ArtistInfo

The Hastings Girls Choir With Vic Evans

Band, *1921 GB
Reggae
A.k.a. Victor Brown

Vic Evans was a singer with an attractive tenor voice who achieved fame in the last days of British variety as half of the urbane musical duo Harriott and Evans (Victor’s stage name. Born in Banes, Cuba, in 1921 to Jamaican parents, John, an engineer, and his wife, Miriam. In 1944 he made newspaper headlines when his ship was torpedoed, leaving him to cut the lifeboat away from the sinking vessel – “Burly West Indian Saved Crew”. He formed a duo with his younger brother, Noel, as the Brown Brothers, and played in nightclubs with the guitarist Lauderic Caton. He joined the dance-and-drum troupe of veteran West African Prince Zulamkah, then formed a short-lived act with the pianist Winifred Atwell. Their West African connections took him and Noel to the Gateways Club in Chelsea, where a fellow Jamaican, Chester Harriott, played the piano for an enthusiastic audience before forming a harmony duo with Victor, now known as Vic Evans. The pair wore white tie and tails for cabaret and in Paris they socialised with jazz musicians, getting Quincy Jones to write for their act and carousing with trumpeters Clifford Brown and Art Farmer. For eight years Harriott and Evans toured and played on radio and television, and if the charismatic, moustachioed pianist attracted greater attention, it was universally agreed that Victor was the better singer. Victor Brown passed away on the 5th October 2016 whilst in France.

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