Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

S = Standifer
B = Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

S We're talking to Mr. Clarence Gatemouth Brown from Bogalusa, Louisiana. One of my offices is in Bogalusa. We're talking with Mr. Clarence Gatemouth Brown on July 25, 1984. Mr. Brown, we're going to ask you some questions that anybody can read, but this is just to sort of orientate the people who come to see this. When the tape is finally put into the archives, etc. Can you tell us where you were born, where you are currently living, and where you were raised?
B All right. I was born right on the border of Louisiana on April 18, 1924 in a little place they call Vinton, Louisiana. When I was about a week old, my Mom and Dad moved to Orange, Texas and I was raised right there, about 11 miles.

S All right. Now, this was in 1924 that you were born? So this is pretty near your birthday.
B Just passed. April 18th.

S It was April the 18th. Well, congratulations and hope you have 60 more like this.
B I will.

S Now, you left Texas pretty young, then.
B Yes. I left Texas for the first time when I was about 15 or 16, or something around there with an old road show called "Leo Brown's _____", and I stayed away until I got drafted in the Army the first of 46. Yes, the first of 46, cause I stayed in the service for 5 months and 10 days.

S Why did you only stay for 5 months and 10 days.
B Because that wasn't going to fly for me, man. I don't like imprisonment, plus I didn't do nobody ____, why should I kill anybody?

S So, were you called a conscientious objector?
B No. I didn't do that. I just was honest with the CO and I said, "there's gotta be more than this in life for me." I stayed here everyday for the 5 months because of being depressed. So, he was a very fine man, he discharged me and said I didn't belong there. I belonged in the outside world, where I could spread my music.

S Now, this was in 1946?
B Yes.

S So you did have an opportunity to perform music while you were in the Army?
B Yes. A little bit. It wasn't much, but to keep from doing things I wasn't happy with, I played in -- we were trying to form a little Army band.

S Was it difficult for you to get out of the Army?
B Well, at the time, I felt 5 months was 10 years. But, you think about it, 5 months and 10 days is no time at all.

S Well, let's back up a little when you were a child. I understand that you took some of your earliest lessons from your father.
B That's my first lesson.

S Oh, this was your first lesson on a guitar, or was it drums?
B Guitar. I didn't know what a set of drums was until I got up around 12 or 14 years old.

S Well, I assume your father was somewhat of a musician himself.
B A very, very fine musician. He plays instruments that I don't play -- accordion.

S Oh, I see. Why did he start you on a guitar? Was there any particular reason?
B He didn't. He didn't start me. I started myself, because I was the elderly son and I wanted to be like my Dad.

S I see.
B Musically.

S Did he start these lessons while you were in Texas or after you
B It wasn't lessons. On the weekend they didn't have night clubs that I can remember. On weekends, everyone had a big house, somebody particularly Saturday night, would move all the furniture out of the front room and then there was dance space. In the one corner you have the guitars, banjos, mallets, and wash boards and whatever else they would have. My daddy was the "wild" influence with the State of Louisiana. He was from a place they call Kazeusgo, Mississippi. He met my mom in Opelousas, Louisiana when she was around 15 and married her. When I came along and they moved to Texas, and that's where my mom has been ever since. My dad died in 1954.

S Were there any more children besides yourself?
B Oh, yes. Another brother of mine who died in 1971 from alcoholism, James Brown. He was a fine guitar player and blues singer. And, of course, I've got a brother named Wilson next to me. He doesn't play anything. I've tried to teach him bass, but he is more of a handy man. He's a fix-it person.

S Where does he live now?
B And Bobby is a very fine vocalist and a drummer but, unfortunately, he married into a family that didn't want him to be in music, and he completely lost interest in music.

S And both of these brothers are in Louisiana?
B Oh, no, no, no. They live in Texas.

S In Texas.
B Orange, Texas and Beaumont, Texas.

S All right now. Let's place Orange, Texas and, well we know Beaumont, too, but for the people who are looking at this, both of these are really pretty much border towns, bordering on Louisiana, are they not?
B That's true. Well, there are three towns. What they call the golden triangle. Orange is at the tip of the angel east. Port Arthur is southwest. And Beaumont is west. So that makes a triangle. That's why they call it the golden triangle. Those three cities in that whole area is coastal. That's the coast.

S Now, while those three to Port Arthur probably is the one that is most well known for its clubs and so forth, like, do you know Blue Cheese?
B I knew Blue Cheese personally. Yes.

S Oh, I see.
B I knew him personally. He was a huge fellow, he had Blue Cheese Paradise. When I was very young, that's the first place I played and he was such a big man I said, "God, Almighty!" But he had a fine club.

S Is Blue Cheese still opened?
B Oh, no, no. That place is gone and Blue Cheese has been dead a long time.

S What, did they have another club down there that's equivalent?
B I don't have the slightest idea. I haven't been to Port Arthur in years.

S I see. Now, the family was originally from Houston, were they not?
B I don't have no idea.

