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items: Clarence Gatemouth Brown-- passed away after escaping Katrina
items: Re: Clarence Gatemouth Brown-- passed away after escaping Katrina

Clarence Gatemouth Brown-- passed away after escaping Katrina
type: item
description: I think some space should be devoted here to the passing of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Gate, at age 81, was suffering from cancer for some time. He escaped from hurricane Katrina only to die on Sunday a week later. Some say he died of a broken heart because he lost his home. I heard the news Sunday but not until I had on the local blues show broadcast by my friend M. Flynn that I started to think about Gate again. There's lots of material committed to cd by CGMB. I saw him live here about 10 years ago. When I did radio, we played his album with Roy Clark on numerous occassions. Gate's obituary and wiki are readily available on the net as well as many records and cds with Gate playing five instruments plus vocals with groups and big bands. He was the only black man on Hee Haw and not just with Buck Owens in the musical numbers. Gate would be seen in the cornfield for the one liners as well. This, for me is somehow significant. I remember wondering what this guy was doing on a whitebread show like Hee Haw but there he was. In performance Gate dressed high Texas style meaning ten gallon hat, points on the shirts and western boots. A brief spot I saw about him on ABC news as a human interest feature showed him in Texas. So I was a bit surprised to hear he had passed after escaping the hurricane in New Orleans. Blues is an old form and M. Flynn gives the news of those bluesmen who have passed just about every week. But Gate transcended jazz, blues and pop. He plays mandolin, guitar, violin, harmonica (I think) and maybe others. One of the most affecting parts of the one live performance I attended was a version of "La Mare" as a slide presentation on guitar with dobro. There's a lot that I'm leaving out. See if you can find some CGMB music-- especially a title with Roy Clark called "Makin' Music". That album has the best 'Take The A Train" you'll ever find. For a long time I thought that Brian Setzer was the only band leader who played guitar and did vocals with a big b…
creator: lon
date: 2005-09-14T04:49:34-00:00

Re: Clarence Gatemouth Brown-- passed away after escaping Katrina
type: item
description: Sounds like an interesting musician. I'll have to check him out. Sorry to say I hadn't heard of him, sorry to hear he passed away too.
creator: Wayne Parham
date: 2005-09-14T05:57:06-00:00

Re: Clarence Gatemouth Brown-- passed away after escaping Katrina
type: item
description: I saw Clarence numerous times, lastly back last year along with Dan HIcks. He was a talented guy; more of a multi-genre approach than Blues although he did many blues styled tunes. His band was tight and he kept a nice energy level up for the whole hour. If I had to pin it down I'd say he was a one man minstrel show of southern folk/rythym and blues/New Orleans funk( man it is weird writing that now.) I never thought a lot of his skill on guitar, he was redundant in my view; but his entertaining abiity was first rate.
creator: Manualblock
date: 2005-09-14T11:24:08-00:00