http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=201180>1=6952
Musician Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown Dies
Sep 11, 10:51 AM EST
The Associated Press
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, the singer and guitarist who built a
50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died
Saturday in his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape
Hurricane Katrina. He was 81.
Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill
health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent.
Cady said the musician was with his family at his brother's house when
he died. Brown's home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New
Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, Cady said.
"He was completely devastated," Cady said. "I'm sure he was
heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated
successfully before the hurricane hit, but I'm sure it weighed heavily
on his soul."
Although his career first took off in the 1940s with blues hits "Okie
Dokie Stomp" and "Ain't That Dandy," Brown bristled when he was
labeled a bluesman.
In the second half of his career, he became known as a musical
jack-of-all-trades who played a half-dozen instruments and culled from
jazz, country, Texas blues, and the zydeco and Cajun music of his
native Louisiana.
By the end of his career, Brown had more than 30 recordings and won a
Grammy award in 1982.
"I'm so unorthodox, a lot of people can't handle it," Brown said in a
2001 interview.
Brown's versatility came partly from a childhood spent in the musical
mishmash of southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. He was born
in Vinton, La., and grew up in Orange, Texas.
Brown often said he learned to love music from his father, a railroad
worker who sang and played fiddle in a Cajun band. Brown, who was
dismissive of most of his contemporary blues players, named his father
as his greatest musical influence.
"If I can make my guitar sound like his fiddle, then I know I've got
it right," Brown said.
Cady said Brown was quick-witted, "what some would call a 'codger.'"
Brown started playing fiddle by age 5.
At 10, he taught himself an odd guitar picking style he used all his
life, dragging his long, bony fingers over the strings.
In his teens, Brown toured as a drummer with swing bands and was
nicknamed "Gatemouth" for his deep voice. After a brief stint in the
Army, he returned in 1945 to Texas, where he was inspired by blues
guitarist T-Bone Walker.
Brown's career took off in 1947 when Walker became ill and had to
leave the stage at a Houston nightclub. The club owner invited Brown
to sing, but Brown grabbed Walker's guitar and thrilled the crowd by
tearing through "Gatemouth Boogie" — a song he claimed to have made up
on the spot.
He made dozens of recordings in the 1940s and '50s, including many
regional hits — "Okie Dokie Stomp," "Boogie Rambler," and "Dirty Work
at the Crossroads."
But he became frustrated by the limitations of the blues and began
carving a new career by recording albums that featured jazz and
country songs mixed in with the blues numbers.
"He is one of the most underrated guitarists, musicians and arrangers
I've ever met, an absolute prodigy," said Colin Walters, who is
working on Brown's biography. "He is truly one of the most gifted
musicians out there.
"He never wanted to be called a bluesman, but I used to tell him that
though he may not like the blues, he does the blues better than
anyone," added Walters. "He inherited the legacy of great bluesmen
like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, but he took what they did and
made it better."
Brown — who performed in cowboy boots, cowboy hat and Western-style
shirts — lived in Nashville in the early 1960s, hosting an R&B
television show and recording country singles.
In 1979, he and country guitarist Roy Clark recorded "Makin' Music,"
an album that included blues and country songs and a cover of the
Billy Strayhorn-Duke Ellington classic "Take the A-Train."
Brown recorded with Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and others,
but he took a dim view of most musicians — and blues guitarists in
particular. He called B.B. King one-dimensional. He dismissed his
famous Texas blues contemporaries Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland
as clones of T-Bone Walker, whom many consider the father of modern
Texas blues.
"All those guys always tried to sound like T-Bone," Brown said.
Survivors include three daughters and a son.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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