Pete Brown’s pedigree was substantial by the time this solo album was recorded, while he was contracted to proto-prog label Deram as an A&R man.
A veteran of the 65⁄66 Royal Albert Hall poetry events, his Cream relationship continued in his writing with Jack Bruce and, when his live partnership with Graham Bond dissolved, Brown drew on an extensive published repertoire to give The Not Forgotten Associative a compelling narrative arc.
His dramatic and often unaccompanied delivery benefits from the five years touring that preceded. The words trace counterculture evolution, from a late 50s epiphany in a public convenience on Few, through consumerist and Americana parody (Way Out West).
Best of all are the expansive, free-form epics utilising colourful telepathic accompanists, including a tuba-playing Viv Stanshall on jovial indulgence Dreaming The Hours Away. Key influences – including Slim Gaillard, jazz pianist Bill Evans and executed Spanish poet Lorca – also provide cues for full flowering flights of exploration and imagination.
Alone for the closing Long Live, Brown elides the personal with the universal in a magnificent requiem for a party house which doubles as a thorny wreath laid onto the grave of the 60s dream.
