Clarence Gatemouth Brown

1924–2005

Musician

Clarence Gatemouth Brown bucked musical traditions and stereotypes for nearly 60 years. Playing guitar, fiddle, drums, harmonica, viola, and mandolin, and accompanied by everything from small ensembles to large multi-piece bands, Brown recorded 30 albums that defied neat genre labels. He blended rhythm and blues, big band swing, Cajun, jazz, rock 'n' roll, and country, among other styles into what he called his music. As Brown often put it: "My music is American music—Texas style."

"I'm so unorthodox, a lot of people can't handle it," Brown said in a 2001 interview according to an Associated Press story published on CBS News. Despite the variety in his music, Brown was often slotted into categories by reviewers, much to his frustration. Blues became the dominant label. Brown conceded that his early music did lean heavily on the blues. "I had to sound like that because I was just starting out," he explained in an interview with Guitar Player magazine that was quoted in the New York Times. "Seeing as how I was a newcomer, I obliged. But after a while, I thought, 'Why do I have to be one of these old cryin' and moanin' guitar players always talking bad about women?' So I just stopped." To create his original sound Brown once said: "I start with the harmonies of people crying together, and I put happiness in it," according to the Beaumont Enterprise. Musical critics had a hard time knowing how to categorize such unique music and many continued to label him a bluesman. Brown figured that "Folks call me a bluesman because I'm black and because I play guitar," according to Houston Chronicle reporter Andrew Dansby. Brown wasn't just labeled a bluesman; he was honored as one. He won the first Grammy awarded for traditional blues, was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, won the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award, and collected numerous W.C. Handy Awards, which honor blues musicians. Although he was also labeled as a big band and a country musician, among other things, the blues label especially vexed Brown because he disliked the negativity in blues music. When reviewers did try to describe the breadth in Brown's music, however, they offered sweeping praise. For example, Rockzillaworld magazine reviewer Danté Dominick wrote "if we needed one person who lives and breathes all things American music and can present it in all its varied glory, Clarence Gatemouth Brown is that person."

Grew Up Listening to Good Musicians

Clarence Brown was born on April 18, 1924, in Vinton, Louisiana, and was raised in Orange, Texas. The Brown family had at least three sons, but few documents include much detail about Brown's early life. His father worked on the railroad, and on the weekends he played fiddle and banjo, and sang in Cajun bands at house parties. Brown felt inspired by his father's talent and would later count his father as the person who most influenced his music. By the time he was five, Brown had begun strumming along on a guitar with his father's band. "If I can make my guitar sound like his fiddle, then I know I've got it right," the Associated Press noted Brown remembering. As he taught himself to play instruments, Brown also sang. He had a distinctive voice: in high school he earned the nickname "Gatemouth" because his deep baritone voice sounded like a gate to one high school instructor. As youths Brown and two of his brothers, Bobby and James, played street concerts using their dad's advice: "Tune your instrument, don't overplay and play some of everything so you don't get stuck in one bag," as the Washington Post quoted Brown explaining. That advice would serve Brown his entire career.

At age 16, Brown began his musical journey, leaving home to play the Chitlin' Circuit of black music venues concentrated in the southern and eastern United States. Brown spent 1945 in the U.S. Army, during which time he played the drums in various bands. After an honorable discharge, Brown moved to Houston, Texas, and began searching for ways to make money playing music. He was a drummer in such bands as Howard Spencer and his Gay Swingers and W.M. Benbo and his Brown Skin Models.

Stood in for T. Bone Walker to Start Career

His big break came in 1947 at the Bronze Peacock in Houston. When an upset stomach forced T. Bone Walker to leave the stage during a session, Brown stepped to center stage and slung Walker's guitar over his shoulder. Then, as he described it to Neal Spitzer of National Public Radio, he "invented a tune." "Words were coming out of nowhere" as he improvised what came to be known as the "Gatemouth Boogie." Legend has it that Brown made $600 in tips during those fifteen minutes on stage. Club owner Don Robey was so impressed that he immediately offered to manage Brown's career. Brown accepted and Robey created the Peacock label to promote and record his newly signed artist.

