Willie Brown (musician)

Willie Brown
Brown's grave at Shepard Church, Prichard, Mississippi
Background information
Birth name	Willie Lee Brown
Born	(1900-08-06)August 6, 1900 Clarksdale, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	December 30, 1952(1952-12-30) (aged 52) Tunica, Mississippi, U.S.
Genres	Delta blues country blues
Instruments	Guitar
Notable instruments
Gibson L-1

Willie Lee Brown (August 6, 1900 – December 30, 1952) was an American blues guitar player and vocalist. He performed and recorded with other notable blues musicians, including Son House and Charlie Patton, and was an influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Brown is considered one of the pioneering musicians of the Delta blues genre.

Brown was best known as a side player, performing mostly with House, Patton, and Johnson. He recorded four sides for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930, which were subsequently released on 78-rpm discs. He made three recordings for the Library of Congress in 1941, accompanied by House. In 1952, Brown briefly joined House in Rochester, New York, but soon returned to Tunica, Mississippi, where he died the same year.

Although known mostly as an accompanist rather than a soloist, Brown recorded three highly rated solo performances: "M & O Blues", "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor", and "Future Blues". He disappeared from the music scene during the 1940s, together with House, and died before the blues revival of the 1960s.

Brown was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1900. He learned to play the guitar as a teenager. He played with such notables as Charley Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson. He was not a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" other musicians. Little is known for certain about the man whom Johnson called "my friend Willie Brown" (in his "Cross Road Blues") and whom Johnson once indicated should be notified in event of his death.