Vicki Brown

Biography

Victoria Mary Haseman came into the world on 23 August 1940 in Liverpool. After marrying Joe Brown and departing the Breakaways, she kept up a busy career as a session singer, going by the name Vicki Brown. The couple had two children: Sam, who became a well-known singer-songwriter, and Pete, who worked as a record producer. In 1972, Joe Brown put together a band called Brown’s Home Brew, mixing rock and roll, country, and gospel, with Vicki in the lineup.

They put out two albums, Brown’s Home Brew in 1972 and Together in 1974, both featuring the Browns. Vicki also teamed up with her sister Mary Partington as the Seashells, and their single “Maybe I Know” — originally recorded by Lesley Gore in 1964 — reached number 32 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1972. The following year, she joined Stephanie de Sykes under the name the Tree People for the single “It Happened on a Sunday Morning.”

By 1975, Brown appeared in the film Tommy, credited as “Nurse #2.” Her profile got a boost when she sang the female vocal on J. J. Barrie’s 1976 UK number one hit “No Charge.” In 1977 she released her first solo album in the UK, From the Inside, produced by Shel Talmy and issued on the Power Exchange Records label. Starting in 1979, she worked with the New London Chorale, and the group’s popularity in the Netherlands helped her build a solo following there. She also sang as a soloist on several projects created by Tom Parker with the Chorale: The Young Messiah (1979, originally a 1977 UK television concert), The Young Matthew Passion (1986), The Young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1986), The Young Verdi (1988), and The Young Beethoven (1990).

Over the years, Brown collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Gary Moore, George Harrison, Jon Lord, Roger Waters, Willy DeVille, Adam Ant, Steve Marriott, Alvin Lee, Chris Farlowe, Cerrone, Yvonne Keeley, and Eric Burdon. She also performed live with Pink Floyd on the Dark Side of the Moon Tour and the A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour. Brown died of breast cancer on 16 June 1991 in Henley-on-Thames at the age of 50.