While Mick Jagger is still strutting his stuff at 61 and Bob Dylan at 63, these pop icons kicked off their musical careers when as mere adolescents. High school garage bands abound. Youth and music seem to go hand in hand.

So local singer-songwriter Fran Brown, ever the rebel when it comes to music, thought that 47 was a good age to start playing solo, picking up her guitar with the idea to “just do it”. Two years later, she has released a 6-song EP, has a Web site (www.francescabrown.com) and, if all goes as planned, will unleash her first full-length album at the end of the month.

“ I had to realize you’re not going to hit it big; you’re not going to be famous,” Brown said. “It took a lot of work to get to that place. (Now) I’m doing what I love to do, and it makes the rest of life easier.

“I’m a success because I did it”.

But even though Brown chose middle age to begin solo gigging, she’s been performing all her life.

“I was in a talent show when I was three and I sang ‘My Funny Valentine,’” Brown said. “I started crying when I had to stop singing. I was a diva even back then.”

When it came time to learn to play an instrument, Brown chose the self-taught route.

“I was busted in grade school for not reading music,” Brown said. “I was taking piano and I was just learning by ear. So they kicked me out. I was like, ‘Screw that noise’ the mathematics of music didn’t make sense to me.”

Although Brown picked up the guitar when she was 15, she approached Don Moore at the White House of Music with the intention of taking guitar lessons through the “Weekend Warriors” program in 2002. Moore quickly discovered Brown didn’t need the lessons, and their time together soon turned into arrangement sessions, with Moore helping Brown put her words into a song friendly format.

“Working with Moore, I learned that songs have parts and structure. He validated me as a singer-songwriter. I couldn’t have gotten this far without him”.

Moore is arranging and producing Brown’s forthcoming album, creating a more varied sound that is pushing Brown in new directions.

“Brown’s history is primarily as a folk writer and singer,” Moore said. “But I really think she has only been labeled as folk because she mostly played solo, guitar and vocals. She develops her music without a lot of pretense; it’s just based on what she wants to do not what it’s supposed to sound like.”

As Brown treads new waters with drums, and even a mandolin, backing her up, she remains an acoustic performer for now.

“Live performance to me is the ultimate form of expression because it’s transient, it’s momentary, it’s now,” Brown said. “It’s the audience that helps make it happen. Part of the high is to pull strangers in, to hook them, to have their adoration. It’s the ulimate compliment if there are people there”.

The Freeman Friday Night Live has given Brown a chance to experience the rush of an audience – she performed twice last summer and already twice this summer. She plays again Friday on the Five Points Stage.

“Last time I was playing, people were driving by and honking and waving,” Brown said. “One of the local coffee shops brought me coffee – do they even know how much we love that? I love being supported as a local musician.

“It’s great that Waukesha has this; it allows the community to be part of something. And if it helps the merchants, everybody wins.”