Results tagged “clarencegatemouthbrown”

Houstonist just discovered, courtesy of the Houston Blues Society, The Houston Press and the Beaumont Enterprise, Gatemouth's grave in the Hollywood Cemetery in Orange, Texas is without a headstone, three years after his death. Brown, born in Vinton, Louisiana, was raised in Orange and got his music career going in 1945, when he began playing drums professionally in San Antonio. He became famous in Houston at Don Robey's Bronze Peacock in 1947, when T-Bone Walker took ill and he wowed the crowd on guitar and vocals with "Gatemouth Boogie". In the 1960's, he moved to Nashville and befriended another legendary picker, Roy Clark and made several appearances on Hee Haw. In the 1970's, after a brief stint as a deputy sheriff in New Mexico, he toured Europe and participated in tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department, as an official music ambassador, in Eastern Africa. He toured extensively to the end, hitting such countries as New Zealand, Austrailia, Africa and the Soviet Union. Brown was honored by the Rythm and Blues Society in 1997 and inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999. A multi-instrumentalist, Brown played guitar, fiddle, mandolin, viola, harmonica and drums. Frank Zappa claimed Brown his favorite all-time guitarist and his "trademark" guitar was a mid-60's model 'non-reverse' Gibson Firebird, with a custom embossed-leather cover embellished with a rose and "Gatemouth", among other designs. He is rumored to be one of the first guitarists to use a capo in his technique. Brown suffered from emphysema and heart disease and had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004. His death resulted from an ill-advised departure from the hospital in Port Arthur following an angioplasty procedure, he was 81 at the time of his death. To remedy this situation, please make a donation to honor a local music legend and Grammy winner (1982) with a marker befitting him, here's how: