Another of the great American roots musicians has died. Clarence Gatemouth Brown was 81. He had been suffering from declining health, including cancer, for the past several years, but the destruction of his home by Hurricane Katrina may have been the last straw. I was fortunate to see him in the late 1980s when he played at Saskatoon's Broadway Theatre. Brown was commonly refered to as a blues musician, but he disliked this, considering the term a putdown.

There are getting to be fewer and fewer of his generation of musicians left. I was fortunate enough to see BB King on his last tour through Western Canada, and I'm glad I did, because who knows whether he'll pass this way again. So if you get a chance to see some of these guys do it.