Brown died at his brother's home in Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape the hurricane. His home in Slidell, La., just outside New Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, said Rick Cady, his agent.
“He was completely devastated," Cady said. “... He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I'm sure it weighed heavily on his soul."
A musician of gritty versatility, Brown was, to his frustration, often identified as a blues master.
“I'm a musician, not some dirty, lowdown bluesman," Brown once said, noting that he could play drums, harmonica, fiddle, mandolin and viola.
He easily adapted to rhythm-and-blues, swing and Cajun styles, and for years he enjoyed dressing in full cowboy gear to perform country music.
Brown performed in honky-tonks and strip clubs the first half of his career. After a period of professional decline, he was rediscovered by European jazz and blues aficionados. In his late-career revival, he had dates at London's Royal Albert Hall and in Moscow.
After Brown's 1982 Grammy win for best traditional-blues recording ("Alright Again!"), he played hundreds of concert dates every year and recorded with artists of all persuasions, including Eric Clapton and Ry Cooder ("Long Way Home," 1996) and jazz trumpeter Nicholas Payton ("American Music Texas Style," 1999).
When doing press junkets for his album “Gate Swings" (1997), he used the occasion to drub his blues contemporaries. He called B.B. King and T-Bone Walker one-dimensional and Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland derivative. He said he found Walker's music “all begging and hardship. I wanted to get away from all that."
Brown was born April 18, 1924, in Vinton, La., near the Louisiana-Texas border. He was raised in nearby Orange, Texas, where his father was a railroad worker and weekend banjoist and fiddler in Cajun, country and bluegrass bands.
Brown started playing fiddle by age 5. At 10, he taught himself an odd guitar picking style he used all his life, dragging his long, bony fingers over the strings. In his teens, he toured as a drummer with swing bands and was nicknamed “Gatemouth" after a teacher said his voice sounded like a swinging gate.
After a brief stint in the Army, he returned in 1945 to Texas. His career took off in 1947 when Walker became ill and had to leave the stage at a Houston nightclub. The club owner invited Brown to sing, but instead he grabbed Walker's guitar and thrilled the crowd.
Starting in 1947, Brown recorded such staples as “Okie Dokie Stomp," “Ain't That Dandy" and “Just Before Dawn."
With country guitarist Roy Clark, he recorded “Makin' Music" (1979), featuring a memorable version of “Take the 'A' Train." With “Alright Again!," Brown cemented his return to the musical mainstream. In 1997, he received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
At home in Slidell, Brown was a spry figure who liked sporting his sheriff's badge and holstered .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.
He is survived by three daughters, a son and his brother.
-- Washington Post/Reuters/Associated Press
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