Brown was already a prodigious player, and he was hired as lead guitarist for the house orchestra at the age of 18 he was proficient in authentic American-style rock & roll, country, and country-blues, and stood out from the competition.

The group also had the good fortune to be spotted by producer Jack Good, who was putting together the house band for his new television music showcase Boy Meets Girl. The Spacemen became Parnes' resident band, backing such figures as Vince Eager, Johnny Gentle, and Marty Wilde on the early Parnes package tours. The band - whose ranks included bassist Peter Oakman and his older brother Tony Oakman on banjo and guitar - later switched to rock & roll, and was subsequently spotted by impresario Larry Parnes, who was in the process of signing up lot of young vocal talent in an effort to get in on the rock & roll boom. Following Harrison's death in 2001, Brown closed the Concert for George tribute show at the Royal Albert Hall (at the request of Harrison's wife Olivia), with a moving solo uke rendition of 'I'll See You in My Dreams.' His performance is reputed to have been the catalyst for renewed public interest in the instrument.īorn Joseph Roger Brown in Swarby, Lincolnshire in 1941, Brown proved a natural guitarist from an early age, and in 1956, at age 15, he formed the Spacemen, a skiffle group with whom he started his career in entertainment. Upon moving to Henley-on-Thames early the following decade, he reinforced his close friendship with his new neighbor George Harrison when the pair bonded over the ukulele.

The '70s saw him unveil a new act, Brown's Home Brew, cementing his reputation as a musician's musician. However, Brown's prolific run of early hits came to an end with the rise of Merseybeat, after which he increasingly pursued acting roles and became a broader entertainer.

hit 'A Picture of You,' from 1962, the same year in which the Beatles opened for him on a string of dates. The east London-raised artist is most well-known for his bittersweet U.K. With a career that began in the 1970s and was still going strong in the opening decades of the 21st century, Joe Brown has cut a unique swath across British rock & roll.

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