Career
Brown signed a recording contract with A&M in 1986. Her most successful song with A&M was "Stop!", released as a single in 1988. She issued an album of the same name that same year. Other singles taken from the album included "Walking Back to Me", "This Feeling" and her cover version of "Can I Get a Witness". The album Stop! has sold over two-and-a-half million copies worldwide, doing particularly well in the UK and Australia. Brown's second studio album, April Moon (1990), included two hit singles, "Kissing Gate" and "With a Little Love". Three further singles were released from the album: "Mindworks", "Once in Your Life" and "As One".
Brown's third studio album, 43 Minutes..., was made around the same time that her mother was dying from breast cancer. A&M, Brown's record label at the time, were not satisfied with the album and wanted some potential hit singles recorded and added to the track listing. Brown, unwilling to compromise and after a protracted legal battle, bought back the master recordings of the album and released them in 1992 on her own label Pod Music, a year after the death of her mother. Few copies were initially released, but it was reissued in 2004.
Brown provided backing vocals for Pink Floyd on their 14th studio album, The Division Bell, released in 1994, and accompanied them on their tour to promote the release. Her involvement was documented on the following year's Pink Floyd release, Pulse, in which she sang backing vocals and was the first lead vocalist on the song "The Great Gig in the Sky". In 1995, she had a minor chart hit with a duet with fellow singer-songwriter Fish, entitled "Just Good Friends". In 1997, Brown returned with her fourth studio album Box, released via the independent record label Demon Music Group. Tracks on this album included "Embrace the Darkness", "Whisper" and "I Forgive You" which was co-written with Maria McKee. McKee's version of the song originally appeared on her second album, You Gotta Sin to Get Saved.
In 2000, her fifth studio album, ReBoot, was released via another independent label, Mud Hut, as was the single "In Light of All That's Gone Before." In 2003, Brown formed the band Homespun with Dave Rotheray. The group has released three albums. Brown also released several solo recordings in this period, including an EP, Ukulele and Voice. In 2004, Jon Lord released Beyond the Notes, for which she wrote almost all the lyrics. In late 2006, she undertook an extensive UK tour as special guest of her father, Joe Brown. The shows also included appearances by her brother, Pete Brown.
In 2007, seven years after her last album, Brown released Of the Moment. She also returned to the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart in October 2007, when "Valentine Moon" was included on Jools Holland's hit album Best of Friends.
That same year she developed problems with her singing voice, and for unknown reasons has not been able to sing consistently since. In an interview in 2013 she explained that "I can't get vocal cord closure and achieve the proper pitch simultaneously. It feels like there are some muscles that aren't working." After a cyst was found on her vocal cords, she had the cyst successfully removed, but problems with her voice persisted, leaving her unable to hold a note.
Seeking alternative musical occupation, Brown started a ukulele club in 2010 and expanded to several clubs in Oxfordshire, Dorset, London and online which have continued to thrive.
In 2021 she released her only live album, Wednesday The Something of April, a recording of a one-woman show from 2004 featuring songs from across her career.
Brown's first studio album in fifteen years, Number 8, was released in January 2023. It was written and recorded with long-time collaborator Danny Schogger and makes use of Melodyne software to help Brown's vocals.
