By Dean Robinson (5/18/00)
It's not very likely that many Fort Wayne blues fans are aware of the fact that one of their own local heroes is responsible for putting some backbeat in the classic film often known as T&A Academy. Originally shown in theaters and drive-ins bearing the title H.O.T.S., the goofy 1979 sex comedy centers on the stiff competition between two college sorority houses and features former "The Partridge Family" star Danny Bonaduce. As any cinema buff well is well aware, no Animal House knock-off could be considered complete without some good old American rock -- and that's where Fort Wayne native and Pop 'n' Fresh frontman Ted Brown rolls into picture frame. The producers of the film tapped the seasoned musician for a few notes.
"It was like a B-movie drive-in circuit kind of thing," says Brown. "Kind of a tickle movie. To give you an idea, the climax of the movie was the girls doing a strip football game. I wrote this song called 'How Hot You Can Get' which was geared for a certain scene. It was sung by the famous Danny Bonaduce.
"After the movie died from the drive-in circuit, cable TV took off. This thing was perfect for cable. It got played a lot on the Playboy channel because it had a lot of Playmates in it.
"It was interesting to see the process going on -- it was backwards from what you'd think," Brown says of the film's production process. "They filmed the scene actually with my demo tape -- I made it at home on a four-track machine. Later, they re-recorded the song and married it to the movie track that was already there. It was really weird."
Some might find it strange that Brown -- a blues guitarist and singer by night -- spends his days as a substitute teacher. Having earned his degree in theater education with an English minor, Brown says he'll probably teach language arts, speech or theater once he's officially qualified. The fact of the matter, though, is that Brown has already served as an excellent music teacher for his Pop 'n' Fresh bandmates Travis Brown (bass) and Jeremy Sells (drums). According to Ted's wife, Pam, the couple has known Jeremy "since before he was born." The same likely applies to Travis, the couple's son.
Brown expresses difficulty at describing the feeling of gigging with his son.
"It's been kind of an interesting thing because he kind of started kind of late," Brown says "He wasn't playing real real young like in high school like some kids are. It's been a real gradual developing thing. I showed him some basic theory I know about bass and he took it from there and just went wild with it. I'm really proud of what he's done. He's really his own man as far as that."
That may be true, but the hard evidence points to something in the Brown blood. Exhibit No. 1: Matriarch Pam occasionally gets together with Ted and Travis to form the acoustic trio Mom 'n' Pop 'n' Fresh. Exhibits nos. 2, 3 and 4: The Brown's three daughters (ages 23, 19 and 16) are currently honing their musical skills. Exhibit No. 5: Ted Brown, just pushing 55, comes from a musical family featuring five musical brothers who come together for the annual Brown Family concerts at Foellinger Theatre. And then there are the words of Pam Brown herself: "It's kind of in the blood. I played bass when I got pregnant with Travis. Then I couldn't hold it anymore. Then he started playing it. He's heard it since day one." Exhibit No. 6 indeed.
Fortunately for Pop 'n' Fresh, the indictment comes not from the courtroom, but from the kitchen, a key element in the band's attitude and image. Not content with simply serving crowds with hot R&B and old-school blues, Pop 'n' Fresh puts the show in their hands.
"We put out these little menus -- Pop 'n' Fresh musical menus -- it looks like a food menu, but it's got our songs classified according to like out Blues Plate Specials, our James Brown Combo, our Soul Stack No. 1 and No. 2, and all these different ways we put it together," Brown says. "We put those out for people and most jobs we play, a lot of times people will really play along. They'll order up food, order up songs, holler it out or send it up. That really helps ‚ that way we know what kind of stuff people want to hear and they can see what we do so they're not coming up asking for AC/DC or something we don't do. We have a good time with it. That's what we're all about, I guess."
Having spent the better part of the 70s based in Nashville, Tennessee, Brown gigged up and down the famous Chitlin Circuit and performed with regional bigwigs like Johnny Jones, Bobby Bland and former Jimi Hendrix bassist Billy Cox (who jammed with Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969). It was while touring with Little Richie Jarvis that Brown got his first taste of publishing success.
"On the road, we would come up with a lot of ideas and one of the songs that we wrote together with one of the guys in the band was called 'Sunday Afternoon Boatride in the Park on the Lake,'" Brown says. "That's a mouthful isn't it? Sounds like an old vaudeville type song. It's weird that it got on the country charts because it really wasn't a country song per se, but it got recorded enough times and by a guy named R.W. Blackwood and the Blackwood Singers, finally they did a lot of their own promotion on the thing, and it did pretty well for them. It got recorded a few times after that. It's nothing I got real rich off of or anything, but it was something to say I did.
About the time Pam got homesick for the Summit City, she and Ted turned one of their frequent visits to the hometown into a permanent stop. During the following years, Ted would jam with Travis and Jeremy ("They were doing head-banging kind of music pretty much," Brown says). By 1992, Ted and the boys would join forces with Youngstown, Ohio-based organist Pete Smith to form Pop 'n' Fresh, with saxophonist Paul Le Claire appearing occasionally for good measure. Smith's death from a heart attack some four years ago forced the band to evolve.
"That was a loss, but we have another guy with us on keyboards named Steve Jugloff," Brown says. "He used to play in bands when I was in high school and he was with like our main competition. I used to play with a band called the Counts from around here. Steve used to play in a band called the Epics, and before that they were called the Clansmen. I don't know how they got away with that."
Brown says he also doesn't know how Pop 'n' Fresh came to be voted the Best Blues Band by readers of whatzup. According to Ted and Pam, the band never campaigned and no one in the Brown family even voted. Apparently, whatever the Browns don't know, their fans do.
"It seems like it been a real gradual process of just building," Brown says. "Of all the groups I've been in through all the years. If a group lasts a year or two it's amazing. But this has been happening for quite a while."
And it appears that family is the key to longevity.
"We figured a long time ago, it's so much trouble keeping a bass player and finding this and finding that, we thought we'll just have our own kids," Pam says. "They're one of those bands that are gonna be together forever."
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