Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Did You Know?

• Brown's father was a railroad worker and local musician who taught him several instruments, including fiddle by age five.
• He had at least one brother.
• Brown was raised near Orange, Texas.

Career

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown started playing guitar at ten and later played drums in swing bands as a teen. After serving in World War II, he began his professional music career in 1945, drumming in San Antonio, Texas. A high school teacher gave him the nickname "Gatemouth," comparing his voice to a gate. His big break came in 1947 at a T-Bone Walker concert in Don Robey's Bronze Peacock nightclub in Houston.

When Walker fell ill, Brown grabbed his guitar, quickly wrote "Gatemouth Boogie," and played it to a thrilled crowd. In 1949, Robey started Peacock Records to highlight Brown's guitar skills. That same year, Brown's single "Mary Is Fine" with "My Time Is Expensive" became a hit. His Peacock releases in the 1950s sold less but broke new musical ground, especially the 1954 instrumental "Okie Dokie Stomp," where Brown plays a nonstop solo over a sharp horn section.

Other instrumentals from that time include "Boogie Uproar" and "Gate Walks to Board." Cornell Dupree later recorded "Okie Dokie Stomp" in the 1970s and found commercial success with it. Brown's last Peacock record, "Just Before Dawn," came out in 1959, with Robey's permission to feature his gutsy violin playing. In the 1960s, Brown moved to Nashville for a syndicated R&B TV show and cut several country singles.

He became friends with Roy Clark and appeared on Hee Haw multiple times. In 1966, he served as musical director for the house band on the short-lived TV show The !!!! Beat. Later that decade, he worked as a deputy sheriff in New Mexico.

Personal life

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown experienced three marriages that all ended in divorce. He had four children: three daughters named Ursula Brown, Celeste Biles, and Renée Brown, as well as a son named Dwayne Brown. A pipe smoker, Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2004. Already suffering from emphysema and heart disease, he chose with his doctors not to undergo treatment.

His Slidell, Louisiana, home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, though he had already evacuated to Orange, Texas, his childhood hometown, where he stayed with his brother before the storm. He passed away on September 10, 2005, at age 81, in the apartment of a grandniece in Orange. Brown is interred at Hollywood Cemetery in Orange. Hurricane Ike’s flooding in September 2008 damaged his grave, which has since been repaired and given a headstone paid for by his estate. The Texas Historical Commission placed a marker honoring him next to the cemetery’s flagpole.

Musical style and influences

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was a blues musician who actively resisted musical purism, blending traditional blues with country, jazz, Cajun music, and rhythm and blues. He was highly skilled on the guitar, mandolin, viola, violin, harmonica, and drums. Brown is considered a key figure in blues fiddle and deeply influenced American fiddle traditions. His own playing was shaped by Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker, and Count Basie. In turn, his electric guitar style left its mark on blues and rock guitarists such as Guitar Slim, Albert Collins, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Frank Zappa also noted Brown, along with Guitar Slim and Watson, as a major influence on his own guitar work in his autobiography.