J.W. Brown

Did You Know?

• When Brown learned of his 13-year-old daughter Myra Gale's secret marriage to Jerry Lee Lewis, he grabbed his pistol and drove to Sun Studios intending to kill Lewis.
• Brown and his wife Lois were both 16 when they married on 24 September 1943, and they remained married for 78 years until Brown's death.

Early life

J.W. Brown, the third of four children, grew up in Winnsboro, Louisiana, after being born in Mangham. He learned bass guitar as a child and played with his family’s band, the Mississippi Hotshots, which had a regular live show on WMIS radio in Natchez, Mississippi. During World War II, Brown first worked on a seismograph crew in the Gulf of Mexico oil fields. He was turned down by the US Army because of flat feet and by the US Navy due to a heart murmur, so he took a job as a linesman back in Winnsboro. On September 24, 1943, when both were 16, he married Lois Clois Neal in Winnsboro. The couple had two children: Myra Gale in 1944 and Robby Jay, called Rusty, in 1954.

Musical career

J.W. Brown first encountered Jerry Lee Lewis when Lewis was very young, but they didn't cross paths again until 1955, when Brown went to Natchez to catch Lewis's set at a local club. Brown floated the idea of forming a band, but nothing came of it until he was laid up with an injury from his job as a telephone wire repairman in Memphis. During his recovery, he visited Lewis again and finally talked him into starting a group. Lewis moved into Brown's Memphis home, where he met Brown's twelve-year-old daughter, Myra Gale.

Not long after, Sun Records signed Lewis. After Lewis's debut single "Crazy Arms" came out, he and Brown returned to Sun Studios to cut the follow-up, "It'll Be Me." During that session, Brown suggested they record "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," a staple of Lewis's live shows, as the B-side. Once that single was released, Lewis and his band performed the song on the July 28, 1957, episode of the Steve Allen Show.

That night, Brown made history as the first person to play an electric bass guitar—a Fender Precision—on television. Brown also appeared in the films Jamboree and High School Confidential. On December 12, 1957, Jerry Lee and Myra Gale, then thirteen, married secretly in Hernando, Mississippi. When Brown found out three days later, he grabbed his pistol and drove to Sun Studios with the intent to kill Lewis.

Lois called the studio and alerted Sam Phillips, who rushed Lewis into a car and drove him to the airport, putting him on the next flight to Alabama. Brown and Lewis next met on December 26, 1957, during a concert at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, where Lewis accidentally hit Brown in the head with a poorly thrown shoe during "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." Brown left Lewis's backing band in 1959 but returned now and then for recording sessions and tours.

Their final performance together took place in May 2010 in Cherokee, North Carolina. Brown kept performing as a solo act, opening for Bill Monroe and playing in the house band for the Memphis Holiday Inns and the El Capitan Club. In 1962, under the name Jay Brown, he released "So Long, I'm Gone" with "I'll Keep On Loving You" on Briar International, earning a five-star review from the Nashville Music Review. In 1966, he put out "That's How Much," written and produced by Roland Janes, backed by "Don't Push Me Around," on Atco Records.