12. Bobby Frank Brown

A generation before New Edition hit the scene and one of its members went solo with a hit called "My Perogative," there was another recording artist named Bobby Brown who came from a whole different school of thought. For obvious reasons, he now includes his middle name. Bobby Frank Brown, a psychedelic-spiritual one-man band, has garnered praise from the likes of Kenny Loggins, George Winston, Ram Dass, and Allen Ginsberg, and is somebody I never thought I would be able to get in touch with. His debut masterpiece "The Enlightening Beam of Axonda" (1970) is a sonic anomaly that captures the sound of an innovative solo performer, using oscillators, hand percussion, primitive drum machines, zithers, electrified droning metal pipes, and a six-octave vocal range he is not shy to demonstrate. He traveled all over, living out of his van-cum-soundsystem, and sold thousands of his self-released records and 8-tracks to passers by over the course of his heyday. I managed to track him down on the phone in Reno, NV for an interview, following a panel discussion with Jaysen Lee Peters and engineer Miles Rozatti, and he told us about his participation in the Mexico City Olympics, opening for Fleetwood Mac, his concept for a massive anthology, and why he wants to start a new religion. It's never a dull moment with Bobby.