IOWA CITY - Tony Brown was still in junior high when a group of University of Northern Iowa students approached the Waterloo youngster about joining their Motown cover band, IBTC.

"They had seen me around, and they wanted to add more soul," explained Brown, now 56. "I'd been playing music since I was 5, so I thought, why not."

It was a choice the artist has had little reason to regret. From 1967 to 1970, Brown and the other members of the band toured the state, opening for some of the era's biggest names, including Herman's Hermits, Shadows of Knight, The Association and Harpers Bizarre. Being part of the IBTC, which will be inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame next month, boosted the singer-songwriter's confidence in his abilities, said Brown.

It also prompted him to develop the social and political awareness that would guide his future endeavors.

Life onstage was good. Members of the interracial band would perform choreographed renditions of hits by James Brown, the Temptations and the Four Tops. Bathed in the stage lights, Brown would croon into the mike and wink at pretty girls.

But after the show, things got complicated. Interactions between the group's black performers and the women in the audience were carefully monitored by the white men on site. Many times, the band left their gigs via police escort. Some club managers even asked the group not to tell their black friends about IBTC performances, fearing violence would break out in an integrated crowd.

"I didn't get over the anger for years," said Brown, who now lives in Iowa City. "I was very angered at the whole injustice and the depravity of it."

By the time IBTC disbanded in 1970, Brown had decided to fight injustice with his art.

"There's power in words," he said. "And when combined with music, it transcends all cultural, racial (and) ethnic barriers."

World traveler

Nursing a pint of Blue Moon on The Mill's patio in downtown Iowa City last week, Brown looked long removed from the straight soul singer persona cultivated in his youth. Dressed in loose-fitting slacks and a beach shirt, the musician exchanged playful barbs with the bar's other patrons. A green, red and yellow Rasta hat sat on his head, concealing a mass of gray-flecked dreadlocks.

IBTC was just the beginning, explained Brown. Since then, the guitarist has experimented with rock, reggae, blues, folk, country, jazz, Latin, rap, R&B and funk.

"I think of it as adding spices to food," said Brown, who has written more than 225 songs. "Whatever works, I go with it."

After leaving IBTC, Brown recorded roughly 20 records - some as a solo artist, others as a member of a band. The artist's diverse musical interests allowed him to perform with acts as varied as Bob Marley, Ray Charles and The Police. Stints living in Europe, Belize and Jamaica broadened the musician's world view and widened his audience.

But no matter the genre, Brown's message remained the same.

"There's too much hatred in this world and not enough love," he said, shaking his head. "Too much hatred."

Breaking barriers

Brown remembers leaving IBTC eager to sing more political songs. Band leader Lee Rainey says he thinks the group made its own statements about racial equality.

"You usually had your all-white bands, or your all-black bands," said Rainey, who now is president of a business consulting firm in Minneapolis. "… We were unique for the time, but that reflected on what was happening on (the UNI) campus. Students were making a statement, saying that diversity was a good thing."

IBTC's popularity also may have helped dispel racist sentiment among some Cedar Valley youth, added one of Brown's older sisters, Redonna Parker, of Waterloo.

"Anybody who was at UNI or high school at the time, they remember that band," she said. "Black or white, they were the group to go see."

Brown was raised in a musical household. His grandfather George William VanArsdale, a former leader of the Waterloo's African-American Elks Lodge, created a competition drum and bugle corps for the city's black teens. His mother was a self-taught musician who played piano, organ, ukulele, guitar and juke harp.

Still, Parker believes Brown's musical inclinations took off in the '60s.

"You listen to the music back then - black music and white music - and it had a message," she said. "Even with Marvin Gaye and Three Dog Night you hear about race and love and hatred."

Today, Brown is still writing songs about those topics.

"I think the power of music has been abused for the sake of vanity rather than progress," he said. "If the angels could be visible and sing, they would be singing about hope, revolution and more love in the world."

Contact Mary Stegmeir at (319) 291-1482 or mary.stegmeir@wcfcourier.com.