THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN

The record "The Crazy World of Arthur Brown" from 1968 is a powerful record. It is early and inspired many musicians afterwards. In this music I mostly hear progressive rock but Browns mighty voice also discovers lands that later were showed in the hard rock and metal genres. Its cover shows a face painted in different colours and a pink star signs the name of band and record.

Arthur Brown sings, speaks, Vincent Crane plays keyboard and organ, Sean Nicholas plays bass and Drachen Theaker drums on this disc. The best songs on this album are "Come and Buy", a deep song with poetic lyrics, "Fire" a mighty melody and a gorgeous organ background, "Child of my Kingdom" which is magic, long and has some nice whistleling, "Prelude/Nightmare" where we first meet Browns voice and "I put a spell on you" which is a psychedelic hit. "Time/Confusion" is like a psychedelic rock lulluby and also fantastic.

Sometimes Brown reads and sometimes he screams and the full album is theatrical. His voice are so clear and distinct. What's most obvious in this music is the dramatic organs that show how you can do progressive music.Beside of that we have Brown thatrical voice that is something totally different with earlier pop song heroes. This is a new voice with integrity and power and music which can be considered pure art.

This album combines a dated but wonderful sound of the sixties I love with something very new and forward-looking and that makes it so essential. I like The Web's record from the same year "Fully Interlocking" and there are similarities I like between those two otherwise quite different gems. I recommend you this music because it's the roots of prog and it is prog.