then, in early 1966, his own Arthur Brown Set. Accompanied by a French drummer and a bassist who may well have been Dave Ambrose, Brown took up a lengthy residency at the Moulin Rouge, Paris, where he entertained the likes of Ornette Coleman and Salvador Dali. It was in this city that Arthur developed the sense of theatre for which he would become best known. Face make-up was applied and a rudimentary crown placed upon his head - complete with burning candles. A crazy world had begun to develop around him.
After several months, this band split, with Brown briefly going to Spain with an R&B group before returning to London in November 1966. But Drachen Theaker recalls one other recording pursuit from this time: "I know he recorded a soundtrack for a Roger Vadim film. Apparently it's awful and was never issued as an album. He also had a record contract with French Barclay but I don't think he actually did any recording for them."
Back in London and broke, Brown took a series of odd jobs, washing up and shining shoes to support his musical aspirations, though contemporary sources reported that he also spent a few weeks teaching at a boys' school in Leytonstone, but left when the Head told him to cut his hair.
Meanwhile, organist Vincent Crane was building up a good reputation with his own group, the Vincent Crane Combo. He had made his stage debut during the interval at the Rolling Stones Marquee date billed as 'the loudest piano player in the world' and his classically-trained skills made him an obvious choice for Pete Brown's The Word Engine mixed media group and, more dubiously, Hedgehoppers Anonymous.
Brown and Crane met up at a bohemian-flavoured household in West Kensington and the singer talked his way onto a Vincent Crane Combo gig in Brighton. Though it was Crane's band, Drachen, who was in the audience, remembers the billing as the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. "It was very jazzy at that point," he recalls. "It was basically Vincent doing his set with Arthur squawking over it, coming on in a variety of different costumes and behaving like a maniac!" Crane had his reservations about this new teaming, but concluded: "I felt compelled to work with this mad bastard, because he had a rapport with and control of the audience that was quite remarkable."
Theaker had already met Arthur some time earlier: "I had previously played with Jimmy Powell, Wynder K Frog and the VIPs, though I was really a jazz drummer tempted to rock music because it offered me the chance for regular live work. In late '66 I placed an ad in Melody Maker and two people phoned up - Arthur Brown and Jimi Hendrix. I actually went to audition with Jimi when he first got to London, I got my kit down to this club, set up and waited for him to arrive. He called me on the phone saying he was stuck in the traffic and could I come back tomorrow. My first thought was, who is this Jimi Hendrix anyway? I don't think I'll bother going back. Three months later, we were both with the same record company and having hit records.
"That night, Arthur called me and organised a rehearsal at Marquee Studios. He had a dynamite band, with Lyn Dobson and Henry Lowther on horns, which played soul covers. He was trying to form another group to go back to France and play club residencies, but the gig fell through: everyone left except me. Over the next few months, we both did other things. He played with the Foundations in February 1967 and I was with the VIPs and Jimmy Cliff. In the meantime, he'd met Vince and played the Brighton show. By the next concert we'd solidified as a trio, although Pete Gifford (Pete's sax player) did rehearse with us and might have done a few gigs, 'cos at that time we were kind of an avant-garde jazz group."
Perhaps the tallest trio in rock, the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown began picking up dates in and around London. After spotting them playing at the 7½ in Mayfair, producer Joe Boyd offered them the chance to play at the legendary underground club UFO. By the time they appeared at the 14-Hour Technicolour Dream event at Alexandra Palace, the group had become a first-rate attraction, not least because of Arthur's on-stage antics. Vince Crane remembered "putting him out" on at least one occasion, when his makeshift "Fire" helmet (originally a colander with a candlestick attached) set the rest of him ablaze. The gaudily-clad audience simply thought it was all part of the show, as they did when the stage was invaded by uninvited dancers.
"It was a wild act," Drachen told me, "but it wasn't that wild musically. We were just an R&B group underneath. It wasn't like the Pink Floyd, because we took our cue from the whole US mid-sixties soul music invasion. What made it psychedelic was Arthur's acting ability and the fact that Vince and I just overplayed to death at gigs. We made a hell of a noise for two people." Crane agreed: "Arthur was a soul singer then. We did psychedelic soul music and that's why you've got things like 'Money' on the album. A lot of people used to think he was coloured."
