Pete Brown

:(This page is about the British poet. For the American jazz musician of the same name, see Pete Brown(2)).
Peter Ronald Brown (25 December 1940 – 19 May 2023) was an English performance poet, lyricist, and singer best known for his collaborations with Cream and Jack Bruce. Brown formed the bands Pete Brown & His Battered Ornaments and Pete Brown & Piblokto! and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also wrote film scripts and formed a film production company.
(read more on Wikipedia)
==Links to Peel==
Peel seems to have first seen Pete Brown in December 1967 when the DJ compered at the Roundhouse [Vietnam Solidarity Campaign organised by Circus Alpha Centauri] "Kaleidoscope of Word Music" festival, which featured amongst others the Liverpool Scene and Country Joe And The Fish as well as Brown and his Poetry Band. Peel invited Pete Brown as one of the first of the Night Ride Poets. He performed several poems on his 10 April 1968 programme and also was interviewed by the DJ.
Pete Brown was such a cultural figure amongst some musicians, that "Pete the Poet", a track on guitarist John McLaughlin's debut album Extrapolation (1969) named after him, was played on Peel's "son of Night Ride" programme. McLaughlin had previously been a member of Pete Brown's Poetry Band, who don't seem to have recorded, even if they did perform at the event Peel attended at the Roundhouse in December 1967.
Throughout the late 60's and early 70's Peel would often see Pete Brown perform at gigs. He invited the poet to do some sessions for his programmes in 1969 with his band Pete Brown & His Battered Ornaments, who became one of the first signings for Harvest Records. A panel who saw the group audition for the session described them, according to Ken Garner's The Peel Sessions, as "Tuneless lead vocalist... a lead voice which could never be called singing... all the tricks serve only to emphasise their mediocrity... lyrically meaningless and pretentious... material laughable... awful".
The group also did a second session in September 1969 after Pete Brown left, due to a dispute between Brown and guitarist Chris Spedding. The band continued under Spedding's direction as The Battered Ornaments. but the panel who saw them perform, according to Ken Garner's The Peel Sessions, described them as "avant-garde hairy group for Top Gear-type shows only." 
A year later, as leader of the new Pete Brown & Piblokto! group, Brown did another Peel session. However, by the mid-70's, Brown was largely forgotten by Peel amongst the emergence of punk rock music. Although in later decades the DJ occasionally played poetry and music tracks by American Beat writers (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti) who inspired Brown and other British poets of his generation, he doesn't appear to have revisited Pete Brown's own recordings.
==Sessions==
;Battered Ornaments (collaboration with the group for their first session)
1. Recorded: 1969-01-01. First Broadcast: 08 January 1969
*Then I Must Go / Security Blues / The Week Looked Good On Paper / Water Carrier / Station Song
;Pete Brown And Piblokto!
1. Recorded: 1970-04-21. First Broadcast: 02 May 1970
*The Politician / Here Comes The Old Man Dressed In Flowers / Someone Like You
==Other Shows Played==
;Pete Brown
*10 April 1968: Notes Towards A 25 Hour City (poem dedicated to International Times) followed by a second poem, which he doesn't name. / Look Man We're Going To Make Your Pit Ponies Smile (poem) / Swach (poem) / Dirty (poem)
;thumb|220x220pxPete Brown & Piblokto!
*18 October 1969: Living Life Backwards (single) Harvest 
*28 March 1970: Things May Come And Things May Go, But The Art School Dance Goes On Forever (LP - Things May Come And Things May Go, But The Art School Dance Goes On Forever) Harvest
*04 April 1970: Then I Must Go And Can I Keep (LP - Things May Come And Things May Go, But The Art School Dance Goes On Forever) Harvest
*17 October 1970: Flying Hero Sandwich (7") Harvest 
== See Also ==
*ABC Of Beauty
*Battered Ornaments
*Poetry
*Gigography 1967
*Gigography 1968
*Gigography 1972
==External Links==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
*Official Website
Category:Artists