brown sugar

In response to the many questions about the BAND, since Pauls death. I have decided to put up this site. I will post as many stories and pictures and posters as i can find. WELCOME TO ALL .

    This will be the last and most acurate story of how , Brown Sugar, the great blues band from Portland, Oregon was formed. The members of the band were : Lloyd Jones on drums/vocals, Jim Mesi on guitar, Alan Kuzens on bass and Paul DeLay on harmonica/vocals.  This is the orginal lineup for the band. 

 But this story began many years before this happened.

  This story begins in 1966. I moved to Portland to live and go to school. I eventually enrolled in WBC to study computer programing. This is where i met Paul Jones. Being musicians, we talked about bands and became fast friends. Paul was the leader of a band named " MOXIE ". The band's lineup was P.Jones on drums, D.Cunningham on harmonica/vocals, R.Fuiten on organ, M.Shade on guitar. One day he said his bass player was leaving and could i play bass. It sounded like fun so i bought a "66" Fender Jazz bass and the brand new KUSTOM - 2/15' bass amp. I was in. We practiced and played for a while. Paul and i both graduated in 1967 from WBC . What to do now. Was it going to be music or computers.

 We decided to give music a try. The bands lineup changed and finally it ended up as a 4 piece group with P.Jones on drums, D.Cunningham on harmonica/vocals, A.Kuzens on bass and J.Mesi on guitar. With Jim as our guitarist the band was set to ROCK. Yes, rock. We were a rock band when we first started out. A blues based rock band. This was the actual beginning of Brown Sugar, the seed was planted. It was the summer of 67 and things were happening in San Francisco. It drifted up to Portland and soon there was a hippie community growing here. Music was blowing up in PO and soon there were bands forming everyday it seemed. Bands like, Nazz are blues band, the 1st real blues band in Portland. The US Cadenza, The Portland Zoo, Sound Vendor, The Tweedy Bros, PH PHactor Jug Band and many more i can't remember.

We played concerts mostly at places like the Crystal Ballroom, The Pythian and D-Street. We were young and wild and played that way. But before long, Paul decided to go into the service. What do we do now. I knew that Paul had a younger brother named Lloyd and that he was a great drummer. Lloyd joined the band and we continued to play around Portland. Soon, the singer, Dennis decided to quit and then Jim got a chance to go to California and record with a band named Wrinkle. All of a sudden there was no more band.                                 

It was 1968 and summer just started. What to do, i thought. I called Lloyd and talked him into coming to my house and jam. Just the 2 of us, bass and drums for hours on end. Finally Lloyd suggested that we look for some guitarists to jam with. After giving every guitar player we could find a try out. We just could'nt find that player who wanted to jam for hours. I knew of only one guitar player who fit our style of playing and he was in California. This prompted the famous LA trip. Three of us drove a 56 Buick to LA, with the intention of talking Jim into coming back to Portland to form a killer band with him. We made it to LA and found Jim. I explained to him what Lloyd and i were up to. He was fed up with the LA hype and said he wanted to come back and play music with us. The core of the band was now formed.