Although it appears that Joe Boyd was interested in signing the band, the group's fortunes changed when they were spotted by Who guitarist Pete Townshend. Drachen Theaker: "He said he wanted to produce us when we met him at the Technicolour Dream gig. So we went to his home studio and cut some tracks, which he eventually placed in 'The Committee' film. We were quite impressed with that. We were in the film as well (premiered in 1968, but never fully released) miming to a demo of 'Nightmare' at a party scene, In fact, I contacted him a while back to see if he still had any of the demos, but he didn't. Perhaps I jogged his memory, for not long after, a version of 'Fire' appeared on his 'Iron Man' album."
Townshend, who'd just missed out on signing the Bonzos, persuaded his management team, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, to add the band to their growing stable of artists on Track Records, although he also had his eye on Arthur for another project. At one stage, he envisaged 'Rae!' from 'The Who Sell Out' as part of a pop opera which would feature Brown as the hero. "I was convinced that he was the perfect foil for it," said Townshend. "He was a great rock singer with an operatic range." But that project was shelved when the guitarist hit upon a tale concerning a deaf, dumb and blind kid who played a mean pinball.
The relationship with Track was particularly strained and the Crazy World's management difficulties weren't helped by Arthur's apparent tendency to sign any contract waved in front of him. "His biggest downfall was the fact that he could write," mused Vince Crane. "He buggered up his whole career by signing things without any advice." But in spite of Lambert's style of management ("keep the band in debt so they can't break away"), Crane respected the now departed Track boss: "Nobody ever got paid, but he was brilliant. He had real ideas. He had Arthur in the centre spread of the Sunday Times colour supplement after just four or five issues and you should have seen the promotional package he put together for 'Fire'. It was a huge matchbox filled with all these novelty toys."
Lambert's promotional acumen didn't take effect immediately. The first single, "Devil's Grip", backed by "Give Him A Flower", failed to excite the wider general public and is now a sought after release. Joe Boyd apparently worked on the record at some stage, but Track disliked his mix and so Lambert and Townshend took over. What is certain is that drummer Jon Hiseman played on the A-side. Crane and Theaker never hit it off musically but there was another ingredient according to the ex-drummer: "Let's put it this way. Kit hated me. He always tried to get me removed from sessions." Lambert also tried to force a bassist on the band and session player Sean Nicholas (who also went by the name of Nick Greenwood) began to play with the group in concert towards the end of 1967.
Despite the single's relative failure and the sentiments of the B-side ("It took the piss out of the hippie movement, but they used to sing the chorus as if it was their anthem!" said Crane), the Crazy World was enjoying considerable exposure. August saw their appearance at festivals in Hastings and in Windsor, where Brown was lowered onto the stage by crane only to spoil the effect by catching himself alight again and having to be doused in beer! They also played with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and toured abroad, before settling back into the studio for work on their debut long player.
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown's one and only album finally appeared in June 1968, several months after it was originally taped. Perhaps the major bone of contention was Kit Lambert's desire to boost the group sound with brass and orchestral arrangements. Drachen: "That was his idea, but I don't think they were his arrangements. Some were done by session arrangers after Vince's arrangements had been rejected. Listening back to the early band mixes, it's clear that Kit made a complete mess of the whole album, because what he superimposed on it was typical mid-Sixties 'Danger Man' type music."
Drachen hopes that the album as originally intended may one day see the light of day: "We'd like to get it issued in its original form before Kit Lambert got his dirty hands on it. The mix we've got features an unbroken first side with all of the little links left intact. That whole side was conceived as 'Tales From The Neurotic Nights of Hieronymous Anonymous'." Most notable differences include 'Fire', 'Come And Buy' and 'Time' without the added brass and orchestration, while the second side's 'I Put A Spell On You', 'Rest Cure' and 'Money' were boosted by subtle brass arrangements.
The LP credited Pete Townshend as Associate Producer (he also played rhythm guitar on 'Rest Cure', though it seems to have been totally mixed out), with Kit taking overall production credit. Vince Crane recalled the making of the record with despair: "There's probably three versions of every single song on that album, done in every single studio in London with John Paul Jones on some, Aynsley Dunbar and John Marshall on others." Drachen's memory on the subject was less imaginative, but probably more accurate: "There's two LP tracks that I'm not on, 'I Put A Spell On You' and 'Child Of My Kingdom'. When we finished the record, Kit said it was rubbish and that he wanted to do it again with another drummer. So they did the whole thing again with John Marshall (later with Soft Machine), but at the end of the day, they used all the original tracks bar two".
