Willie Brown (musician)
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Willie Brown (August 6, 1900 - December 30, 1952) was an American Delta Blues guitarist and singer.
Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he played with such notables as Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson. He was not known to be a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" (accompany) other musicians. Little is known of the man whom Robert Johnson called "my friend boy Willie Brown" (in his prophetic "Cross Road Blues") and who Johnson indicated should be notified in event of his death. Brown is heard with Patton on the Paramount label sessions of 1930, playing "M & O Blues," and "Future Blues." Apart from playing with Son House and Charlie Patton it has also been said that played with artists such as Luke Thomson and Thomas "Clubfoot" Coles. At least four other songs he recorded for Paramount have never been found.
"Rowdy Blues", a 1929 song credited to Kid Bailey, is disputed to have Brown on backup, or Brown himself using the name of Kid Bailey. Willie Brown does his song "Future Blues" on the album Son House & The Great Delta Blues Singers (1994), recorded between 1928 and 1930, on the Document (USA) label.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) directed John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax to record artists in the south during the Great Depression for the Library of Congress. Willie Brown can be heard on a field recording done by Alan Lomax for the Archive of American Folksong by the Library of Congress in 1941, "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor," though, as before, there is some question in the community of scholars as to whether this was the same Willie Brown.
He died in Tunica, Mississippi at the age of 52.
Willie Brown was featured as the central character in the movie Crossroads (1986).
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