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Bobby Brown knows what people expect from him, and it's nothing good. With a rap sheet longer than his discography, Brown knows how the public perceives him.
Now the Boston-born singer turned bad boy turned reality TV star is back on the road as a solo artist. Rekindling his career with a three-city tour ending tomorrow night at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, Brown has a hunch why he doesn't have more gigs lined up.
"Everyone wanted to see whether I was going to show up or not, whether I was going to be Bobby," Brown said by phone from his bus yesterday. "(Thursday) night (in Atlantic City), they saw I will show up and I will be Bobby and I'll put my heart and soul into it. Hopefully, there will be more dates booked and we'll make a big tour out of this."
Brown's career has been on a downslide since his glory years when he scored nine Top 10 hits from 1988 to 1992, not coincidentally the year he married Whitney Houston. Since then, the former teenaged New Edition star has become better known for getting into trouble than getting on the charts, with arrests on charges ranging from drug possession to battery.
To the surprise of many, he bounced back this year with a hit reality TV show, Bravo's "Being Bobby Brown," which revealed him as a well-meaning, if eccentric family man with an even more eccentric wife.
He didn't do the show, he says, to put a shine on his tarnished image.
"It wasn't even that deep. It was like, 'Yo, I have child support. I need money,'" he said.
But the show turned out to be an unexpected form of therapy for Brown and his family.
"We get to look at ourselves and see what's wrong with ourselves, within ourselves," Brown said. "We're able to critique each other without an argument."
His reality TV experience, Brown says, didn't just help stabilize his family life. It encouraged him to get back into the recording studio. He already has completed an as-yet untitled album - his first since 1997. Tomorrow night's show may include previews of his material, and it will certainly include "My Prerogitive" and other hits from his solo years, along with covers of Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway songs.
After his hiatus from the musical spotlight, Brown says he's enjoying being back on stage. Each show is an accomplishment, proof that he's still capable of commanding an audience.
"I aim for the best and try to give the crowd every penny for their tickets," Brown said. "I sweat and bleed for them and that's the good part about being me. I love performing. That's my life."
Is "being Bobby Brown" easier when he's performing?
"If I could be onstage everyday," Brown said, "I'd have no need for a therapist."
BostonHearld.com
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