Two Versions of Charles Brown’s “Black Night”

• Listen to these songs on youtube: Brown’s version, Bland’s version
• Listen to these 45s in a Spotify playlist here  with other 45s from the blog (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here.
• Download the songs by clicking the titles above

Today’s 45 is an old favorite of mine, “Black Night” by Charles Brown.  Originally released in on Alladin in 1950 on 78 and shortly after on 45 and then re-released and redone a number of times (including this great version with Johnny and Shuggie Otis) on other labels. Today’s version is his take from 1968 issued on King.

Charles Brown had a number of popular records including “Driftin’ Blues,” “Trouble Blues” and today’s record “Black Night.”  Brown also had a couple hits with his Christmas songs “Merry Christmas Baby” and “Please Come Home for Christmas” which are probably bigger and better records than I, a grinch when it comes to holiday songs, will admit.  Black Night is typical of Brown’s style of slow and dark blues, he’s an expressive pianist who is unafraid to take his time with a song or even a phrase, not rushing to fill every space with extra notes and vocalizing.

Brown was an influential player in the early blues/R&B scene in Los Angeles in the 1950′s influencing such luminaries as Ray Charles -who admitted to just straight up copying Brown- Ruth Brown and The Dominoes to name a few.

The second version is by Bobby “Blue” Bland who has come across this blog before and is a fairly well documented artist so I won’t spend too much time recounting his biography. Fair to say Bland is one of the great singers of the genre and surrounded himself with some of the wildest talent of his time which you can hear in Bland’s killer version of “Black Night.”  One of those people was arranger and trumpeter Joe Scott who handled the arrangements on this and lots of other Duke productions.

While Brown’s version is still my favorite I do like hearing these two sides in contrast with each other.  Bobby’s dramatics are on full display as he makes the song feel like grand theater, one of Bland’s talents.  Brown’s take on it is much more personal; Bland performs where Brown confesses.

Hope you enjoy these sides and I hope to be back with a bunch more soon!

-George / Snack Attack

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