Lawrence Brown

• Active: '70s, '80s
• Genres: Rock
• Instrument: Engineer, Producer, Arranger

Biography

Though certainly no Berry Gordy, the producer and songwriter Lawrence Brown was still a mover and shaker behind the scenes in the glory days of Motown. He was involved with some of the label's finest acts, including Martha and the Vandellas and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Brown indeed was a songwriting collaborator of Gordy's, often pitching in ideas as part of a threesome of creative hummers, but the titles credited to him tend not to be the best known songs of the artists involved. Brown's "You'se A Son of a Gun" does show up on Marvin Gaye's Classics Collection, for example, but it would not be crawling way out on a limb to suggest that this ditty would not make anyone's Hit Parade of Gaye classics, especially not an English teacher's. Brown was particularly associated with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes in the years following Motown's peak, and in the '90s was back on the scene as part of the production crew behind Milli Vanilli. He also co-wrote the gloomy "Bad Bad Weather Until You Come Home" for the dizzy Spinners. He is sometimes confused with another producer of the same name--that Larry Brown started out as a surf music drummer and wound up involved with a much wider range of genres than this purely soul man. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide