Singer Brown Furlow, appearing with his show My Education at Don’t Tell Mama on Friday, September 9, is a tribute to some of Furlow’s jazz and R&B influences—a celebration that includes Ray Charles, Louis Jordan, Oscar Brown Jr., Randy Newman, Stevie Wonder, Georgie Fame and Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Furlow started his career as a vocalist in 2013 after retiring as an elementary school teacher in the New York Public Schools. Since then, he has performed at Symphony Space’s Bar Thalia, The Indian Road Cafe, Cleopatra’s Needle, Otto’s Shrunken Head and Parnell’s Pub, among others.
My Education will feature David Pearl on piano, Jarrett Walser on drums, Jason DiMatteo on bass, with guest vocalist, Sharon Fogarty. For reser
vations and more info, visit the Don’t Tell Mama website here.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Brown Furlow (BF) Six quesions:
NLE: You switched careers from acting to teaching elementary school. In what ways did your training as an actor inform your teaching?
BF: Both areas require a lot of discipline and a ton of patience. As a theatre major at the University of Southern Mississippi, I got a pretty well-rounded education… not just acting, but directing, design, lighting, etc.I learned a lot about problem solving. Teaching kids is also about problem solving, albeit different kinds of problems
Also, during the first years of my teaching career, we were still doing classroom assembly programs. I became a real auteur, writing and directing my own shows. One show that I really loved doing was a review of Shel Silverstein’s songs and poetry. Unfortunately, the kids today aren’t getting this kind of enrichment, as classroom assembly programs in the New York Public Schools seem to be a thing of the past, sacrificed in favor of more test prep. Eventually, I think there will be a price to be paid for that..
NLE: Why did you decide to return to performing? Was there an “ah-ha!” moment?
BF: Not really. It was kind of gradual. For years, when I was teaching, I had no plans to go back to performing. Then, during the last few years I was teaching, I had a colleague, a terrific music teacher named Mark Sackman. During our down time, we would go into the music room and just sort of jam. Mark would play the piano and we’d sing The Beach Boys, Elvis, whomever. One Christmas, Mark got a band together to play for a staff party and he invited me to sing a couple of songs with them. It didn’t go too badly, so I started to think that maybe this was something I could do.
Then, nine years ago, with my retirement approaching, I went to a friend of mine, Sharon Fogarty, an extraordinarily gifted singer-songwriter, and asked her to work with me on voice lessons and developing a repertoire. I didn’t really know where I was going to go with it, maybe join a chorale or start an a cappella group. Sharon encouraged me to start doing open mics. The first one I did was a monthly one at The Indian Road Cafe in my neighborhood, Inwood. Then, I took the plunge and started going to the weekly Singers Space open mic at Symphony Space/Bar Thalia. I was able to hone my craft there for the next seven years until the pandemic. That’s also where I met David Pearl, who’s been a huge figure in my musical journey, and who is the musical director for this show.
NLE: What was your process for choosing the material for this show?
BF: I’ve performed songs in many genres, but I wanted this show to have a jazzy, soulful feel. I’ve been an R&B guy since third grade, when Top Forty radio started to get my attention. I really wanted to showcase the artists and songwriters who influenced me, like Ray Charles, Louis Jordan, Curtis Mayfield, Randy Newman, etc. After nine years, I had about two-hundred fifty songs to choose from. Since the show is only about sixty-five minutes, obviously some great songs didn’t make the cut. Maybe they’ll go into the next show.
NLE: How did Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s music make it into your life? What is their appeal to you?
BF: I can hardly imagine the last sixty years of American music without them. They’ve been there for me since the beginning. In the early sixties, when my musical taste was starting to take shape, they were all over the radio, though I didn’t know it at the time. Jerry Butler, Gene Pitney, Dusty Springfield, Herb Alpert, Jackie DeShannon and so many others were doing their songs. Of course, the string of hits they had with Dionne Warwick was phenomenal, something like eighteen songs in the Top Forty. My favorite song of theirs that they did with her has always been “The Windows of the World/” It’s a beautiful, moving song with a strong anti-war message. They were inspired to write it at the height of the Vietnam War, as Hal David had two sons who were approaching the eligible age for the draft. It’s the first song I chose for the show.
NLE: Stevie Wonder’s “A Place in the Sun” is included in your show. What made you include it? What other song of Wonder’s would you potentially include and why?
BF: It’s just such a great, uplifting song. I love the melody as much as the lyrics. Also, I wanted to do it as a tribute to all the great Motown artists whose music filled my house when I was growing up. If I were to do another song of Stevie’s, it would almost certainly be “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” which leads off his album, Songs in the Key of Life. It’s sort of at the other end of the spectrum from “A Place in the Sun,” in that it is cautionary and has a sense of urgency. To me, it even sounds a little bitter and angry. Songs in the Key of Life is one of my top ten desert isle albums—ninety minutes of perfection.
NLE: What impact do you want to make on your audience? What do you want them to take home?
BF: Well, it’s really all about the songs. Hopefully, the audience will be moved by the right songs, find the humor in the right songs and be inspired by the right songs. A few of the songs in the show are sort of “deep cut,” so, I hope they’ll discover a couple of songs they didn’t know, or maybe rediscover a song or two they haven’t heard in a while. And maybe they’ll even leave thinking, “This guy can sing.”
