Colosseum/Jack Bruce lyricist, one-time John McLaughlin collaborator and later singer/solo artist Pete Brown has left us, as of yesterday.
Pete Brown RIP
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Apologies. Video link in the wrong box. Mods…?
Thank you Ainsley et al. for fixing the title failure.
Before Cream Pete was a poet performing at the UFO club, The Roundhouse etc. etc. Getting the gig as lyricist for Jack Bruce’s Cream songs would have set him up pretty nicely for a while.
After Cream there was Pete Brown’s Battered Ornaments and after The Battered Ornaments reputedly sacked him, there was Pete Brown & Piblokto, featuring the great Jim Mullen. I saw them at a little basement club in the West End back in the early ’70s.
I saw him again back in the early ’90s at the Rayners Hotel with a band that included Zoot Money on keyboard. They weren’t that great, but it was nice to see the pair of them were still around.
Just to remind us all how a rock band ought to look like, here’s Pete with Piblokto.
No neatly trimmed beards here!
The Rayners Hotel! That place was the Last Chance Saloon, @Mike_H. It was there I saw my great idol Viv Stanshall. It wasn’t completely awful but there were ten men and a (bonzo) dog in the audience and the band didn’t seem to have rehearsed too often.
Fun to see him anyway.
I thought he was an extraordinary lyricist – the first 2 he made with Jack Bruce – Songs for a Tailor and Harmony Row are wonderful. His solo stuff with Battered Ornaments and Piblokto was hit and miss but there are some gems on there. Here’s one
And heres Jack doing a great solo version of Rope Ladder (just how good a musician was Jack – sickeningly good on a myriad of instruments)
Gone off to tell tales of brave Ulysses to the growing crowd of the departed.