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Mel
Brown 1939 - 2009
If you didn’t read about Mel Brown’s life and his prolific list of accomplishments, you’d certainly never hear it from him. Mel Brown, who passed on the same date he was to have opened for pal, Mavis Staples, for her March 20th Kitchener appearance, was the epitome of Speak Softly and Carry A Big Stick. He did both.
Mel was magic and only a precious few got inside his seemingly crusty exterior to know the man inside – yet he was loved, and appreciated, by thousands of fans, fellow players and music aficionados alike. For those of us in Southern Ontario, the blessing began in the winter of 1989, when Mel, arriving in Kitchener for a headlining gig at the late Pop-The-Gator Club, decided he quite enjoyed the laidback, Canadian way. He and his beloved Miss Angel settled down – somewhat uncharacteristically – for the next nineteen years, enjoying his relative anonymity while taking life on at the pace that mattered most to the two of them.
Mel had once said he preferred the life of a sideman, as the job came with less headaches than being the top bill. Such was the benefit of his partnership with Miss Angel and such was his preferred relationship with the music business. However, talents like Mel’s were always in demand and he was literally dragged from his preferred perch on the sidelines on many occasions. Andrew Galloway, long an arbiter of blues sophistication, brought Mel out of self-imposed retirement first as a sideman on Snooky Pryor’s Electro-Fi debut, Can’t Stop Blowin’, and next as a headliner with Mel’s Electro-Fi debut, Neck Bones & Caviar. The secret was out – cemented by winning a W.C. Handy Award for “Blues Comeback Album of the Year”. And the rest is local history as Mel and his Homewreckers spread the gospel to Canadians who didn’t know there was more to Mel than his old-school charm, his warm tone, his gentle handshake and the collection of notes from his guitar, piano and B3 playing that knew no rivals.
Yet there was another Mel Brown that the rest of us had yet to catch up with.
Mel Brown’s contribution to the music business is more legacy than mere résumé. Mel’s talents, from the early age of 15, caught the ears of a mind-boggling Who’s Who of blues and R&B giants who, enlisting Mel’s skills in building their own careers, forever set his course as a player’s player and a real one-of-a-kind deal. Bed-ridden with meningitis as a child, Mel invested the time to study his idols – BB King and T-Bone Walker, using the guitar given him by his guitar-playing father (John Henry “Bubba” Brown, who backed Tommy Johnson on a part-time basis) at age14.
Regaining his health, Mel signed on with the Duke Juniors – a hybrid of the popular Duke Huddleston Orchestra – and news of his chops spread like wildfire, Sonny Boy Williamson being the first to enlist his services. Side trips between L.A. and Jackson earned him gigs backing Jimmy Beasley, Johnny Otis, the Olympics and the great Etta James. Club residencies and lucrative session work gave Mel the chance to rub shoulders with everyone from Bobby Darin, Doris Day and Bill Cosby to Sam Cooke, Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Billy Preston. Mel’s Big Stick of choice moved from his Gibson Les Paul to the hollow-bodied Gibson ES-175, giving him a full sounding, mellow tone that quickly distinguished him from other players. But it was more than tone that encouraged T-Bone Walker to invite Mel to play on his 1969 “Funky Town”. And Mel so impressed the not easily impressed producer Bob Thiele, that Impulse wrote Mel his own deal, releasing his cult instrumental record, Chicken Fat to enthusiastic response. Mel was airborne and, while releasing a total of 11 records of his own, he earned further acclaim from a decade-long stint with Bobby “Blue” Bland while moonlighting on sessions with John Lee Hooker, Lightning Hopkins, Earl Hooker, Charles Brown and BB, himself (“L.A. Midnight”). Little wonder Mel retreated from the music industry, moving with Miss Angel to rural Mississippi in the hopes of getting away from it all. It didn’t dissuade Clifford Antone, however, who tracked him down to quarterback his Club’s now famous house band, where Mel supported everyone from Buddy Guy and Junior Wells to Stevie Ray Vaughan, James Cotton and Clifton Chenier. Asked by Albert Collins to become an Icebreaker, Mel was there to record “Cold Snap” – possibly a precursor to falling in love with Canada in December. Touring his ’89 release If it’s All Night, It’s All Right brought him to Kitchener while on leave from Antone’s – and the rest is Canadian history.
Could ‘our Mel Brown’ – this soft-spoken, smooth-strolling, old-school charmer be that Mel Brown? One listen to the magic in Mel’s fingers provides the answer. Yet Mel Brown was hardly noticed – until he started to play, and that’s the way he liked it. Canada afforded Mel the space to move freely and do as he pleased – to play when he felt like it and retreat with Miss Angel whenever he could. Entirely devoid of self-possession or the ego that success can spawn could explain why Mel and Miss Angel were so enthusiastically embraced and loved by an entire community and the Canada they grew to know. In 2004, Mel was honoured with the Maple Blues “Blues With A Feeling” Award for Lifetime Achievement and the secret was out again. And Mel embraced his community back. The many people touched by his music are only rivaled, as the stories drift in, by the many kindnesses he quietly did for fans and musicians alike. We’ll all miss Mel terribly but there’s little reason to shed a tear – for our Mel Brown lived his life to the absolute fullest and, through his actions and kindnesses – and the love he invested into his life’s work – he set an example that will inspire the rest of us for many years to come.
– Eric Thom
The Toronto Blues Society has set up an account to help support the estate of blues legend Mel Brown who passed away on Friday, March 20th. Donations can deposit directly at any TD Canada Trust Bank to the Mel Brown Memorial Trust, Account 1952-6290076. Cheques payable to "Mel Brown Memorial Trust" can also be mailed the Toronto Blues Society.
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