Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown was ‘the cat’s cat’. His start in show business was in 1947, when Gate was in the audience at the Golden Peacock nightclub in Houston, when famed guitarist T-Bone Walker took sick and dropped his guitar onto the stage in the middle of a number. Gate leaped to the stage, picked up Walker’s axe and laid into one of his own tunes, “Gatemouth Boogie.” T-Bone was not amused by the young upstart, but the crowd went wild, tossing $600 at Brown’s feet in 15 minutes. That’s 1947 dollars. There’s loads of bio and background info HERE and HERE.
Here’s two sets from Gate and his band ‘Gate’s Express’ at Verdi Nevada’s “Rancho Nevada” on June 16,1995 for a live broadcast episode of “The Rancho Radio Hour”:
SET 1: LISTEN
SET 2: LISTEN