Jackson Browne

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Jackson Browne : biography

09 October 1948 –

Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 18 million albums in the United States alone. Coming to prominence in the 1970s, Browne has written and recorded songs such as "These Days", "The Pretender", "Running On Empty", "Lawyers In Love", "Doctor My Eyes", "Take It Easy", "For A Rocker", and "Somebody’s Baby". In 2004, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Music by Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.

Discography

Biography

Early life

Browne was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father, Clyde Jack Browne, an American serviceman, was stationed for his job assignment with the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Browne’s mother, Beatrice Amanda (née Dahl), was a Minnesota native of Norwegian ancestry. Browne has three siblings. Roberta "Berbie" Browne was born in 1946 in Nuernberg, Germany (Nuremberg); and Edward Severin Browne was born in 1949 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His younger sister, Gracie Browne, was born a number of years later. Browne moved to the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, California, at the age of 3 and in his teens began singing folk music in local venues like the Ash Grove and The Troubador Club. He attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California, graduating in 1966 as Clyde J. Browne.

Songwriter for others

After moving to Greenwich Village, New York, in early 1966, Browne joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, performing at the Golden Bear (Huntington Beach, California) where they opened for The Lovin’ Spoonful. The band later recorded a number of Browne’s songs, including "These Days", "Holding", and "Shadow Dream Song". Browne also spent a short amount of time in his friend Pamela Polland’s band, Gentle Soul. Before Browne’s 18th birthday, he became a staff writer for Elektra Records’ publishing company, Nina Music, reporting on musical events in New York City with his friends Greg Copeland and Adam Saylor. He spent the remainder of 1967 and 1968 in Greenwich Village, New York, where he backed Tim Buckley and German singer Nico of the Velvet Underground. In 1967 Browne and Nico were romantically linked and he became a significant contributor to her debut album, Chelsea Girl, writing and playing guitar on several of the songs (including "These Days"). After leaving New York City, Browne formed a folk band with Ned Doheny and Jack Wilce, and settled in Southern California.

Browne’s first songs, such as "Shadow Dream Song" and "These Days", were recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, Nico, Steve Noonan, Gregg Allman, Joan Baez, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, and others. Browne did not release his own version of many of these early songs himself until years later. Soon after this, Rolling Stone mentioned Browne as a "new face to look for" and praised his "mind-boggling melodies".

Classic period

In 1971, Browne signed with his manager David Geffen’s Asylum Records and released Jackson Browne (1972), which included the piano-driven "Doctor My Eyes", which entered the Top Ten in the US singles chart. "Rock Me On the Water", from the same album, also gained considerable radio airplay, while "Jamaica Say You Will" and "Song for Adam" (written about Saylor’s death) helped establish Browne’s reputation. Touring to promote the album, he shared the bill with Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell.

His next album, For Everyman (1973) — while considered of high quality — was less successful than his debut album, although it still sold a million copies. The upbeat "Take It Easy", co-written with The Eagles’ Glenn Frey, had already been a major success for that group, while his own recording of "These Days" reflected a sound representing Browne’s angst.