Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown died in his hometown Orange, Texas yesterday, where he had been evacuated after Katrina destroyed his home in Slidell, Louisiana. (Brown was suffering from lung cancer.)
Brown refused the “bluesman” moniker and preferred to be known as someone who played “American music” (the kind of music The Blasters sang about). The Gate played blues, jazz, Texas Swing, Cajun, country, Zydeco, whatever. And he could do it on just about any instrument. I saw him play numerous times and at one concert in Albany, NY he played guitar, bass, keyboards, and his beloved fiddle (I think he even did some drumming). Brown was a consistent winner of the “Living Blues” award for the category “Best Instrumentalist (Other)” for his fiddle playing.
He was an ageless performer whose career started in the 1940s with his signature “Okie Dokie Stomp.”
I will never forget when I took my then 5 or 6 year-old daughter to see Brown play at “The Egg” in Albany, NY. Rachel sat in the aisle down near the stage in what is very intimate venue. Gatemouth sang to her during the first set and while he was mingling with the crowd during the intermission gave Rachel an autographed picture…I’m sure she was the only 6 year-old white girl in the world with a photo of Gatemouth on her bedroom wall (beside her photo of Albany bluesman Ernie Williams)…
Check out is his Alligator Records album, Standing My Ground (super album with the great song “What Am I Living For?”).
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