Mel Brown (October 7, 1939 – March 20, 2009) was an American-born blues guitarist and singer.[1] He is best remembered for his decade-long backing of Bobby Bland,[1] although in his own right Brown recorded over a dozen albums between 1967 and 2006.
Career
Brown was born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, and was presented with his first guitar as a teenager while recovering from a bout of meningitis. By 1955, after performing backing duties for both Sonny Boy Williamson II and Jimmy Beasley, Brown had a two year long stint backing Johnny Otis. This led to work with Etta James, where he swapped his Gibson Les Paul for an ES-175 to give him a richer and fuller tone to his guitar work, that set him apart from his contemporaries.[1]
One of Brown's most celebrated tracks is the 11+ minute guitar solo, "Eighteen Pounds of Unclean Chitlings", which features on I'd Rather Suck My Thumb (1970),[3][4][5] and was reissued as the lead track (and title) on a BluesWay Records collection released in 1973.
For many years in the 1980s and 1990s, Brown was a prominent member of the house band at Antone's Night Club in Austin, Texas.[1]
A documentary film, Love Lost & Found: The Story of Mel Brown directed by Sean Jasmins for Blue Fusion Productions was granted a theatrical release in 2014.[8]