Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown – Blackjack

Though hardly an unknown, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown has rarely been the beneficiary of the kind of elder-statesman adulation that has attended the waning years of John Lee Hooker. True, Brown’s never had a hit the size of “Boogie Chillun”, but more importantly, he’s been too country for blues.

Born in 1924 in Vinton, Louisiana, Brown was raised in Orange, Texas, by a multi-instrumentalist father. Briefly a drummer in San Antonio, he mastered the guitar and fiddle traditions of both Texas and Louisiana, but first came to prominence as a blues player.

As the story goes, one night in 1947 T-Bone Walker laid his guitar down onstage at the Golden Peacock in Houston, and young Gatemouth took up the ax, played for 15 minutes, made a lifelong enemy and collected $600 in tips. In 1979 he recorded Makin’ Music with Roy Clark; in 1996 he was given one of those all-star guitar fetes by Verve with Long Way Home, dueting with Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton and many others. The lesson remains: Old or young, famous or not, don’t get in a cutting contest with Gatemouth.

From 1949-60, Brown recorded — with a 23-piece orchestra, initially — for Houston’s Aladdin and Peacock labels (some of which has been digitally reissued). One early ’80s bio insists he spent part of the ’60s in Nashville, leading the house band for a syndicated R&B show called “The Beat” and cutting a handful of country singles. (In an interview, he was evasive about those years, but those singles sure would be a treasure.) Subsequently he moved to New Mexico, where he was supposedly in law enforcement (the badge I saw was a Louisiana honorific, and he was pretty unspecific about those days as well), and largely gave up on a recording career.

Which brings us to Blackjack, his glorious 1977 comeback. Originally released on the Music Is Medicine label, Blackjack remains one of Brown’s finest modern recordings. Supported by an able (if largely unknown) cast, Blackjack has the effortless, graceful feel of music made by a master for the simple pleasures of the moment.

Gatemouth swings — and that is very much the right word, for this is closer to western swing than to blues, but cousin to both — from guitar to fiddle to harmonica. He also sings, and though his is a warm, effective voice, Brown’s fingers have always sung more eloquently.

From the horn flourishes that open “Here Am I” to the vaguely Cajun fiddle of “When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again” to the hot licks of “Pressure Cooker”, this is a masterful summation of three decades and several regions of musical history. It is also a uniquely American record.

There is only one Gatemouth Brown, and his special genius has been to capture, expand upon, and make unalterably his own some of the strongest musical currents of this century. Of course, he’d probably have made more money if he’d stuck with the blues, but his remains one of the richest troves of music awaiting exploration.