Paul Brown
Born in Madison Wisconsin July 4th, 1963, Paul Brown moved to Memphis, Tennessee at the age of five where he lived until the death of his mother in '75, Soon after Paul Brown was eleven years old in Nashville living in a school for the homeless, searching for a way to cope when he stumbled across an old upright piano that would alter his life forever.
By age thirteen Paul Brown was playing dates with country artist Louise Mandrell and Dove award winning Christian singer Don Francisco and sponging styles ranging from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to Parliament Funkadelic and rap pioneers Sugar Hill. "I loved everything," says Paul. "I was so happy to find something I could connect with, something I could use to express all these whacked out feelings I had. I remember going A.W.O.L. to see a Kiss concert that turned out to be a Parliament concert instead, that was one of the most enlightening experiences of my musical career".
In 1979, Paul left Nashville and headed back to Memphis armed with nothing more than a trumpet, a road atlas and an arsenal of determination. By the mid '80's he'd landed his first publishing deal, writing and arranging for various artists.
In 1991 Paul Brown met Hi records artist Ann Peebles and Don Bryant (known for their 1973 hit "I Can't Stand the Rain"). Hired as a sub to fill in for Hi Records' organist, Charles Hodges, Paul, Ann, and Don quickly realized they had a great deal to offer each other which would ultimately result in Paul becoming Ann's music director and producer. During the nineteen years Paul Brown has been with Peebles, tours have carried him all over the world, with television performances on VH-1 and The David Letterman Show.
In 1994 Paul Brown took a year off with Ann to record and tour with East/West recording artist The Mother Station, following up with an MTV video for their smash single "Put the Blame On Me" until 1995 when Ann Peebles pulled him back in to co-write and co-produce Ann's critically acclaimed release, "Fill This World With Love".
In 1998 Paul Brown started touring with Jimi Jamison (Survivor.) Since then Paul has produced two critically acclaimed Gospel projects, including a newly re-mastered epic on Peebles' husband Don Bryant titled It's All in the Word, set for release in the fall of 2011.
Paul has recorded on four major tribute records, including one for legend Don Covay and a tribute to Eric Clapton featuring Ann Peebles with Brown on Fender Rhodes, recording with members of The Legendary Hi Rhythm Section. He also arranged, engineered & mixed blues legend Bobby Rush's album "Undercover Lover," which Living Blues critics dubbed "one of the most important Blues albums of the year."
He's performed on a host of major television specials and three incredible live DVDs including Bobby Rush's award winning DVD "Live at Ground Zero" and the Grammy winning soundtrack for Martin Scorcese's film "The Blues".
Despite playing over 280 tour dates a year, a new live album with Nashville blues artist Stacy Mitchhart which debuted at #6 on Billboard's Blues Charts, and opening his new Ocean Soul Studios in Nashville, Paul Brown shows no signs of slowing down. He continues to bring over 30 years of styles and influences into his soulful recordings and electrifying performances.
Aside from producing tracks for American Idol finalist Alexis Grace and two brand new albums with Colorado folk legend Roz Brown and Blues Legend Bobby Rush, Paul is currently working in the studio on new tracks with Rickey Medlocke, (guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd), Michael Ripoll (guitarist/MD for Babyface) and Starship bassist/Vocalist Jeff Adams.
Paul has been an enthusiastic long-time supporter of Sony Creative Software applications, and uses them throughout his recording and production processes. We caught up with him just as "A Cowboy and His Sweetheart" hit #1 on the Airplay Direct Global Americana charts.
SCS: Paul, what projects are you working on currently?
Paul Brown: First I'm super thrilled to announce that the two brand new releases I just finished producing on Bobby Rush and Roz Brown's are already getting great reviews and gaining serious ground on Radio and retail.
I'm currently producing two brand new records on a seriously great new Metal Band called Obstruction of Power along with a follow-up record with Bobby Rush.
My wife April and I are currently working together on a beautiful Guided Imagery/Meditation record for the Wind River Cancer Retreat. This record is really turning out amazing and will be available this fall online at absolutely no cost to Cancer Survivors: Please check out The Wind River Cancer Retreat for more details.
By the way, Roz Brown is my father. The story behind this album is pretty special to me, so I hope you won’t mind if I go off-track for a moment to this bit of history with you.
I was around a year old, when my mother left my Dad and carted me my two brothers, Pete and Sparky, off to the Philippines, and then to Memphis, TN, until she died in 1975 from a drug overdose.
We were pretty much all separated; I, along with Pete and my stepbrother Darwin, ended up in Nashville at a school for the homeless called TPS.
I didn't see my dad again until 1983 almost twenty years later when I took a trip to see him in Colorado.
By that time my dad was well into making music his full time profession as a singer/autoharp player. So I rented a keyboard and we actually got to perform together for the first time ever at this very cool small café in Denver.