S Okay.
B I knew him because I was living in Houston at the time and I had just begun to grow in my popularity in 1947 and 1948. Don Robey(?) who I worked for 17 years, was booking me all over Texas at that time when I first got started and Port Arthur was one of my stomping grounds -- Port Arthur, Beaumont, Dallas, Ft. Worth.

S Let's backup a little now, before we get to Robey because he's an important landmark in your career. What happened between say, what was your first professional job? How old were you?
B My first professional job I was 22.

S Okay. And what was this professional job and where did it occur?
B Houston, Texas at the Brown's Peacock was owned by Don Robey, except run by Evelyn Johnson. She's still there.

S How much were you paid for that first job?
B Beg your pardon?

S How much were you paid for that job?
B I wasn't paid anything for the first job because the first job because the first job come by _____ to the whole world.

S How's that?
B T-Bone Walker was the star at the club and about 1800 Negroes as I know them in the club, because that's the way it was then. The Negroes had their club and the Whites had their club, etc., and I'm just breaking out of the chute and, of course, I had to break out with my people. T-Bone Walker was up there and he had the people just screaming and hollering, women falling out, knocking down the walls, tearing down chandeliers, and I said, "God Almighty", what is this guy doing to these people," you know, to myself. I knew of him. I saw him in San Antonio before that and he was doing the same thing and I said, I was trying to figure out what could make one do that. And I started putting my ideas together and I said, "now, the bass." Because I had never played the blues outright because my first music was country, Cajun, and blue grass, okay?

S Boy, now that's a combination.
B Yes, it is. So, that's what my dad played. And he ____ first something I can't do, ___ ___. I never could do it. So, what I did is T-Bone got sick with some kind of stomach ailment and jumped off the bandstand and laid his guitar down and ran to the dressing room which was about 10 feet away and _____ or somebody went in there to see what was wrong with him. And I'm sitting beside the bandstand, the bandstand was like a big stage or something. The bandstand in the back and way out the length of the floor about 5500 feet, and that was the dance floor, off the bandstand. And I went up there and picked up his guitar and for no reason on earth I started a tune in E-natural, that's the only key I knew, and I invented a tune right on the spot. And I'd like to quote some of the words. It was called "Gatemouth Boogie". I said, "My name is Gatemouth Brown, I just got in your town." And I repeated that and said, "If you don't like my style, I will not hang around." And I made $600.00 in 15 minutes and I was broke.

S Did T-Bone Walker have a chance to hear any of that?
B Yes, he surely did. He came back up and took his guitar away from me and he said, "Look, as long as you live and breath don't you ever pick on my guitar again." I said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Bone. I don't know what made me do it." I made money that I barely needed right then.

S I read that after he left, though, you took over his -- you took that gig for...
B No, no. What happened was that Don Robey, with all his commotion, saw all these women giving me all this money and men as well and he couldn't understand it. He ran up there and pulled me to his office and said, "well, I didn't know you could play guitar that well." He had me under a contract the next morning and about $1100 worth of uniforms and a $750 gift certificate to buy a guitar, and on an airplane flying to California to Eddie Messner to record my first gold record.

S Okay. Now, this is kind of good because this put us in the Hollywood years that -- that was the early 40s. About 46?
B No, 47.

S 47?. Okay. And
B Alladin Label is what it was.

S Right.
B Maxwell Davis was the studio man. That was my first recording by a big orchestra.

S Who was the producer of that record? Do you remember?
B Don Robey.

S Okay. Now, why ...
B Eddie Messner and Don Robey. Eddie Messner was the Jewish fellow that was running this company and Don Robey -- what happened is that I did my first signing of the record. The record went so well, I was the first thing, see, because I was the one that came up with the real swing guitar, and T-Bone was playing only the bouncy blues. But, I took music just a little further and I came up with a style of music that was driving and happy at all times. You see, where people who I've met throughout the world have their own conception about blues. Blues comes in many forms, and what I'm trying to teach everybody is that you don't have to listen to the Mississippi; Chicago dealt the blues to get satisfaction from blues, simply because these blues are formed if you listen to the lyrics very clearly, it tells you to give up life -- period. All these guys are doing is administering their hardship on you. People don't need that. Now, every blues I make, you can listen to my record, I'm telling you to do something with your life rather than giving up life. The tune that won the Grammy Award -- well, the album -- was this tune on it, I wrote this blues to say, "sometimes I feel myself slipping, but I guarantee you I'll never fall. I'll hold my head up high and wade through water, mud and all."

S Well, you know, I noticed many of the -- especially the Texas blues people -- I just talked with Alex Moore up in Dallas is a blues piano player and sing. Kind of a whistling Alex Moore. We had him perform here. And Robert Shaw down in Austin, Texas, they used to call him Fudd. And I noticed in listening to their lyrics they had a tendency to be more optimistic about life as you just said in your blues.
B Sure, Man, listen.