While working on the album, the Crazy World went into the BBC studios to record a session for Britain's leading underground DJ, John Peel. Drachen: "That Peel session was the best thing Arthur Brown ever committed to tape while I was with him. Ron Wood played bass and he was perfect for the band." The Crazy World went on to tape a second 'Top Gear' session and also made recordings for shows like 'Saturday Club'.
During the run-up to the album's release, the Crazy World were often in the news. Arthur collapsed on stage at the Middle Earth in January; in March Peter Jenner unsuccessfully tried to tempt the Arts Council to fund a multi-media event featuring Brown and Pink Floyd and in April, the group undertook a short tour of Italy with Nick Greenwood on bass.
When the album and the 'Fire' single were issued in June, the group were again out of the country. Theaker recalls: "They sent the test pressing of the LP over to the States where we were stuck in this plastic motel waiting for our tour to begin. I was so incensed to hear Kit Lambert bury all my drum parts that I smashed the record and the record player, came back home and moved to the Isle of Skye. So the whole time 'Fire' was top of the hit parade, I was living on Skye in a crofter's cottage and couldn't give a shit." After early gigs supporting the likes of Jefferson Airplane and the Doors, Vince Crane also returned home ("nervous trouble" reported the NME) and Canadian drummer Jeff Cutler and British organist Dick Henningham were quickly recruited.
When Brown and Greenwood returned, 'Fire' was already doing well and with new drummer Carl Palmer and organist Pete Solley in place, Brown amazed Top of the Pops audiences with his hot-headed stage routine. The rest of the group wore hooded "grim reaper" outfits and the British charts soon had one of its most notorious No 1 hits. The group also appeared on the German Beat Club series to promote the single and it is European picture sleeve copies which are particularly desired today. One such copy is the Spanish Polydor edition (59215) depicting Arthur suitably attired. The single was a surprise hit in many countries and managed to attain a No 2 placing in the States.
But not only were the Crazy World falling apart around him, two of Brown's friends decided the single borrowed a little too liberally from their song. Mike Finesilver and Peter Kerr eventually managed to achieve a co-credit with Brown/Crane, but Drachen Theaker believes Arthur lost out: "Their song was called 'Girl' and it was nothing like 'Fire'. It was just a typical crummy love song. There's no way 'Fire' was written by those guys in the way Arthur did it."
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown were in demand for the entire summer. In August, Brown made his customary skyward entrance at the 8th National Jazz & Blues Festival, led by a cavalcade of clowns and dancers, but this time an accident occurred in the crowd where some scaffolding collapsed and their Saturday night performance was interrupted. He'd also made plans to arrive at the first Isle of Wight festival by balloon from Portsmouth, but this stunt was cancelled due to lack of wind. BBC-TV couldn't get enough of the psychedelic warlord, with appearances in a Gerald Scarfe documentary, a 20-minute slot on Late Night Line Up and plans for him to appear as a giant in a David Dalton-produced play about Welsh folklore, which also promised cameos by Donovan, Lennon and Jagger. It was also announced that he'd been signed up for a horror film.
This high media profile belied the paucity of new material to follow up the success of both album and single. The original trio had recorded 'Don't Tie Me Down' for possible single release, but the tape op didn't switch on the machine quickly enough and the intro was botched. Still unreleased, the track wasn't another 'Fire' but could well have made the Top 20 on the back of it. August 1968 did bring news of the Crazy World's future recording plans when it was announced that 'The Teacher's Song' would be the next 45. It wasn't, though a new version later appeared as 'The Teacher' on the second Kingdom Come LP. They also were ready to begin work on a second album, provisionally titled 'The Trials Of The Magician', which it was hoped would be out in time for Xmas.
Uncertainty in the Crazy World camp was hopefully behind them when Vince Crane returned to the fold that autumn. He remembered a song called 'The Magician's Sack' being touted as a follow up to 'Fire' and said it had reached the stage where acetates had been cut. Again, nothing appeared.
With an October UK package tour with the Small Faces, Joe Cocker and the Who in place, to be followed by a second US jaunt, Track were getting impatient and decided to couple 'Nightmare' from the album with a new song 'What's Happening' (titled 'Music Man' on some copies), the only Crazy World song to feature Carl Palmer. It was a bad move and 'Nightmare' sunk quickly.
A third tour of the States was greeted with slow ticket sales and the group had become box office poison. To make matters worse, Vince Crane's US jinx struck again and he returned home on an empty plane with drummer Carl Palmer and half of the band's equipment. Within weeks, the pair had formed Atomic Rooster with bassist Nick Graham.
