Farewell to Nappy Brown

One of the great voices in blues and R&B was lost this Saturday with the passing of Nappy Brown. Even at an advanced age — he would have turned 79 in October — Brown was still singing beautifully, his deep blues shout drawing raves on last year's Long Time Coming for the Blind Pig label.

As anyone who saw him perform can attest, Brown was also one hell of an entertainer. When he'd hit the floor on a tune like the raunchy "I'm a Lemon Squeezin' Daddy," he was connecting with generations of great blues and R&B showmen before him, from Howlin' Wolf to Big Jay McNeely. I spoke with Brown, who was born Napoleon Culp Brown in Charlotte, N.C., several years ago before he was set to perform at the Bamboo Room, about his stage antics, as well as his authorship of "Night Time," which became a smash for Ray Charles (as "Night Time Is the Right Time"), and his lack of both credit and royalties for same. Here are some excerpts from that interview.

On "Night Time": "After I wrote and recorded it [in 1957], that was a hit for a long time. And then after it cooled off, it ceased a little, and then Ray Charles picked it up. Only my ‘Night Time’ was slow, slow-like tempo, drop a beat behind it. His was fast-tempoed, with the Raelettes. That’s what pushed it over. Because he had everything note for note from mine, everything.”

On Savoy Records president Herman Lubinsky, who put his name as author of "Night Time": “Yeahhh. He was one of the biggest crooks there was [cracks up]. You see, when I recorded it, it was under my name, Napoleon [Culp], and that was in the studio. So, it was a long time before I knew it. So when it left out the studio, it had Herman Lubinsky and Arthur Kadina and N.C., that was me. Arthur Kadina he was the jazz band there."

On his laying down on-stage during performances: “I’ll tell you what. When I was a little boy, I used to go to a place where they used to have the dances, they would call it the I’m Not a Tourist dance. And they’d have different ones, you know, and we’d pay to go in and see different ones, like teenagers do. And, so, where I got that from, Roy Brown started that [chuckles]. And I been doin’ that every since. Except when I was in gospel, I come up in gospel, I started walking all up in the audience, but that layin’ down? That really come from Roy Brown. And Big Jay McNeely, when he laid down and blow his sax. Uh huh.

“If you got a good show, it takes you a long ways. Something that they’re not doing today. See, they don’t do that stuff now. When I come on the stage, doing this dancing and all this stuff, see, they don’t do that now. All that stuff was back in the '50s. Singing, dancing, acting and everything else. Really, it’s just one of those things."

On raunchy songs like "I'm a Lemon Squeezin' Daddy," which got him discovered and signed to Savoy after he sang it in a talent show: “Back in those days, you couldn’t record it. It was a little too, what I call, a little too vulgar-like. You couldn’t record like you record now. Everything had to be clean. And Roy Hamilton, he was on the talent show, and he won first place with ‘You Never Walk Alone.’ And I won second place with ‘Lemon Squeezin’ Daddy.’ In fact, they wanted me, the two managers trying to choose between me and Roy about ‘You Never Walk Alone.’ So, I told them that wasn’t in my vein, that was for Roy. ‘Lemon Squeezin' Daddy’ was for me. Roy was a ballad singer.”

"Savoy didn’t have a problem with that. The only problem was they wouldn’t let me record it. It’s not too long ago that I started to record it. Back then, everything had to been clean and polished. Today you can use words such as ‘fonky this’ and ‘fonky that.’ In fact, you can say anything you want these days. You couldn’t say that back then."