S Do you think this is a characteristic of some Texas male blues singers instead of . . .
B No, no. No, no. No, no. You know, I tell people wherever I go and, honest to God, I go everywhere that's imaginable where most artists can't even go, because I think that it's meant for me to go around and try and help people in a lot of ways with knowledge, if nothing else, some knowledge about music. I can sit and you can put on any album you wish on your stereo and I can sit out here in your back yard and listen to that album, and I can tell you what kind of guy that it is that's doing the album. And you don't have to sing, and if you sing, I can tell it quicker, because your agony will come out in your music, it'll come out in your lyrics, and I think what happened to our Negro culture is that most of them are blaming -- these hard blues people are blaming the rest of the society for their downfall, and I don't think that's quite right.

S But are the lyrics of the blues men doing this, or are you saying that...
B The lyrics of the blues men. And keeping it in the person that will believe in it is some sort of a message. It is a message, but it's the wrong message.

S Now, having the blues singers, especially the blues women and men, though, develop their own reputation by these lyrics and by -- well, for example, you read and you talk to a lot of these blues people, most people think a blues man is a womanizer, he drinks heavily,
B Yes. And he's old and ugly and down and broke and sick. And, you know, I've said this to a many Anglo kids throughout the world. I said, "there's something that you're doing is not really right to yourself. And _____ ask me, "what in the world is it...." And I've talked to many people around the country. I said, in the first place, you as a youngster right now is blaming yourself for what happened to the Negro way before you were ever thought of being born. You've got this deep-seated guilt in your heart now. You listen to the words of the worst blues produces and players on earth, and this is what you say, "what can I do to straighten up what my fore parents or grandparents did." I say to hell with my fore parents and your four parents, because those people were ignorant back in those days, and why be ignorant and feel guilty for stupid things that they did. I mean, that's the way I see life. I mean, you know, sometime the truth don't sit too well with the world, but if I can never be anybody but myself, I'm going to be honest with everybody.

S All right. Now, we were talking a few moments ago about your style and the different styles of other blues players, etc. Why don't we move on to that a little bit more about your Hollywood years where you made your first recording and after that first recording, I read somewhere that you didn't feel that that was a very successful recording. Does that mean that they didn't sell enough copies to meet your expectations?
B No, because I felt like I was young and it was forcing me to record some things I didn't want to record.

S Such as?
B Well, I can't really name the tunes today, because it would incriminate the people who love them.

S But instead of the tunes, what about the style, maybe.
B Well, what I was doing in my mind creating my on style, because the only place I had heard that I felt was doing anything at all, was T-Bone Walker at that time. But, I wanted to take music further than where these people, because I know that these people were going to what I may call and even keel, where you're one, you're all in a lot of cases.

S Well, many people say when you get to a recording studio, very often the producer does want you to do what he thinks will sell. So, for example, you were thinking that, "hey, look, that's not my style. That's not what I want to do." But you went along and recorded those things that they wanted to record, evidently.
B For one reason.

S What was that?
B I was smart enough to know whatever I recorded, if it got out there and once it did good, then, I could have enough clout to do what I wanted to do. That's what I'm doing today.

S I see. Okay. Most performers say, "hey, look, if I can at least get to the place, I'm making enough money to be and to do what I want to do."
B Well, it's not the money, per se. Really. It's not the money. That's the least thing in my mind, money. Did you know that?

S Even when you were struggling and trying to become...
B Yes, but if it took money for me to stay in I would have quit years ago. I'm dedicated to -- I was thinking of something much greater than money. The love of the love of the people that appreciate what I'm doing.

S Yes, but in order to get at that, don't you have to at least say, "look, I want to be heard and in order to be heard you've got to make those recordings and make those performances."
B That's true. That's how I'd get out there. Somebody is going to listen to it if you can get it out there. So, you may put a line in the song you don't like, or you may do a song you don't particularly like. But if you do it, somebody is going to like it and that's going to make them notice you a little bit more.

S So you're saying then you are willing to compromise, though.
B Yes. I'll compromise. If it won't be bent too far out of shape.

S Okay. Sometimes you've been accused even now to be too eclectic, too versatile and doing too many things.
B Yes. I think that held me down for years, but I still believe in it and now today, it's working. I was told by a critic years ago that what I was trying to do for 35 years ahead of his time, and he was correct, because 35 years later, some of the things that he told me were _____.

S Well, do you, I know this is maybe even a dumb question. How would you describe your style? You hear that you are a good R& B Swing man, or are you a mixture of R& B and Cajun music, a mixture of blues, blue grass, and jazz?
B That's wasn't a dumb question. That question has been asked -- if you call that a dumb question, then half of the world is dumb, because they all ask that same question, and this is my answer.

S All right.
B You want me to describe my music?

S Right.
B American music, Texas life.

S All right, now, how would you translate that in terms of rhythm, in terms of chord patterns?
B All right. It's a mixture of all the music. Let's say American music is a mixture of blues, jazz, Cajun, country, blue grass, depending on the tempo or the style. Now, like this tune, "I Wonder", could go country any time.

S So, in excess you are able to take the same tune and maybe play it in a jazz style, in a country style and a Cajun style? Can you do that?
B Sure, I can do it, but what I'm speaking of is, you take some bits of each one of the styles of music and put them together and just keep adding on, just like a puzzle, and you can come up with something that spreads all over, rather than being regional.

