Chris Brown (Canadian musician)

Hugh Christopher Brown is a Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

For the American recording artist, see Chris Brown.
Chris Brown
Chris Brown performing in 2007 with the Rheostatics at Massey Hall in Toronto, Ontario
Background information
Birth nameHugh Christopher Brown
BornToronto, Canada
GenresFolk rock, alternative rock
Occupation(s)Musician
InstrumentsPiano, keyboards, guitar
Years active1985–present
Associated actsBourbon Tabernacle Choir, Kate Fenner, Barenaked Ladies
Websitechrisbrownmusic.com

Career

Brown was one of the primary singers and songwriters for the alternative rock band Bourbon Tabernacle Choir in the 1980s and 1990s. When that band broke up, he continued performing as a duo with his Bourbon bandmate Kate Fenner. Brown has accompanied dozens of notable musicians on stage, including a six-month stint as a member of Barenaked Ladies in 1998 filling in for Kevin Hearn while Hearn battled leukemia.

Brown released a solo album, Burden of Belief, in 2003. He performs this material both solo and with Tony Scherr, Anton Fier, and Teddy Kumpel as Chris Brown and the Citizens' Band. The group's album Oblivion was released in 2007.

Also in 2007, musical contributions from Brown were included on Salamandre, the soundtrack for architectural designer Eric Clough's Mystery on Fifth Avenue apartment renovation project. Along with Fenner, he composed original music: four melodies of inspiration through four centuries of music, including renaissance, classical, Victorian, a Vetentian waltz, jazz, ragtime, blues, folk, and funk.[1]

He is also a social justice activist and the founder of the Pros and Cons Program bringing recording arts to prisons and creating musical works for charities. The Pros and Cons Program has become internationally recognized as groundbreaking in fields of restorative justice and inmate mentorship, with the support of The David Rockefeller Fund. Brown recorded an album with the prisoners called Postcards from the County which Exclaim! described as "inescapably honest and sincere".[2]

Brown has recently launched Wolfe Island Records as a home for the prison music and the many artists he produces and collaborates with, including Fenner, Suzanne Jarvie, David Corley, One River, The Mermaids, Hadley McCall Thackston and the Stephen Stanley Band. In 2017 he released a new solo album Pacem. PopMatters premiered his first single, "Keeper of the Flame",[3] and Huffington Post raved that "Pacem is one of those albums that works on the listener from the inside out."[4]

Brown currently lives in Wolfe Island where he tours solo and performs with local musicians in a band called Open Hearts Society.

Discography

Hugh Christopher Brown

Pacem - 2017

Chris Brown
  • Burden of Belief – 2003

Chris Brown and the Citizens' Band
  • Oblivion – 2007

Chris Brown and Kate Fenner
  • Other People's Heavens – 1997
  • Geronimo – 1999
  • Great Lakes Bootleg – 2000
  • O Witness – 2001
  • Songs – 2003
  • Go On – 2004

Bourbon Tabernacle Choir
  • First Taste of Bourbon – 1987
  • If Hell Had a Houseband – 1989
  • Sister Anthony – 1990
  • Superior Cackling Hen – 1992
  • Shy Folk – 1995
  • Simply the Best 1985–1995 – 2000

Contributions to other artists' albums
Chris Brown playing piano

Compilations
  • GASCD
  • We Want Peace On Earth
  • Bridge to Music – Indie Sounds From Brooklyn's Underground
  • My Old Man: A Tribute to Steve Goodman

References
  1. 212box (2007). Klinsky Residence and "In These Rooms of Wood and Stone" Answer Book. 212box. pp. 46–47.
  2. "Hugh Christopher Brown Postcards from the County". exclaim.ca.
  3. "Hugh Christopher Brown - "Keeper of the Flame" (audio) (premiere)". 3 November 2017.
  4. Israel, Ira (23 November 2017). "Hugh Christopher Brown's "Pacem:" CD Review".
  5. Wolfe Island Records, "One River"
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