Photo by Kim Corwin (Jim Ed’s daughter)
We are so proud to have released Jim Ed’s first solo record in 30 years, In Style Again, and he certainly has always remained in style. Congrats to Jim Ed & his sisters for this honor!
Here is information from the Hall of Fame’s website:
http://countrymusichalloffame.org/contentpages/jim-ed-brown-and-the-browns
For more than sixty years, Jim Ed Brown has maintained a solid reputation as a versatile country performer, radio and television host, and recording artist. On the air, on disc, and in personal appearances, he has extended the smooth-singing tradition established by country stars such as Red Foley, Eddy Arnold, and Jim Reeves. With the Browns—a trio he formed with sisters Maxine and Bonnie—as a solo artist, and as a duet singer, he placed hits in the country charts from 1954 into the early 1980s. Through his recordings and his performances on the Grand Ole Opry, many of these hits have become standards.
James Edward Brown began singing with his sisters in school programs and at church functions when the siblings were teenagers in southwestern Arkansas. In 1952, Maxine entered Jim Ed in a talent contest organized by radio station KLRA in Little Rock, on the program Dutch O’Neal’s Barnyard Frolic. Although a harmonica player took first prize, Jim Ed was asked to join the cast, Maxine quickly followed suit. Within two years, the duo was singing on the regionally prominent Louisiana Hayride, broadcast by Shreveport radio outlet KWKH. Using a KWKH studio, Maxine and Jim Ed recorded their original song “Looking Back to See” for Fabor Records, in March 1954. That summer the record became a Top Ten hit on Billboard’s country charts. Soon Jim Ed and Maxine moved up to KWTO’s Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
After Bonnie joined the act in 1955, the trio’s rendition of “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” also cracked Billboard’s country Top Ten. RCA Records, one of the music industry’s major labels, signed the Browns, and during 1956–57, they scored Top Five hits with “I Take the Chance” and “I Heard the Bluebirds Sing.”
With professional and family responsibilities increasing, the three singers were thinking of quitting the music business when their recording of “The Three Bells,” earlier a pop hit for French chanteuse Edith Piaf, shot to #1 on Billboard’s country and pop charts, followed in short order by the crossover hits “Scarlet Ribbons (for her Hair)” and “The Old Lamplighter.” These, in turn, led to network TV appearances and overseas tours, and, in 1963, Grand Ole Opry membership. During the Nashville Sound era (c. 1956–70), they helped country music broaden its domestic and international audience through increased broadcast exposure and booming record sales.
The Browns disbanded in 1967; Maxine and Bonnie eventually returned to their families in Arkansas to raise their young children, while Jim Ed stayed in Nashville to pursue a solo career. Even while recording with his sisters in the mid-1960s, he also made solo hits for RCA, including “A Taste of Heaven” (1966, billed as “Jim Edward Brown”) and “Pop a Top” (1967) a #3 country chart maker that further proved his versatility in handling a wide range of material. Brown’s other Top Ten solo hits include “Morning” (1970, “Southern Loving (1973), “Sometime Sunshine” (1973–74), and “It’s That Time of Night” (1974).
In 1976 he began recording duets with Helen Cornelius, and a year later they became CMA’s Vocal Duo of the Year. Their best-known hits are “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You” (1976), “Saying Hello, Saying I Love You, Saying Goodbye” (1976), “Lying in Love with You” (1979), and “Fools” (1979).
Brown’s resonant voice and easy manner have made him a natural as a host, not only on his Grand Ole Opry appearances but also on other programs. In 1969, he hosted the syndicated television show The Country Place, which ran until 1970. He hosted six seasons of the syndicated country television show Nashville on the Road between its debut in 1975 and 1981. During the 1980s, he hosted two televised series on TNN: The Nashville Network—the talent show You Can Be a Star and Going Our Way, which featured Brown and his wife, Becky, touring the U.S. in an RV.
In 2003 Brown began hosting the weekly syndicated radio program Country Music Greats Radio Show, as well as the short-form Country Music Greats Radio Minute. Both are carried by more than 300 radio stations. In addition, these series are available on the Internet. The Country Music Greats Radio Show includes music from the 1940s through the 1990s, and draws upon an interview archive of country stars past and present. Brown also shares his own stories about his life in the country music industry. Maxine Brown published an autobiography, Looking Back to See: A Country Music Memoir, in 2005.
In 2014 Brown announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He has since returned to his radio show. In January 2015, after several months of treatment, he returned to the Ryman Auditorium for the Grand Ole Opry, where he was greeted warmly with an enthusiastic standing ovation.
Read more: Jim Ed Brown And The Browns Inductee Announcement Bio
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