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In "Love" with Go-Go's Chuck Brown
(This blog post is dedicated to reader L.B. She knows why. And, for that other reader who gets mad at me for blogging about the celebrities I meet and how impressed I am with them, get ready to send me another one of those messages.)
I'm sitting at my desk jamming to Chuck Brown's newest single, Love, featuring Jill Scott. I adore the tune, a lilting go-go track with great instrumentals graced by, among others, bassist extraordinaire, Marcus Miller. Jill Scott's gorgeous neo-soul soprano mingles beautifully with Chuck's gravelly baritone. Love is the first single off Chuck's new three-CD set, "We Got This," which, as my 17-year-old musician son would say, "dropped" last week. Chuck told me he was supposed to appear on a nationally televised late show tonight, but I haven't been able to confirm that.
Can you hear me jamming?
"LOVE!
Baby that's how it is! That's how it's supposed to be! We all need it!
LOVE!
Tell me what makes the world go round...
LOVE!
LO-LO, LO-LO, V-E!
LOVE!
Say it with me!
LOVE!"
I am preparing a piece on Chuck, the Godfather of Go-Go music, who, at 74, still holds his own onstage and everywhere else with folks half his age. I had the pleasure of interviewing him at my office a few weeks ago. We followed that up with a phone interview yesterday. He told me, among other things, how he stays so fit: "Until a few years ago, I was doing 250 to 300 pushups a day, but my doctor made me cut down. Now I do about 75 several times a week." And why he became a musician: "I have always loved music. Music makes me happy. I'd be happy to play music if I didn't make anything doing it."
On the day he visited the office, decked out head to toe in black, including hat and boots, he regaled my co-workers and I with stories about his exploits as a child growing up in the segregated South, when his mother, Lyla, an accomplished singer and accordion player, dressed him up and took him to church and people's homes to sing for supper and whatever money their hosts could collect from grateful audiences. he also told us about his life as a young man whose appetite for the streets led to some run-ins with the law and his his eventual confinement at the now-defunct Lorton prison, where he earned a G.E.D. learned how to play guitar and figured out that he needed to find an honest way to make a living. He also shared tales about forming his first band, The Soul Searchers, creating Go-Go and serving as the genre's world-wide ambassador. Talk about a success story.
Chuck said he loves people as much as he loves music and they feel him, in return, flocking to him in droves wherever he goes. As we came up the elevator, he was approached by people in my office building who recognized him instantly. Two men, one aged about 50 and another in his late 20s, came to my office door and implored to get in after seeing Brown enter.
"I just wanted to shake your hand and tell you how much I've enjoyed and still enjoy your music, Chuck!" an attorney said. "I've been listening to you since I was a teenager. I love your sound, man!"
So do so many others, right L.B.? I'm off to finish the piece. Sometimes this job isn't so bad, after all. Catch me on Facebook and Twitter.
Avis Thomas-Lester
| September 28, 2010; 6:15 AM ET Save & Share:
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