S Well, do you think that whatever style you're in that what you do stamps you. If I hear it, then I know that's Clarence Gatemouth Brown. There are some pieces I hear and I can identify that as being you. There are others that I'm -- I say, "hey, look, this is not really Clarence Gatemouth Brown I know, because I'm limited in terms of the number of pieces I've heard you do. So, is that bad?
B No. That's good.

S Do you want to be, though, type cast in a sense so that you are immediately recognized? If I hear an Ella Fitzgerald, I can know that's Ella Fitzgerald.
B I know. But I don't want to be like that, because the reason why she's so easy to identify, you know her style. But no one knows mine.

S What is the strength of that? For you, as a musician.
B Creativity.

S All right. Let's move away from your music for a while and move to your personal life a bit. I don't know how much you want to talk about that, but I do know what we've seen on television and written about is your current wife, Yvonne is it?
B Right.

S Okay. And your daughter Renee, I know more about the name Renee and Yvonne, because people write about them. They must be very interesting people.
B They are.

S How long have you had that family?
B Well, let's say, the family started out in 1976. Then the wife and I with my first big, big overseas trip we went to Northeast Africa, representing America for the State Department.

S Ah, yes. Right.
B That was a beautiful trip.

S How many cities -- what was some of the most memorable places that you visited, especially insofar as you and your wife were concerned, aside from the performances that you did?
B Well, I performed in 11 countries in 6 weeks. So, let's say Boswana I liked. Kenya I liked.

S So these were mostly African audiences? Black African audiences?
B Yes, yes.

S And they were able to appreciate it?
B Oh, did they. There was a little ___ girl who was in Kenya in a big soccer field, and it was about 100,000 people outside, and 200,000 inside and the 100,000 outside were trying to break in the inside. When we started the music, the 200,000 on the inside started running to the bandstand over enthused, and the police came in-between the bandstand -- a whole lot of them, about 300 to 500 cops or whatever it was -- in a big line and when to whipping people with night sticks and that was the worst thing I ever saw in my life. Otherwise, they would have probably run over this stilt bandstand out there and killed us all. There were about 200,000. You see, as soon as they got the original Zulu Tribe to do a 2-hour ceremony for me and then we came on. And my wife was there by my _____ and she had to crawl over on this thing, that was the only thing that saved her. She couldn't have gotten hurt in there, but they would have probably run over that bandstand they had built in the middle of the ____.

S So, this was you and your band?
B Yes.

S How many pieces were in the band at that time?
B I didn't have but 4 besides myself.

S And currently you have how many?
B Right now I've got 6.

S 6. So, at least you're versatile enough to be able to work with a smaller or even a larger organization.
B I could give myself to anything.

S You arrange most of the music you played there as wellŠ
B No. I don't arrange all of it. I arrange a lot of it and every man ___ ___. Like if I got a tune, I'd give every man ___ ___ and every man can write his thoughts to it and I write mine for the guitar or whatever I'm playing, and he's there if he's playing a horn or piano, he writes his own score, so we all. . .

S Can you read music?
B Never read in my life.

S When you arrange, what do you do? Is it mostly
B ____ arrange.

S Okay. So you'll play the different charts. You write a chart.
B That's right.

S And then,
B I've got men that can put it down on paper, because I can't put it on paper.

S Okay.
B ____ I can play it from ___ up here in my head.

S Now, many of the performers, especially blues performers in your age bracket don't read and they found that for the most part if they stay in their milieu or their situation, this is not a disadvantage. Do you find it a disadvantage for the younger people that are coming along? And if so, how?
B Reading books, like?

S Or taking a blues chart and being able to read what's on the paper and then improvise on that. What do you want to tell the young people who are aspiring to be a Clarence Gatemouth Brown?
B Well, my first advise is don't be me. Be their selves. What I advise anybody to do -- you've got to start somewhere musically, but once you get part of your basics down, then start searching for you own identity, meaning, create your own style. It may not sound good to you to start with, but if you stay with it long enough, you can develop one of the finest styles in the world, but it will be yours, because no one can stay you stole it or copied it from somebody else. You invented it. You created it yourself.

S Were you treated fairly by your agents? I talked with Edith Wilson before she died and Little Brother Montgomery and a few others, and they had a common theme that many of their agents, especially when they were young and really making it big, robbed them. Were you ever at a stage in your life where you had agents that took advantage of you?
B Well, I'll tell you what. Any entertainer or musician that hasn't been robbed by an agent, hasn't been a musician. Let me tell you something, and I won't go too far into this. But, I lost $2.5 million from 1947 to 1960s somewhere. But there is one thing for sure. I wrote a song for a certain agent one time looking at him and it all _____. This was some of the lyrics: "You've got money and I don't have a dime, while you're in a hurry, I've got lots of time. You may have more money but you won't be having it long. I'll still be around, buddy, when you're dead and gone." It happened. So, all that I'm saying is that I never worry about what someone is beating me out of, because you can never regain that. Forget it. Think about what you can gain, and if you don't worry about what you've lost and get on what you can gain, you'll be much healthier and you'll have a heck of a chance.