Even though it was so great to finally meet him, I was still young and going through so many changes in my life that it was nearly impossible to really get to know and appreciate him in so little time and no talk of doing a record together.
After that it would be another ten years before we briefly saw each other again during my tour with The MotherStation
Little did I know it would be nearly another fourteen years before we'd get to see each other again.
If my memory serves me correctly, I believe the first time I brought up the prospects of recording together to my dad was in 2000 after I'd finished touring with Jimi Jamison (lead singer for Survivor). But it was just a casual part of conversation.
By that time, though, I was already recording in a studio that Ann Peebles, her husband Don Bryant, and I built in Memphis, TN.
After the Survivor Tour ended it turned out to be a really tough time for me personally, but a great time musically. I'd worked on some beautiful records, including an epic gospel album about Ann's husband Don Bryant titled It’s All In The Word, and blues legend Bobby Rush's Undercover Lover. That was also about the time I started using Acid Pro and Sound Forge Pro.
It was coming up on fourteen years since I'd seen my dad, and then in the summer of 2008, after nearly forty-four years as a broken family, my dad decided to fly to Memphis to re-connect with my oldest brother Sparkyand put on a small but incredibly special private concert in the lobby of a Super 8 hotel. Man it was magical from the first note, and we played together so well and it felt so amazing that by the time my dad got back on the plane for Denver we not only had decided we were going to do this record together, but we nailed down a starting date.
So on New Years Eve of 2009 I was back in Colorado with my Dad playing a special New Years Eve concert at a great place in Denver my dad’s performed for the past thirty years called The Buckhorn Exchange. I’d also shipped enough of my recording gear to turn the basement of his house into a full production studio where we recorded the all initial tracks for this record.
I ended up making three trips due to performance schedules but in the course of those trips we recorded all his master vocals, background Vocals, autoharps and most of my keyboards. and a trumpet solo, which turned out pretty awesome considering he hadn't played trumpet since his early days in the military.
Then it was back to Nashville where I started editing until June 2009. Because of personal changes and moving into a house and building the new studio, production came to a halt and the record sat on the shelf for nearly a year.
But by June of 2010 my wife April and I finished building Ocean Soul Studios and I finally started the final tracks around his vocals and autoharps. Again, this is where Acid Pro and Sound Forge Pro came through in a huge way, as the drums/percussion on all but three tracks on this record were built entirely in Acid Pro, until started using Toontrack and married Superior Drummer 2.0 with Acid Pro to finish out the last three tracks. I have to say it was truly amazing how awesome the two platforms worked together!
Being that this was the first Folk/Americana record I've produced, I was faced with an array of new challenges. But my Dad's vocals were so inspiring and he was so gracious to let me follow my muse and embrace wherever it took me on each song that even the toughest challenges were a great experience.
For me to come from years of making mistake after mistake and finding myself broke and homeless more times than I can count, and for my dad to have come through his own mountain of challenges, and for our family on the whole to be as scattered as we are, there are so many reasons we could have easily never met and this record could just as easily have never happened.
But here it is: totally finished and more special for us both than I could've ever imagined. The most important thing to me about making this record is that this will have served as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create something to preserve our family's heritage, and know that my dad is alive today to witness its fruition. Along the way I have discovered another amazing brother I never knew I had (Shawn Michael Brown). I also discovered a treasure trove of rich tones and excellent musicianship in my dad's Voice. Not to mention my dad is really one heck of a swell guy with a beautiful spirit. Check out the brand new Roz Brown album.
SCS: You've been using our applications for a long time. What do you rely on them for?
Paul Brown: I've used Acid Pro and your amazing sound and sample libraries for many years as a front line platform for building and enhancing tracks for all my records including drums, percussion, FX and sound beds. I used ACID Pro on Roz Brown’s album (the accompanying screenshot is from the song “Fairweather Friends.” – editors).
Sound Forge Pro has been a staple in all my productions. I use it for all my pre-mastering, as well as radio edits, and ringtones…
I also use the occasional Sony Sound Library. In an interesting coincidence, I was using Rhythm & Twang, by Troy Klontz, when I got an opportunity to work with Troy. He listened to Roz’s album and said “Truly a labor of love and an excellent representation of the ‘classic country sound. My hat’s off to Paul for his creative use of loop-based recording. I’m glad to be a part of this project.”
And I use Vegas Pro extensively for putting together HD Promotional and Live DVD's, including the forth-coming DVD for soul legend Ann Peebles’ European concert.
SCS: What do our applications do best?
Paul Brown: What they do best for me are both a culmination of seriously powerful production platforms on which to create world class productions, an impressive array of brilliantly developed sonic libraries by some of the best musicians on the planet and a level of user friendliness that allows me to create at an incredibly fast rate without sacrificing the integrity of the production.
I'd like to end this interview by saying that I am super proud that Sony Creative Software products play a huge role in all the records I produce at my new Ocean Soul Studios. Please visit www.oceansoulstudios.com.
