The Smiley Smile Message Board

Tom Finn, onetime bassist of The Left Banke, just posted on his Facebook page that the band's leader in its heyday, Michael Brown, has died. No more word than that. But it's stunning.

Those familiar with the LB's career know that Brown was often compared to Brian, both as a songwriter and in terms of reclusiveness/eccentricity. He leaves a legacy much less extensive than Brian's - though one wonders what will become of the hundreds of songs he is said to have written and recorded over the last 40 years in private - but nonetheless his best work is immortal. Simple as that. RIP.

Love their tunes. RIP Michael Brown

First obit I've seen, with a photo of Michael Brown at the age he wrote Walk Away Renee, which was sixteen. Yes, sixteen.

http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2015/03/michael_brown_the_left_banke_death.html

Well, so far Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and the rest of 'em have taken no notice of Michael Brown's passing but Bob Stanley has posted this pretty well-written tribute over in Blighty:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/mar/20/michael-brown-left-banke-died-fragile-talent

Although it doesn't seem to have been mentioned on the board before, the late Michael Brown once did a string of dates with the BBs - in Feb '67, playing Florida, Peoria, Dayton and Detroit, as listed in Badman's book. This would have been with the "classic" Left Banke lineup - him, Steve Martin Caro, Tom Finn, George Cameron, and I think Rick Brand.  The other acts on the bill were the Electric Prunes, ? and the Mysterians, and Keith aka James Barry Keefer who was hot with 98.6 at the time.

(Funny thing, looking this up on Wiki - I never knew that Keith wound up being a backing singer on one of Zappa's tours in '74 and even recorded a few singles for the DiscReet label then.)

It was during that tour that Brown was reminded that Brian stayed in LA and made the records rather than touring, and decided he should do that himself.  Which, in turn, led to the temporary fragmentation of his band when he decided to work with Bert Sommer while the other guys were still touring.

Oh no how sad, didn't hear about this one until now. :(

It's been pretty scanty - Mike's own hometown rag The New York Times simply ran a short obit from the Associated Press. But then again the Vienna papers gave Mozart's death next to no ink in the day so he's in fine company.

 But there were some things worth linking to.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/mar/20/michael-brown-left-banke-died-fragile-talent

-tribute by Bob Stanley of Belle and Sebastian


http://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/celebrities/walk-away-renee-collaborator-dies-1.1293283

-obit from the newspaper in Bergen County NJ where he lived his last 25 years, with quotes from his widow

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-left-banke-s-michael-brown-an-appreciation

-good article by the ever-reliable Jim Bessman, with quotes from the only person to wrote in collaboration with Mike AND also Brian, Andy Paley

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-michael-brown-20150321-story.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-rip-michael-brown-left-banke-appreciation-ronstadt-20150320-story.html

-two articles by Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times, with quotes from Linda Ronstadt, and the man who brought us the There's Gonna Be A Storm compilation CD, Andrew Sandoval

Mike was interred this morning in the Mt Carmel cemetery in the Ridgewood section of Queens, should you be in the neighborhood sometime and feel like paying your respects. Again RIP.

just walk away renee is potentially the single most powerful and beautiful song about heartache ever written. I found a YouTube video of Michael playing the keyboards with the most recent manifestation of the remainder of the band, but something is wrong about the sound or the arrangement and his part does not seem to go with what the band is playing. I am failing to link to it here because I am on the phone but we should all take a look and see if we can find a legitimate high quality and successful version of him playing that most wonderful song. of course, the magic of the song comes from Martin vocal part which is celestial, haunting, and soul gripping.

Mike Brown appeared twice with the Left Banke, each time just sitting in on one song.  In 2012 he came to a gig at BB King's in NYC and played Pretty Ballerina, locked in all right with the band and singer (Mike Fornatale).  The next year he appeared with the Left Banke again, playing Walk Away Renee. That worked less well as noted above - he doesn't sound as if he'd even rehearsed the song with them beforehand. 

You won't find any other live version of him playing the song with the band, unless, incredibly, someone shows up with a tape of one of the eight or nine shows he did on the tour in early 1967 where the Banke opened for The Beach Boys.  There is what seems to be a TV appearance from 1967 on Youtube, with the recording of the song replacing the clip's original soundtrack - ie, they were probably lip-synching to start with and the sound was muddy.  But the keyboardist on that clip doesn't look like Mike - may be the guy who went on the road after he decided to emulate Brian and stay in NY.   

Thanks RN. I could not find any live (not lip synced) version from the 60. I would love to hear Caro singing live, then or now.  The song is haunting, right from that bizarre first lyric, in media res, about the one-way sign, right up the the pathetic fallacy at the end of the 2nd chorus.  The professor lives and dies with this song. 

What happened in that video?  Not likely that the composer would play the wrong chords. Something goes wrong--can you tell what?

If we're talking Walk Away Renee with the wrong chords check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rms44INc2k

Herman's Hermits did not release this version and it apparently surfaced on a podcast a few years back.  Michael Brown seems to have been amused by it because he favorited it at his Youtube.com/leftbankemusic channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-BjJq_yO-Q

And then there's the above - the Cowsills doing the song live, with Bob on lead (and doing a damn impressive job even if he ain't Steve Martin Caro).