[Harp-L] Subject: Re: RollingStone.com obit of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Just read this on a Music Site email I receive.  It was dated  9/13.
Elizabeth:
 
"                   ** MUSIC NEWS  **   

Musician Gatemouth Brown Dies   

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown,  perhaps the most versatile of   
all blues-based musicians, died  Saturday at age eighty-one   
of complications from lung cancer and  heart disease. A long-   
time resident of Slidell, Louisiana, just  outside New   
Orleans, the Blues Foundation Hall of Famer recently  lost   
his home to Hurricane Katrina and had been preparing  to   
relocate to Austin.   

A  multi-instrumentalist who played fiddle, mandolin, viola,   
drums,  piano and harmonica in addition to guitar, Brown was   
a master of  many genres: big-band blues, bop, country, Cajun,   
even calypso  -- what he called "American Music, Texas Style."   
A youthful  disciple of T-Bone Walker, Brown's own ferocious,   
exceedingly  confident style would inspire a wide cross-   
section of  followers, from Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland   
to Stevie Ray  Vaughn and Frank Zappa. "I'm so unorthodox,"   
he once said, "a  lot of people can't handle it."   

Brown was born April 18,  1924, in Vinton, Louisiana, and   
raised from infancy in Orange,  Texas. He learned to play   
fiddle and guitar through his father,  a railroad man and   
moonlighting musician who specialized in  country and Cajun   
music. Brown earned his nickname in high  school when a   
teacher accused him of having a "voice like a  gate"; a   
brother, James "Widemouth" Brown, later had a brief  record-   
ing career of his own. Brown played drums in a touring  band   
before joining the Army. After the service, he found  work   
as a guitar player in San Antonio and was soon brought  to   
Houston by the nightclub owner Don Robey. As blues  legend   
has it, Brown made $600 in tips in one night in 1947  at   
Robey's club, the Peacock, while filling in for an  ailing   
Walker.   

Robey took the young prodigy  to Los Angeles, where they cut   
two unsuccessful singles for the  Aladdin label. When Robey   
formed his own label, Peacock, Brown  became a mainstay,   
cracking the R&B chart with the 1949  release "Mary Is Fine"/   
"My Time Is Expensive." Brown's  subsequent recordings for   
Peacock, where he remained until the  early 1960s, ranged   
from jump blues ("Hurry Back Good News") and  big-band rock   
& roll ("Depression Blues") to hard-swinging  instrumentals   
("Boogie Uproar").   

Two  longstanding centerpieces of Brown's set were his unique   
take on  Duke Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train" and his own   
original  instrumental, "Okie Dokie Stomp." "That's a master-   
piece,"  Brown said of the latter. "That's what all guitar   
players go to  bed dreaming about."   

During the 1960s and '70s, Brown  furthered his explorations   
into jazz, country and Cajun music,  recording at one point   
in Nashville for Chess Records. He became  a familiar face of   
the blues on television, serving in 1966 as  the leader of   
the house band for the groundbreaking syndicated  R&B program   
The !!!! Beat, which featured the legendary  Texas DJ Bill   
"Hoss" Allen. A decade later he made several  appearances on   
Hee Haw, joining Roy Clark, with whom he recorded  a well-   
received 1978 album for MCA, Makin' Music.    

During his long career, Brown was awarded several W.C. Handy    
honors as an instrumentalist, and he was a recipient of the    
Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Pioneer Award and NARAS' Heroes    
Award. In 1982 he won a Grammy for Alright Again!, a Rounder    
recording that featured covers of songs by T-Bone Walker and    
Albert Collins. A stint with Alligator Records yielded a duet    
with Michelle Shocked in 1992, and Verve paired Brown with a    
procession of admirers, including Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder    
and Leon Russell, for the 1996 duets album A Long Way Home.    
Brown's last album, Timeless, was released a year ago on the    
Hightone label.   

JAMES SULLIVAN   
for  RollingStone.com    

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