S So you don't believe in looking back, then.
B No, I don't. No, I don't. If I did, I'd be a vegetable like a lot of other people. That's why I say the blues foresee us people list to think about them, that's what these blues do. They tell you how much you've lost in life. Who cares?

S Okay. Let's look aback a little bit. Were you married before your current family?
B Yes. I had two families before this one.

S Did you have children by your first wife?
B Yes, and the second one also. Girls.

S Where are they now?
B Well, I've got a daughter and I talked to her the other night. She called my wife at home and talked to my wife to find out where I was. She's 36 years old. Her name is Ursula Margaret Brown. She and her husband and kids are up in some Midwest -- you see, I don't know, my wife got the address.

S So you still keep in contact with them?
B Oh, yes. Then I've got another little girl, but I don't know where she's at. Her name is Celeste. She should be around 15 or 16. You know, I had kind of -- a musician's life is hard to start with, then it mellows out, now the wife I've got now understands because she's a musician.

S Oh. Okay. That makes a difference. Well, now, I notice you have all girls. No boys.
B Right.

S Now, would your names -- no, the Brown name won't die out then, because you have a brother, right?
B Yes.

S Two brothers
B Yes.

S And they have children?
B Oh, yes.

S Does he have sons?
B My baby brother has a son. Yes.

S Okay. I'm thinking about carrying the dynasty on, I'm very much into that.
B Well, I think my daughter will carry that dynasty on. Renee.

S Does she have, or is she exemplifying musicianship now?
B Yes. She'll get on my bandstand and tells me -- she's 5, you know. She says, "Daddy, now you do one more tune and bring me on." She's a real credit(?). And I did a Nashville sound in Nashville, Tennessee not too long ago. There were about 700-800 people in the studio. This was being filmed. She came up there and sits on a stool and sings the tune, "You Are My Sunshine." And she knows when to come in and knows when to go out. She's got perfect pitch.

S Well, that's beautiful that you're giving her this exposure now so she can become used to being on stage.
B Of course, Renee won't work until my wife comes up there and play piano, because my wife played all the while she was with me.

S Oh, now, she's a pianist, then.
B Oh, a classical pianist and a real good one.

S Oh. Is she originally from -- you met here in?
B New Orleans. She's originally from Baton Rouge. I met her in New Orleans.

S Okay. And has she ever played with you? B Yes sir. All over Russia,

S She was able to play those charts, then? B Oh, in California. Yes, she can sight read, man. I had her to improvise. We've got a tune we'll probably put on this album called "In Father's Memory", one of the most beautiful semi-classics you've ever heard of.

S Has she played on any recordings with you?
B Not yet, but she's going to on this next one.

S Great! Okay.
B I think Renee might be on it because she already told me she was. Laughter

S How many different recording companies have you worked with so far?
B Oh, man, I don't know.

S There was Aladin in
B Aladin, Peacock

S And, of course, the Rio that you're with now. B I'm not on Rio?

S Which one is it?
B Rounder.

S Rounder. That's in Canada.
B No, no. Boston, Mass.

S Distributors in Canada then, I guess.
B One of them, but the office and company is in Boston, Mass. I just left there a few days ago playing concerts.

S Well, straighten this thing with Rio records. Why did Jim BatemanŠ
B Rio Records and Jim Bateman. Jim Bateman owns Rio Records. Jim Bateman is a dear friend of mine, plus we're partners in the music business.

S So, he's a business man.
B Yes. He owns my business. Right.

S I'm going to stop this tape for a minute.

S Now, I notice in about 1970 or 1971 you moved to New Mexico and became a Deputy Sheriff. That's very unusual. Where were you in New Mexico?
B A place called Aztec, between Farmington and the hill drop-off to go to Durango, Colorado. Let me explain that sheriff thing.

S All right. You look like a sheriff sitting right there now, really.
B Well, it's a Texas tradition of a law not to bother anybody, but not to be {airplane close by making lots of noise makes it difficult to understand.} by anybody. Now, I don't do nothing illegal. I don't ever get into trouble. My thing is playing American music all over the world. And I've been honored by the police departments throughout the world in many ways. In France, all over Europe I'm known as the Sheriff, and it's a thing over there. All of France is my adopted home town. S Now, why are doing it as a sheriff. Is it because of your action, your dress, or what?
B I guess the last time I did "Hee Haw" I got to be a sheriff of Davison County, Tennessee.

S In fact, I want to talk about that shortly, but go ahead.
B Roy Clark and I did this Hee Haw show and the next thing I knew is this is what was sent to us.

S Aaah!
B And it's an honor to be able to get these things, you know?

S Right.
B People have to think something of you to give you these things. The next thing is I played at Little Rock, Arkansas not too long ago and the Governor and the Mayor made me what they call an "Arkansas Traveler". They had a big festival called the "Arkansas Traveler".

S Okay. Essentially, what is the Arkansas Traveler?
B I don't know. I haven't even read up on it as yet, but I know there's a guy on a horse. I imagine he was the guy that traveled over Arkansas, that's as close as I can put it. It's a traditional thing. And, of course, in Houston, the Juneteenth -- that's the Negro free day -- they took June the 28th, that's the day I played and made it Clarence Gatemouth Brown Day from now on.

