Biography

KC & The Sunshine Band

Oliver has worked with Nancy Wilson, Al Jarreau, Mick Fleetwood and more.

Oliver C. Brown’s first big break came in Florida with TK Records as their in house percussionist. He recorded and/or toured with most of their artists, including Benny Latimore, Little Beaver, Clarence Reed, Betty Wright, Gwen McCrae, and George McCrae. This led him to become one of the original members of KC and The Sunshine Band when they recorded the album featuring, “Get Down Tonight” and “That’s The Way I Like It”, their first number one hits on the Billboard charts.

After moving to Los Angeles, California, Oliver expanded his musical horizons

With the aid of his brother, Eddie Brown of the famed folk duet of the sixties, Joe and Eddie. Eddie arranged his first recording session in L.A. with Gene McDaniel who recorded the sixty’s hit, “A Hundred Pounds of Clay”. Gene was producing Nancy Wilson at the time so Eddie told Gene of Oliver’s credits with KC and The Sunshine Band who were currently featured on the cover of Cashbox magazine.

Oliver was invited to the studio to meet Gene and to his surprise in the studio were sitting: George Duke on keyboards, Ron Carter on Bass, and Steve Gadd on drums.

His knees began to knock, at the prospect of being thrown cold into a session with some of the world’s finest musicians. But, to his relief, Gene had planned to have him do an overdub the next day. He successfully completed the recording session and earned his credits on Nancy Wilson’s album, “This Mother’s Daughter”. This opened the door for more recording and touring with such artists as Jermaine Jackson, The Whispers, Larry Vann, Billy Preston, Leo Sayer, Al Jarreau, Natalie Cole, Thelma Houston, Cal Bennett, John Stewart, Doug McLeod, The Beach Boys, Ron Thompson, Chris Bennett, Nils, Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood’s Blue Whale Blues Band and many other Warner Brothers, Capitol and Motown Recording artists.

Gravity 180

Eventually, Oliver became the third member of the trio, Gravity 180, which he considers to be his greatest artistic achievement to date.

The other members of the trio are: Clydene Jackson on keyboards with phenomenal vocals, and Harold Payne on acoustic guitar with superb vocals. Both Clydene and Harold are accomplished songwriters and their collaborative efforts have produced a wealth of original material for the group. The group has given him the opportunity to express percussion in a way that could be said to be a percussionist’s dream. It has given him the ability to take percussion from its tradition genres of Afro Cuban and Latin into Pop, Rock, R&B, Jazz, Blues, and ballads. Gravity 180 was conceived without the aid of trap drums or a bass player; Clydene plays left hand keyboard bass. This gives Oliver the opportunity to cover all the territory of trap drums and percussion in the arrangements of their music, creating a new sound, percussion driven Pop music. You might say it was born of necessity. Harold has coined a name for this new brand of pop music. We call it “Noomer Music”.

NILS

Nils is Billboard's #1 Smooth Jazz artist. Oliver has performed on all of Nils' albums from his smash hit "Pacific Coast Highway" to his current album titled, "City Groove".

Below is a sample from the track, “Let’s Bounce” featured on the City Groove Album.

For more information about Nils, please visit his website by clicking the link below.