Brown toured with a 23-piece big band in clubs throughout the Gulf Coast for the next decade and recorded on the Peacock label. This early music, while grounded in the blues, was described by the New York Times as "a hair's breadth away from rock 'n' roll." Brown's guitar playing distinguished his music most. He played with an unusual finger-picking style by dragging his fingers over the strings, creating intricate riffs over driving percussive beats and horn accompaniments. John Nova Lomax wrote in the Houston Press that "Gate's hornlike guitar solos were raising the game for everybody. And then there was his funky fiddle ramble 'Just Before Dawn'—one of the happiest little instrumentals you'll ever hear." His inventiveness became the backbone for the developing Texas blues sound after World War II, influencing the likes of later guitar playing greats Albert Collins and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Brown's guitar solos during this decade would mark a turning point in blues music. His "Okie Dokie Stomp," recorded in 1954 for Peacock, became "a benchmark for Mr. Brown, and for Texas blues," according to the New York Times. But Brown's influence was among musicians more than listeners; of his dozens of recordings during the late 1940s and 1950s, only his double-sided 1949 "Mary Is Fine"/"My Time Is Expensive" record reached into the R&B Top Ten.

At a Glance …

Born on April 18, 1924, in Vinton, LA; died on September 10, 2005, in Orange, TX; married Geraldine Paris Brown (divorced); married Mary Durbin Brown (divorced); married Yvonne Ramsey Brown (divorced); children: DeWayne; Ursula; Celeste; Renee. Military service: Army, 1945.

Career: Musician, 1940s–2005; Howard Spencer and his Gay Swingers and W.M. Benbo and his Brown Skin Models, drummer, 1940s; Peacock label recording artist, 1949–1960s; The!!!!Beat television show, house band, 1969; U.S. State Department, American music ambassador, 1970s; Gate's Express, band founder, 1971–2005.

Selected awards: Grammy Award, 1982, for Best Traditional Blues Album; Rhythm & Blues Foundation, Pioneer Award, 1997; Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, inductee, 1999; Blues Foundation, W.C. Handy Award, eight-time winner.

Brown left the Peacock label by the early 1960s. He moved briefly in Nashville. Despite enjoying a country hit in 1965 with "May The Bird of Paradise Flew Up Your Nose" and leading the house band in 1966 for the Bill "Hoss" Allen hosted syndicated R&B television program, The!!!!Beat, Brown had a hard time finding his niche in the music industry during this time. He did find his style though: cowboy boots and hat, and embroidered Western shirts made up his unique look. In addition Brown had an ever-present small pipe, either clenched in his teeth or tucked into a special on-stage holder when he sang. Brown knew his look surprised people, and doing so amused him. "What's the matter? Ain't you never seen a cowboy before?" Brown proclaimed, according to the Washington Post.

After finding odd jobs in Colorado and New Mexico, including serving briefly as a sheriff's deputy—his badge and holstered pistol would later add to the aura of his cowboy costume—Brown found more success with his music. In the 1970s, Brown toured Europe, where he landed a recording deal and developed a strong fan base. Brown composed a song called "Gate's Express," and he liked the name so well that he assembled a band under the same name in 1971. Brown became an ambassador of American music for the U.S. State Department and toured Europe, East Africa, and the Soviet Union with Gate's Express during the 1970s. His return to popularity in the U.S. music market was helped by guest appearances on the popular television shows Hee Haw and Austin City Limits, as well as a collaboration with country star Roy Clark on a 1979 country-and-blues album entitled Makin' Music, including tunes they co-wrote as well as covers of such songs as Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train" and Fleecie Moore's "Caldonia."