S Oh, I see. So, that's a statewide holiday, then.
B Yes. So, they put their towerŠ.

S Well, I'm glad you mentioned the Juneteenth, because most people who don't live in Texas still don't understand why we Blacks gather and do our thing on Juneteenth.
B Yes, because they found out late that they were all free.

S Right.
B That's exactly right.

S But, that's still a boogie day for us, isn't it?
B That's right. You've never seen so many people gathered in one spot in all your life.

S Well, now, can I call you, or would you say that with the New Mexico experience -- well, how long were you a Deputy Sheriff.
B 4 years. Or longer. When I left, I was still a Sheriff. As long as that sheriff was in the office I was. It didn't bother no one.

S Were you ever involved in any altercations or fights with any gang of people arrested?
B No.

S What motivated you to do that? I mean this is very interesting. I don't know of any other musicians who ____ _____. I mean did you just need the food, the money, or what?
B No. It wasn't money. I don't need that. It's just a Texas and New Mexico tradition. It gives you the sense of the cowboy days, really. Texas Rangers in Texas are some of the most beautifully dressed men you've ever seen in your life. They are.

S Now, do you look a little incongruous, a little not fitting into the Louisiana culture or do the Louisianans dress like that also?
B No.

S I mean, in Texas no one would ever turn their head if they saw you because so many other people look like that, but Š
B Well, since I got to be known pretty good around the country, a lot of the people in Louisiana wear cowboy hats and boots. They do that. But, basically, they don't wear too much of it.

S I see. I'm sure this is another question that everybody asks you, but while you were in New Mexico were you called Gatemouth then also?
B Oh, sure. S When did you get that name?
B When I was about 7 years old.

S Who gave it to you.
B Well, nobody, really. The kids, actually. But it wasn't meant that way and it wasn't said that way when a microphone went out in Chapel that morning when we used to have to go in Chapel and sing these spiritual songs before we would go to class. The PA system went out and when it did, I kept singing over the chorus. I was the lead singer. And when we finished the teacher said "Brown, you don't need no microphone, you've got a voice like a gate." And the kids started saying "Gatemouth" and, man, I got mad a while, but the hotter I got the more they would call me that. So I got stuck with it and just worked with it to my advantage.

S Great. Evidently that's like Little Brother Montgomery I was just talking about.
B You know the old saying, "If you can't be something, you join them."

S Right.
B Okay.

S And you've been able to capitalize on it. B Right.

S That's right. As I say, don't get mad, get even.
B That's right.

S Well let me ask this, about the television, now, I noticed in reading your life you had made more than one television appearance.
B Many. S How did you happen to get with the Hee Haw?
B Well, that was a nice thing.

S I mean, Hee Haw is generally considered to be a country music, country western thing.
B That's right. Well, there aren't but two men that's known out here that's accepted in the country field, and that's Charlie Pride and myself. I mean really accepted.

S Right.
B They've got another fellow out there they tell me, but I haven't heard anything of him so I don't know.

S Have you met Charlie Pride? I've never met him.
B We've never met. We talk to each other by phone.

S Because he is, you're right. I think he is totally accepted by the country western ad the whole thing. But go ahead. Tell me about the Hee Haw.
B Roy and I have been singing for a long time around San Antonio during the early years and I wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing but I suppose he was paying some attention to what I was doing. So his agent signed me up there for a short while and Roy and I made an album together. That was in 1979. Then when my baby was born Roy asked to be my daughter's godfather and that's okay, too. Then, Roy said "I'm going to take you on Hee Haw." Well, he's got a lot of clout, so I said "fine." I'll go over on Hee Haw, me and my wife. My wife is playing on that segment.

S Now where was this being taped at, Nashville?
B In Nashville. That's right. Then, in turn, I was pretty heavy on Austin City Limits. I took Roy on Austin City Limits with me. So you see I got 4 or 5 settlements on Austin City Limits and 3 or 4 segments on Hee Haw.

S Now, is Austin City Limits also taped in Austin?
B In Austin, Texas. Right.

S And how did you happen to get on that?
B They liked me, that's all I can say.

S I mean had they seen your work on another television show, such asŠ
B Well, maybe in the early days. My first TV show was back in 1963, called The Beat out of Nashville, Tennessee. Paul vanAdam(?) was my MC. I had Lou Rawls on it and I broke his record, Etter James, Birdie King. Oh, you can name them. In fact I'm getting a copy of that tape.

S I was about to say are you able to get copies of all these?
B Yes. I'm going to send you one too.

S Great. That'll be good for your library, for your children.
B Oh, it will be.

S So then, the Austin City Limits, what were your functions -- what kind of parts did you have on both of these shows?
B Beg pardon?

S What kind of parts? Did you sing, did you have speaking part, or
B Oh, no. Music, man. Playing music. We're going to send you some tapes.

S Okay.
B I mean playing music. Country music, and a country type jazz.

