Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

The way Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown sees it, there are three distinct types of American music: blues, jazz and country.

"And I'm right in the center of all of them," he says.

Brown, who in his younger days was known as the "San Antonio Ballbuster," has weathered so many changes in popular music styles they're all old hat to him now.

He's strictly an original.

From Kansas City jazz to Texas swing and down-and dirty- blues, Brown is a genuine character. He dresses like a cowboy, plays guitar (and blues fiddle) like a master and has a genius for arrangements that are unbelievably complex without being flamboyant.

However, Brown is essentially an entertainer. His music is neither formidably cerebral nor benignly frivolous. It is, as he insists, a hybrid, an American art form brought forth by him out of his own experience.

One of the most discouraging aspects of the homogenization process that threatens to consume all so-called "folk" creations is the disappearance of diehards like Brown.

He's so full of vitality (he was once a deputy sheriff in a small town in New Mexico) that he sees nothing peculiar about turning a catchy little cowtown melody into a modestly symphonic take on midcentury jazz with, say Kansas City veteran Jay McShann sitting in on piano.

That's just the way he does things ... and will continue to do them as long as he's out there. Sitting in his dressing room during a recent gig in Seattle, he discussed those issues and the encroachment of conformity on music of all kinds, particularly country music, which he holds dear.

Thinking back on Bob Willis, Hank Williams, country blues, bluegrass, Oklahoma City jazz and the rest, Brown considered the situation in light of the new breed of arena-sized performers and then he ventured this opinion on the contemporary scene: "I think they all ought to give up." **