Milton Brown
| Milton Brown | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Milton Brown |
| Also known as | "Father of Western Swing" |
| Born | September 7, 1903 |
| Origin | Stephenville, Texas, USA |
| Died | April 18, 1936 (aged 32) Fort Worth, Texas, USA |
| Genres | Western swing |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1930–1936 |
| Labels | Victor, Bluebird, Decca |
| Associated acts | The Light Crust Doughboys, The Musical Brownies |
Milton Brown (September 7, 1903 – April 18, 1936) was an American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and pop together into a unique, distinctly American hybrid, thus giving him the nickname, "Father of Western Swing". The birthplace of Brown's upbeat "hot-jazz hillbilly" string band sound was developed at the Crystal Springs Dance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas from 1931 to 1936. Brown's music inspired the great string jazz musicians from Europe, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli who in 1935 formed the Hot Club de Paris quintet.
Along with Bob Wills, with whom he performed at the beginning of his career, Brown developed the sound and style of Western swing in the early 1930s. For a while, he and his band, the Musical Brownies, were more popular than Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Brown's career was cut short in 1936 when he died following a car accident, just as he was poised to break into national stardom.
Born in Stephenville, Texas in 1903, Brown moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1918. After graduating from Fort Worth's Arlington Heights High School in 1925, he worked as a cigar salesman, but he lost his job when the Great Depression hit in the late '20s.
Brown began his musical career in 1930, when he met Bob Wills at a local Fort Worth house dance. The Wills Fiddle Band was a fiddle band made up of Wills on fiddle and Herman Arnspiger on guitar. They were performing at a local Fort Worth dance and Brown joined the group on a chorus of "St. Louis Blues". Wills was impressed with Brown's voice and immediately asked him and his guitarist brother, Derwood, to join the band. The Wills Fiddle Band played medicine shows around Texas and landed a regular radio spot on WBAP, where they played a show sponsored by Aladdin Lamp Company, which had the band change its name to the Aladdin Laddies.
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