S Now maybe we'll move a little. With these television appearances, were these the kind that you would get paid a scale, or do you still get royalties from your appearances on any of these if they're re-runs? How did they arrange that?
B Yes. You get sales and then when they re-run them you get paid. Austin City Limits sent me a letter a few months ago saying that they're getting ready to run one of my earlier segments and I'd get paid for that.

S Great. Because so many of the performers that I've talked with, especially if they're over 40, did numerous shows and they simply got scale with the contract that said that they would not be given any other remunerations if they are re-run.
B You don't have to be over 40. You can be under 20 and that'll happen to you if you don't have the right people representing you.

S Oh, I see.
B You see, that's the thing. That's why Jim Bateman's with me. He takes care of all of that. And when he says it's okay to go on and do it, I'll go on and do it.

S You did an excellent job in preparing me for this interview. You sent me beautiful write-ups and some clippings. So it really helped me to prepare because there's not a great deal written about you except paragraphs and jazz encyclopedia, Who's Who in the Blues have something about you and a picture. I don't know, you've probably seen those. It's little snitches here and there.
B I have a copy.

S But this was much more accurate and much more detailed, which I liked.
B I'll tell you what I want you to do.

S Okay.
B I'm going to call and check on my wife. Let her bring you some publicity on me from around the world.

S Well, that's what we need because I'm going to show you some exhibits we're doing at the School of Music probably tomorrow or whenever you want to go and we do exhibits on individual artists and then we invite those artists to perform at the School of Music. They have to perform one night and then during the day they do what we call a workshop type of thing where they talk to the young people. And the young people are very bright so they give them questions, but I think that this is what we want to do with you and then on the last day we usually put them in the studio -- there's a very sophisticated television studio here and we'll have you either talk -- an open talk show type of experience here with that. But before we do that we want to make this exhibit. So during this whole 2 or 3 days you're here we want to send them to the archives and see things about your life and so forth. And I'll show you an example of that.
B You know you mentioned archives, that's what my wife is setting up for me.

S Yes. That's what I want to ask you. Is she saving all these things, the letters and honors?
B If you want to know anything about photos, you see my wife is my personal photographer also.

S I saw this on the recording that you did which is excellent, so she's quite a pro.
B If you want to know anything about my career just ask her -- from 1976 to now.

S Well that's good because unfortunately we've got a lot of people who don't keep those things. B Oh, man. We don't throw away history.

S Right.
B We're setting up our own archives.

S Where are you, right there in Bogalusa?
B No, no. New Orleans.

S New Orleans?
B You see, we own that big home in New Orleans and go on our fishing camp out in Slidell.

S Tell me about this. I think we ought to put something on tape about this. You were talking on the phone about an hour or so ago with your wife telling her to fix up this camp so it will look like a house? What did you mean and about the deck out on the bayou or the water?
B Well, you know, it's still over the water anyway.

S Okay.
B And there's not enough room. You see, a lady likes a lot of room in her home.

S That's why we have this addition on my home.
B Right. I see why you have this addition. And what we're going to do is extend the house like from back here, there's water all under the house. We're going to make a deck out just like you have here. A deck out _____ way is the bayou. It will be right on top of the bayou.

S Oh, I see. B Then bringing the house so I can put glass all the way across the back because across in the back there's nothing but swamp. Alligators, and just a beautiful all nature. In the front, of course, there's traffic. We don't care about that.

S Right.
B But when you sit on our deck in the back or you could look out the glass and see nothing but this beautiful thing and the sunset is awesome.

S And you mentioned something else which I thought was incredible. You all should have been architects. About the boat coming under the deck.
B Yes. We can put our boat under the deck.

S And that's sort of your docking area.
B Yes. That's where my boat is now. Of course I've got it out of the water, but the boat you saw on NBC is my boat.

S Yeah. I saw you were getting inŠ
B Yes, man, that's my boat.

S I see. I heard you tell her, though, that you're going to buy a bigger one.
B Yes. We want a bigger one.

S So the both of you can really get in there and sleep and do whatever you want.
B I have a smaller boat.

S That was a pretty good sized boat that I saw. What is it about a 32-footer?
B 28-footer.

S 28? Okay. And she drives the boat pretty well herself? She's pretty good at it.
B Yes, she can handle her. She doesn't handle that big one. She can handle the small one. I told her I will buy her a small run-about so she can go up into the marsh and everywhere. Wherever there's water.

S I see. Well, before I close this, I must have the people watching this look at what I think is the most incredible thing and it's these boots.
B [laughs]

S Just in case they don't know, they have a sign that is so -- you can't tell it as much on this tape here but they're so highly shined it just makes my eyes almost get blurry.
B Well, the secret is those are paten leather boots.

S Paten leather, ahh. So you don't have to continually put a spaz shine on them.
B But I've got boots that are leather like sea turtle, ostrich, and stuff like that.

S Now I notice the heals, are those really Texas heels?
B Yes. These are called walking heels.

S Okay. So it's not that kind you go out into the barn and pick theŠ
B No, no. They've got a rod in the heel and it's kind of crooked to hold it on to the stirrup.
B Now you also have some pattern on the top on front, don't you?

