Mississippi honors Houston's Texas Johnny Brown

It's seems curious: a man who carries the nickname "Texas" being honored as a Mississippi blues luminary. But such will be the case Saturday when Texas Johnny Brown, a legendary Houston musician, will receive a marker in the central Mississippi town of Ackerman, in Choctaw County, on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

Brown, who will attend the ceremony, left Mississippi as a youth with his father, also a blues player. They eventually settled in Houston in 1946 instead of relocating to blues hubs such as Memphis, Tenn., or Chicago.

Here he began playing guitar in Amos Milburn's Chickenshackers and eventually found work at Peacock Records. During the '50s he recorded and toured with acts including Bobby "Blue" Bland and Junior Parker, writing the Bland classic Two Steps From the Blues

Though best known for playing the blues, Brown's jazzy phrasing suggests early influence by the great guitarist Charlie Christian.

Local blues historian Roger Wood, author of Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues, calls Brown "a sophisticated composer and lyricist as well as an absolute master of his jazz-inflected, smart but always soulful guitar. He's a living link between the deep blues roots of Mississippi and the swinging sounds of classic Texas R&B."

Brown didn't record much as a leader back in the day, issuing only a few singles. But since 1998 he has put out two very worthwhile recordings, Nothin' but the Truth and Blues Defender And for more than two decades he has led his Quality Blues Band in these parts, with regular gigs at the Big Easy.

Brown is a performer very much worth seeing, a vital part of Houston's blues scene tied into Houston's blues history - with some Mississippi ties.

andrew.dansby@chron.com