Gabriel Brown
American Piedmont blues singer and guitarist
title: "Gabriel Brown" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1910-births", "1960-deaths", "american-blues-guitarists", "american-male-guitarists", "american-blues-singers", "songwriters-from-florida", "deaths-by-drowning-in-new-jersey", "piedmont-blues-musicians", "blues-musicians-from-florida", "20th-century-american-singers", "20th-century-american-guitarists", "guitarists-from-florida", "20th-century-american-male-singers", "american-male-songwriters", "20th-century-american-songwriters", "people-from-gadsden-county,-florida"] description: "American Piedmont blues singer and guitarist" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Brown" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American Piedmont blues singer and guitarist ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Gabriel Brown |
| image | Gabriel Brown b1910.jpg |
| caption | Brown, photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1935 |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Gretna, Florida, United States |
| death_date | |
| death_place | off Bradley Beach, New Jersey, U.S. |
| instrument | Vocals, guitar |
| genre | Piedmont blues |
| occupation | Singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor |
| years_active | 1935–1952 |
| label | Various |
| :: |
| name = Gabriel Brown | image = Gabriel Brown b1910.jpg | caption = Brown, photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1935 | birth_name = | alias = | birth_date = | birth_place = Gretna, Florida, United States | death_date = | death_place = off Bradley Beach, New Jersey, U.S. | instrument = Vocals, guitar | genre = Piedmont blues | occupation = Singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor | years_active = 1935–1952 | label = Various
Gabriel Brown (September 2, 1910 – May 7, 1960) was an American Piedmont blues singer, guitarist, and actor.
Biography
Brown was born in Gretna, Gadsden County, Florida, the son of Mattie ( Gainous) and Steve Brown Jr.. The family moved to Eatonville before 1918. According to some sources, Brown graduated from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, but this is unconfirmed. In the 1920s, the family moved to Linden, New Jersey, where Brown worked as a laborer in a chemical plant.
He learned guitar, and played with the Sun-to-Sun Singers, a vocal group associated with folklorist Zora Neale Hurston.{{cite book | first= Bruce | last= Bastin | year= 1995 | title= Red River Blues | url= https://archive.org/details/redriverblues00bruc | url-access= registration | edition= | publisher= University of Illinois Press | location= Illinois | isbn= 0-252-01213-5 | page= 58}}
Like Ralph Willis, Alec Seward and Brownie McGhee, Brown then relocated to New York City.{{cite book | first= Tony | last= Russell | year= 1997 | title= The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray | edition= | publisher= Carlton Books | location= Dubai | isbn= 1-85868-255-X | page= 190}} Hurston gave Brown a part in her light opera Polk County, and arranged for him to be photographed by Carl Van Vechten. In 1935, Brown started a four-year tenure as an actor and musician with the Federal Theatre Project, and appeared in several productions including the version of Macbeth known as Voodoo Macbeth, staged by Orson Welles. By the late 1930s, Brown performed as a singer on Cincinnati radio and took part in the show St. Louis 'Oman. He found employment with the civil service, working for the Army Signal Corps in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
His first full recording session was in 1943, produced by Joe Davis, and the pair worked together until Brown's final sessions in 1952. In 1945 Brown sang, "I can't have no luck at all, the jinx is on me."{{cite web |url= http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art61162.asp |title=Folklore and Mythology Site |author=Burns, Phyllis Doyle |date= |publisher=Bellaonline.com |access-date=May 25, 2011}}
Several of Brown's recordings were not released during his lifetime, and some of those that were issued were not promoted tastefully or accurately. In the late 1940s, various tracks were licensed to Coral Records. Eventually Davis worked in A&R for MGM Records, and Brown followed him to that label, where he was promoted as a pop singer. Compilation albums of his recordings have been released by various labels.
Brown died by drowning after a boating accident off the coast of New Jersey in 1960. Some sources state erroneously that his death occurred in Florida in 1972.
Selected discography
- Gabriel Brown and His Guitar 1943–1945 (Policy Wheel, 1976)
- Gabriel Brown 1944–1952 (Krazy Kat, 1983)
- Gabriel Brown: Mean Old Blues 1943–1948 (Flyright, 1996)
- Gabriel Brown (Catfish Records, 2001)
References
References
- Chris Smith, "'The Jinx is on Me': Gabriel Brown", ''Blues & Rhythm'', No. 368, April 2022, pp. 24-29
- (2013). "Blues: A Regional Experience". Praeger.
- "Two Bodies Recovered From Ocean", ''Asbury Park Press'', May 31 1960
- (2001-03-13). "Gabriel Brown, ''Gabriel Brown'': Credits". [[AllMusic]].com.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::