Being a weeklie podcaste from Madison, Wisconsin featuring several remarkable curiosities therein occurring being a compendium of live music from divers artistes
Show #104: "Gatemouth" Brown
January 29th, 2007
When I saw Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown several years ago at the Madison Civic Center, it was as part of a package tour which included other musicians. Hailing from Louisiana, Brown’s music was a gumbo of blues, Cajun, Zydeco, R&B, a little country, and whatever else he felt like throwing into the pot. He moved back and forth from guitar to fiddle with ease. The sound there was awful and I found myself wishing that I could have seen Brown in a smaller venue, such as The Crystal Corner. His heady mix of American folk styles was just out of place in a large, ornate theatre where folks couldn’t two-step.
(Photo found here.)
Brown died in September 2005. It is said that, although he had cancer, he really died from a broken heart after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home as well as New Orleans. (This reminds me: I Tivo’d New Orleans Music in Exile but have yet to watch it. Has anyone seen it?) While I heard about his death when it happened, I didn’t have any shows of his at the time. This week’s performance is one that I grabbed within the last several days and was part of a 3-CD set that someone had seeded with lots of music from The Big Easy in tribute to days gone by. The concert here was recorded on 8 February 1980 at Tipitina’s in New Orleans. It was part of a tribute to Professor Longhair (my Fess show can be found here.) and was broadcast on the radio by WTUL-FM. Brown was backed on this occasion by The Blues Scholars. I don’t have a setlist but it opens with “Big Chief”, a Fess classic.
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Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown
(Photo found here.)
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