S Yes.
B That's just a design.

S A design. Yeah. But you do have some with different skin you say.
B Oh yeah. Sea turtle, ostrich. I've got some alligator. I only brought 3 pair with me. I've got a whole bunch of those.

S Yeah, you mentioned one other thing and you can say as much or as little about this that in terms of your vices or whatever you want to call them you don't smoke -- well, you smoke but you don't drink and the fact that the strongest thing you seem to drink is maybe a little coffee, but you also have a favorite drink, which was lemon and what?
B Lemon and water and sugar. That's it.

S I want to remember this because next time
B It has lots of Vitamin C.

S And maybe that's what keeps you looking so young, because I still don't believe you're 60 years old.
B No, I'm going to tell you what keeps you young.

S Tell me, please. I want to know.
B Everybody living with the one you love will keep you young.

S That'll keep you young? Well, I don't know.
B Living with the one you love will keep you young.

S And loving the one you love, I guess, or that loves youŠ.
B Always together. Living with the one you love. Evidently you love one another otherwise you wouldn't live together.

S What about the work, though. Now you have a life that's not so easy in terms of movement. Does that take a lot out of you?
B No. It puts a lot in me.

S Ahhh, because you enjoy what you do, huh?
B I know what I'm doing. I love the people that love what I'm doing. I love to teach people what I consider the right way in music -- non vulgar, non filth, none not understanding, you know I'm getting down the nitty-gritty, this old stuff, "hey, man, what ___ ____." Man, I don't know, he's just playing. You know, you learn nothing. It's like going to school. You sit up in a class room all day and get up in the evening and you're asked, "what did you learn today?" "I don't know."

S Mr. Brown, you said something very important that impressed me and I haven't forgotten it about respect. Could you share just a little about your -- we want to end this -- but I'm not going to end it until you tell me a little bit more about how you get respect and your philosophy about anybody getting it, especially blues singers, when you say sometimes don't always have respect.
B Well, number one, I inform people that I'm not a blues singer. Number two, I respect myself. Number three, I demand respect from others. That way you can't go wrong.

S Okay.
B I've had several youngsters walk up and get bent all out of shape because he had a drink too many, and I say "now, you know your first mistake is what I say to you, you're drinking and it made you ignorant. Because a man drinking, everything he says is going to be ignorant. And he's saying he's right, and he's wrong as two left shoes, and I'll stop him before he gets started. I've embarrassed them so bad they didn't know whether to move or stand still.

S Give us that example you gave with this young boy and happened to walk up to you and call you something and you corrected him right quick.
B No, he walked up and said, "hey, ole man, what ya havin?" I looked at him and I said, "what's your name." "I'm so and so." I said "what's my name?" "Ole man." I said, "Look, in the first place did I approach you like that?" I said, "I think that was very disrespectful. Your culture should have you with the best manners on earth because it was all handed down to you. I got mine the hard way," I said, "but you don't even know how to introduce yourself."

S I think with a comment like that, I would like to say, it's been a delight listening to you. I obviously have taped more than I intended to because I'm enjoying this. This is not very professional but I'm enjoying this a great deal, because you have so many good words of wisdom and I've learned a lot about you. Reading about you was interesting, but I think hearing you talk makes reading about you almost pale in comparison. Thank you.
B Well, say I want to say something before the wheel stops turning. I go all over the place -- Russia, Africa, Europe, Japan, you name it -- and I've noticed a lot of the blues singer bares his soul. People disrespect them so bad, and I had to figure out why and it's because they disrespect their selves. And any man who disrespects himself should be ready to be disrespected. First, I would not put myself in that position. Because if a person is ignorant, I'll find a way to get away from him right quick. He has nothing in common with me because he's a lost soul, because he's not going to listen to anything you say anyway. And we have to have these kinds of people on earth I suppose. It's a hard thing to say. I was telling my wife just two people that are going to be on earth. She said, "What?" The peasant and the stronger. It means that somebody has got to be stronger and the stronger is not going to do anything and the peasant is going to have to do it all. So we've got to have it.

S You said something yesterday to your wife. You knew I was listening to all of this. You said something about there are 3 things, honey, that I tell my people.
B I tell my people wherever I go clear over the world, I guarantee 3 things. They say, "what?" Especially the promoter. The best show I ever gave in my life, are you, no rain could wash us out, and a ____ _____.

S Great. I like that.
B I can't guarantee anymore than that.

S I think that's terrific.
B I played in places man it was storming all day. I say, man, look, stop crying. I will shut off the faucet when it's time. We need this moisture. You could not survive if it wouldn't rain. Now don't get mad at the rain. Welcome it. It knows when to stop. Sure enough, that night it was dry and packed house. And people really can't understand it. Don't ask me now, I'm not really like this.

S It happens, though.
B It's a good guess for me every day.

S Again, thank you very much, and this is the first interview I've done in the back yard of the Standifers and I think that this should be somewhat unique.
B Well, I think you have a beautiful back yard and I'm glad for you. You and your family sharing this and enjoying it. That's all I've got to say.

END OF INTERVIEW