Efforts Awarded

Popular as well as critical acclaim soon followed. Brown's 1982 album Alright Again! won the first Grammy Award to honor a "traditional blues album." Alright Again! included a big band sound reminiscent of his earliest recordings. Brown bridled at being labeled a bluesman again, but did not confine himself because of it, pumping out new music that fused different styles. The music industry took notice. Brown earned Grammy nominations in 1983, 1986, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1996, for albums ranging from One More Mile, a blend of Cajun, country, western, swing, and jazz; to The Man, featuring an eight-piece horn section; to Long Way Home, a blues-heavy album with guest musicians Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Amos Garrett, Sonny Landreth, John D. Loudermilk, Maria Muldaur, and Leon Russell. By 1999 Brown created American Music—Texas Style, as a compilation of "his" music. The career encompassing sounds on American Music—Texas Style did not signal Brown's desire to sum up his career and retire however.

Though at an age well past when most people retire, and suffering from a heart condition and emphysema, Brown kept a steady schedule of concerts, booking between 100 and 300 each year. He also kept smoking, calling his pipe his "security blanket," to Spitzer. When diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004, Brown still refused to give up smoking or his music. Foregoing medical treatment, he decided to rely on his music, his optimism, and the support of his fans to sustain him. His 2004 High Tone album, Timeless, would be his last; called "an album of a lifetime" by Rolling Stone and a "timeless mix" by National Public Radio, it didn't sound like the work of a musician with much still to offer. In the Washington Post Brown commented about his plans to feature more of his fiddle playing on his next album, and he continued to tour, toting his oxygen with him on stage but singing as if he didn't need it. Brown's last appearance in front of a big crowd came on April 28, 2005, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He hadn't planned it as a farewell, however. He had continued to play at numerous smaller venues before Hurricane Katrina forced him to evacuate his home on the bayou in Slidell, Louisiana, in August 2005.

Brown left his home on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, on August 28, 2005, the weekend Hurricane Katrina washed over his home, destroying it and his beloved instruments and memorabilia from his career. News of his ruined home devastated Brown, who had taken refuge at his brother's house in Orange, Texas. Less than two weeks later, he had to be hospitalized in Port Arthur, Texas. Though advised to remain in the hospital after undergoing an angioplasty, Brown insisted on returning to Orange, where he died on September 10, 2005. To the end he remained true to his firmly held belief that, as quoted by the Washington Post, "Music is the best medicine in the world, man." What Brown knew was that "I could create something beautiful that would build love within the people who came out to hear it." He surely did.

Selected discography

Albums

Makin' Music, One Way Records, 1979.
Alright Again!, Rounder, 1981.
One More Mile, Rounder, 1982.
Pressure Cooker, Alligator, 1985.
Standing My Ground, Alligator, 1989.
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown: The Original Peacock Recordings, Rounder, 1992.
No Looking Back, Alligator, 1992.
The Man, Verve, 1994.
Long Way Home, Verve, 1995.
Gate Swings, Verve, 1997.
Okie Dokie Stomp, Rounder, 1999.
American Music—Texas Style, Blue Thumb, 1999.
Back to Bogalusa, Blue Thumb, 2001.
Timeless, HighTone, 2004.

Sources

Periodicals

Beaumont Enterprise (TX), September 18, 2005, p. A1.

Downbeat, October 1, 1984, p. 57.

Guitar Player, June 1997, p. 139.

Houston Chronicle, September 13, 2005, p. 1; September 18, 2005, p. 2.

Houston Press, September 29, 2005.

New York Times, September 12, 2005, p. 19.

Rolling Stone, October 6, 2005, p. 34.

USA Today, November 29, 2004.

Washington Post, November 19, 2004, p. T6; September 12, 2005, p. B5.

On-line

"Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown," Rockzillaworld Magazine, www.rockzilla.net/rockzilla/dante11.html (September 19, 2006).

"'Gatemouth' Brown Dead at 81," CBS News, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/11/entertainment/main833988.shtml (September 19, 2006).

Other

"'Gatemouth' Brown's Blues Voice Goes Quiet," All Things Considered, National Public Radio, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4843179 (September 19, 2006).

"'Gatemouth' Brown Plays Through Cancer, Years," interview by Nick Spitzer, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, June 22, 2005, available online at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4714586 (September 19, 2006).