Chuck Brown

Quick Look:

Born: August 22, 1936

Died: May 16, 2012

It is tough to overstate the impact that Charles Louis Brown, aka Chuck Brown, had on the world of music. As “The Godfather of Go-Go,” Brown helped to usher in one of the most beloved, danceable versions of R&B – a sound that has remained vital for a half century.

Born in North Carolina, Chuck Brown moved to DC as a child. Though living in great poverty, Brown showed an interest and aptitude for music. But without the opportunity to progress as a musician, he became a young man of the streets, ultimately serving eight years in prison for killing another man.

Brown considered his prison sentence a blessing, helping him mature and giving him the opportunity to learn to play the guitar. He was a natural, and after his release joined the DC band Los Latinos. The band’s use of syncopation and congas influenced Brown, and when he left to form his own band, The Soul Searchers, he brought those elements with him.

Brown’s musical vision was a heavily syncopated dance music that used multiple percussion instruments and a call-and-response sound. He named it “Go-Go” and it took off in DC, becoming the sound of the city.

With Brown’s local popularity rising, he signed a national record deal and landed a hit with “We The People” in 1972. He continue to record sporadically during that decade, still being known mostly as a regional live performer. But that ended in 1979, when the brilliant single “Bustin’ Loose” was issued. It became the seminal Go-Go song, and shot right to the top of the R&B charts.

The success of Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers led to a generation of great Go-Go acts, including Trouble Funk, Rare Essence and EU. The popularity of the Go-Go genre hit its peak in 1987 with the concert and move “Go-Go Live.”

Brown continued to record and perform until his death in 2012, at age 75. But fortunately, by then he had received numerous honors, including the Lifetime Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Artists in 2005. After his death, the District of Columbia established “Chuck Brown Memorial Park” in Brown’s old Langdon neighborhood. 

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