Brown returned to the studio in April 1969 to record 'Space Plucks' with drummer John Marshall and McCullough and Dennis Taylor on organ and bass respectively. Meanwhile he'd signed a new contract with Marvin Sylvor and Jeff Cutler, both known for their specialist knowledge of interior design. Brown's theatricals had become more important than the music and valuable time was wasted during this period until he re-signed with Lambert and Stamp in August. It was hoped that Brown would pursue a solo career and undergo some kind of image transformation but good fortune dictated and the singer was reunited with Theaker and a new crew of musicians willing to experiment further. The fruits of his work with the Crazy World Mk II appeared on the 'Strangelands' album in 1989. Drachen recalls: "We formed this band and toured France for a couple of months, then came back and rented this house in Puddletown. The band was only on a session basis and included George Khan, Butch Potter and John Mitchell. But not Andy Rickell. He appeared later."
The material on 'Strangelands' was taped at the Jabberwocky Studios in Puddletown, Dorset, towards the end of 1969. Much of 'Strangelands' pre-empted the experimentations of the Kingdom Come albums although a cover of the old Marty Wilde hit, 'Endless Sleep' was thrown in as a reference to the rock'n'roll of the past. This outfit has been referred to as the Puddletown Express, most notably on the sleeve note to the double compilation 'The Lost Ears'. But there is no doubt that it was an attempt to find a new direction for the Crazy World.
One of the major problems encountered by Brown was the reputation of Captain Beefheart, who'd emerged from the California desert to pioneer a new form of music wholly conversant with strangeness and adventure. Drachen recalled: "Back in 1967, we spent a week in the South of France with Beefheart at the Cannes MIDEM festival. I was absolutely spellbound. I thought Arthur was the craziest, most soulful, vocal showman on the scene, but after seeing Beefheart, he was put into second place. Arthur was into him, but it was important for him not to be a Beefheart clone. So he tried to put down our Beefheart influence, which was wrong. He should have sung on the Rustic Hinge stuff but he didn't want to know. So we parted company.
If ever there was a missing link in the history and development of British psychedelic music it is Rustic Hinge. 'Replica' belatedly issued by Reckless Records in 1988, displays an abandoned sense of discipline sorely lacking in UK music of the time. Originally recorded as 'T On The Lawn For 3', 'Replica' features the Rustic Hinge tapes before they were re-edited for planned release as a one-sided album for John Peel's Dandelion label. The tape given to Dandelion featured singer Rod Goodway on a couple of cuts and was an edited version of the 'Replica' material.
Essentially the work of Drachen Theaker and guitarist Andy Rickell (also known as Android Funnel), the Rustic Hinge material is undoubtedly an important find. Drachen recalls: "I found a foil in Andy because he could keep up with me. He's the only musician I've ever played with who could watch me and catch the beats. A lot of that Rustic Hinge stuff was me playing gibberish and him cottoning onto it very quickly and solidifying it as a piece. We had a deal with John Peel. It was signed, sealed and delivered as far as I was concerned and I thought, if it breaks, I'll come back. In the meantime, I left for LA." But 'T On The Lawn For 3' took almost 20 years to surface.
Arthur played a series of gigs with the embryonic Rustic Hinge, but audiences were left bewildered. Drachen: "The problem after I rejoined was that we couldn't find another organist so we couldn't go out and play like the Crazy World. We used to play with Android Funnel, Dennis Taylor and this idiot organist called Roy and it was a total shambles. Arthur would start singing 'Fire' and the band would play cacophony behind him. It was atonal gibberish with banal comedy thrown in and the fans hated it."
Finding the work of Rustic Hinge too close to Beefheartian musical wisdom, Brown moved a couple of miles down the road and began to work on forming his next project, Kingdom Come. Apparently the original Kingdom Come audition tape has been located and there has been talk of it being readied for release today. Brown's new group, which included Andy Dalby on guitar, rehearsed in a cellar in Covent Garden and perfected their sound in concert. "It was a nightmare cacophony of horror" wrote Disc's Rosalind Russell. Her recollections are confirmed on the 'Glastonbury Fayre' film, where the band play several songs from the 'Galactic Zoo Dossier' album, issued in October 1970. A full version of the Brown/Crane song 'Space Plucks' appears here, alongside what must be the ultimate Brown-as-devil number, 'Creation', guaranteed to send a chill down the spine of the most hardened Current 93 disciple. Originals came with a fold-out poster and are worth £20...