Mel Brown - Ontario

Mississippi-born guitarist Mel Brown compiled a remarkable resume in blues, jazz, funk and country music during his decades of touring and recording in America with a host of stars. Nowhere was he so welcomed, however, and nowhere was his impact so significant, as in Kitchener, where he moved in 1989. He remained an inspirational presence on the music scene here until his death in 2009 and was a key catalyst in propelling Kitchener to a prominent spot on the international blues map. Mel Brown climaxed an expansive musical journey with an iconic residency in Kitchener playing the kind of music he started out with in Mississippi: the blues. Born into a gifted musical family on October 7, 1939, Melvin Ray Brown was the son of John Henry “Bubba” Brown, who was once a leading blues figure in Jackson, Mississippi, and in neighboring Rankin County. The Browns lived in Pearl City, in an area later incorporated as Flowood.

Brown played in Duke Huddleston’s popular dance orchestra and other groups from Jackson before settling in Los Angeles in 1958 and working with Johnny Otis, Etta James and others. His expertise and versatility on his archtop Gibson guitar, organ and other instruments led to session work with T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Archie Shepp, Bill Cosby, Bobby Darin and many others. He provided music for network TV shows and recorded five mostly instrumental albums, blending blues, jazz and funk, for the ABC Impulse! label. In 1964-65 he also played hotels in Hawaii. In between several years of touring with Bobby Bland beginning in 1972, Brown based himself in Nashville and played country music with Tompall Glaser and others. In 1983 he joined the house band at Antone’s famous blues club in Austin, Texas. He appeared onstage with Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others and recorded an album with the Silent Partners, in addition to studio work behind Snooky Pryor, James Cotton, Doug Sahm and others on the Antone’s label and Albert Collins on Alligator Records in Chicago.

He first appeared in Kitchener with other artists from the Antone’s roster in 1988, followed by dates fronting Silent Partners, and, starting in January 1990, a gig leading jam sessions at Pop The Gator here on Queen Street at the invitation of co-owner Glenn Smith. His wife Lillie “Miss Angel” Brown later joined him and sang regularly on his shows. Brown recorded CDs on his own and with Snooky Pryor, Miss Angel, Sam Myers and others for the Electro-Fi label. Brown’s work in Kitchener, as a performer and as a mentor to Shawn Kellerman, Julian Fauth and Steve Strongman, among many others, brought him a degree of recognition never accorded him in the U.S. In 2003 the Blues, Brews and Barbecues festival (later known as the TD Kitchener Blues Festival, one of Canada’s premier blues events) presented Brown its inaugural B3 Award for significant contributions to the blues. The honor was renamed the Mel Brown Award in 2004. After his death on March 20, 2009, he was inducted into the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame in 2011, and a statue of him was unveiled here in 2023. He was, to quote an article in the local press, “the spiritual godfather of all things blues in Waterloo Region.”

This is marker No. 219 on the Mississippi Blues Trail, documenting the history of Mississippi blues and its international impact, dedicated August 9, 2025. Text by Jim O’Neal. Research and photo assistance: Scott Barretta, Miss Angel Brown, Terry Pender, Andrew Galloway (Electro-Fi Records), David Evans, Bob Eagle, Bob McGrath, Robert Ford, Holger Petersen, and Bruce Hall and Claude Cloutier of the Grand River Blues Society.

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