Musician and Producer Frank Brown Jr. Reflects on His Career

Taped on the campus of NJIT, Frank Brown Jr., musician and producer talks to Steve Adubato about his career as an audio engineer working with artists such as Destiny’s Child and 3LW as well as his new album, "The Renaissance Man."

9/21/17 #2075

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"There's the man behind the music. He is Frank Brown Jr. Our own Frank Brown Jr. Your own! Musician, producer. He is the audio czar in the PBS system for many years, yes. Thank you partner. Thank you. For those of you... It's hard to realize this because Frank is on camera now. He has been taking care of the sound in virtually everything we do, and so many of us in public broadcasting for so many years. But you love music and have loved it for a long time. Your dad? My dad. A very prominent musician. Talk about him. A very prominent musician. Did so many things. Broadway, Four Tops, all kinds of people. But the craziest thing, and I tell this story all the time, is that out of all the people he played with, he would only mention this one song that he played on and I thought it was the silliest song for so many years. And he finally broke me down because I said, "Dad, why do you always talk about this one song?" He said, "You don't get it." He said, "Don't you see the people's reaction when I tell them about this song?" I said, "Why?" He said, "Look." That's your dad? That's my dad. "This is one of the biggest songs ever." I said, "Really?" He says, "Yeah." And to this day when you mention The Name Game... The Name Game? My dad is on that session. That's him playing drums. 1964? I guess so. I wasn't here yet. Some of us were born. Yes, some of us. Talk to us about The Renaissance Man. Renaissance Man. A guy named Reggie Parker. He and I went to college together. Lincoln University? Mm hmm. We met there. I was playing drums. I was a music major there. You've been playing drums since you were how old? Five. Oh, okay. We met and we played side by side. He plays bass. And of course that's a relationship that you almost because one. Because of what I'm doing playing wise and what he's doing on the bass and literally, we became very good friends. I was in his wedding and all kinds of things like that and we just had a great time. We produced some songs back in '96 and no one ever heard them and we had access to a studio. I was still working in doing audio and I wanted to get into producing. Did these songs. He did an album. I didn't work on his first album. Second album, he said, "Hey man, listen. Why don't we get together? Let's work on some things." I said, "Okay..."