re: Greatest Blues Guitarist of All Time?

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Sugar71 - for his early 50's stuff that he did on the Telecaster, check out The Original Peacock Recordings.

Atomic Energy and Pressure Cooker are great as well.

Blackjack and The Man feature a mix of the different styles that he played. Mixes in a bunch of fiddle.

And Gate's on the Heat is an interesting collaboration between Brown and Canned Heat.

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I just checked out the Peacock recordings on Amazon along with another that sounds interesting to me(Standing His Ground) along with the Cdawg suggestions. I purchased Pressure Cooker years ago & was impressed & intended to buy more ,but slowed down on collecting at one time & just never got beyond that one album.


Besides "Take the A Train" I see he also covers "C-Jam" Blues on another album. Brown must have been a big Duke Ellington fan? Anyone who's into Ellington, Monk or Mingus is okay with me & deserves a further listen.



The story about his 'Deputies badge" in Canada reminds me of the time a young man on the run & accused of murder turned himself into Gatemouth . I can't find the story ,but the guy was on the run & his Mother used to work for/date(?) Gatemouth Brown & he respected /trusted him & turned himself into Gatemouth at his home in Slidell.

I know you are familiar the story(?) I remember it vaguely. So don't be surprised he bosses some Canadian Border Cops & crosses the border with marijuana. . Cops & criminals respect the Gate.

Thanks for the musical suggestions & hopefully another Gatemouth story or 2.

Gatemouth's biggest influences (besides his own father) were Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Jordan, and Charlie Parker. In his early recordings, there is clearly an impact from T-Bone Walker, though Gatemouth would never admit it. T-Bone was a bit of a drunk and I think he treated Gate bad when he was first getting started.

I vaguely recall a story that you said. Can't say for sure though.

Another story is that in 1999 or thereabouts, Gate drove to the Waffle House near I-12 in Slidell late one night. Some drunk rednecky 20-somethings began snickering and making fun of Gate because Gate was black and dressed in western wear. They got in an argument and Gate pistol-whipped one of them right there in the Waffle House. He was in his mid/late 70's then.

A cool story Gate used to tell a lot was, when he was first starting out, Gate used to dress in zoot suits and tuxedos. He would dance around on stage and do splits and stuff and generally cut up on stage during his shows. So he was doing a show in Detroit in the early 50's. Duke Ellington was in the audience, so Gate acted up more than usual to try to impress Duke. After the show, Duke pulled him to the side and told him that he was talented enough that he didn't have to act like a clown on stage. That's when he started just standing on stage letting his musicianship do the talking pretty much for the rest of his career.

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Fontainebleau Dr.

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I ordered the Peacock recordings today from amazon( & may order Standing my ground ).

I never knew he didn't like the T-Bone comparisons(although I was aware he didn't like the "Bluesman" title much) & he does mention T-Bone being nasty to him when he played Bones guitar while he was on intermission at a club. But Gate tore the house down with T-Bones guitar & the rest is history.

There is also video(YouTube) of a gracious B.B. King inviting Walker onstage to play "Sweet Sixteen" & Walker seems almost uninterested. The moment the very last note is played Walker snatched the plug from the amp & couldn't get off the stage fast enough. Maybe Walker wasn't very friendly or gracious to younger players whom he thought himself superior or he was moody because of alcoholism or just misunderstood. B.B. King always speaks fondly of him & calls Walker his idol.

Thanks for the great stories & it shows the respect Duke Ellington commanded by transforming Gates career with one sentence. Anyone else telling Gate that & I doubt if he would have accepted the criticism so graciously.Ellington was so respected that Mingus & others even have fond memories of
being fired by him.

The Zoot Suits & 'conked' hair is a long way from the Cowboy look in later life, but that was fairly common for musicians then.

If those young kids didn't know who Gate was before the pistol whipping I am quite sure they learned quickly.

Gatemouth sounds like a real character.

You've read that story about Gate and T-Bone. Cool.

Sometime around 1946, Gate went to a T-Bone Walker show at the Bronze Peacock in Houston, owned by the infamous producer Don Robey. Midway through the show Walker got sick and had to leave the stage. Gate had never played guitar publicly before (he had been a drummer up to that point), and he walked up on stage and grabbed T-Bone's guitar and played what later became "Gatemouth Boogie." He was swarmed with tips from those in attendance and Robey basically signed him on the spot. Gatemouth Brown became the charter artist of Robey's Peacock Records, and Gate would forever feel ambiguous about Robey for the remainder of his life. Don Robey gave him the opportunity to play music for a living, yet Robey took a lot of songwriting credits that would keep Gate from attaining the sort of wealth that he deserved.