Texas blues has had more than its share of guitar heroes, from acoustic masters like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson to T-Bone Walker and Albert Collins, who took electric guitar to new heights. For many blues-rock fans, Texas blues means the searing strings of Johnny Winter or the Vaughan brothers, Jimmie and Stevie Ray. But Texas blues also has a smooth side that owes a great deal to traditional gospel and Memphis R&B. Under the guidance— or iron fist, depending on your point of view—of Houston businessman Don Robey, the development of this Texas style during the 1950s set the stage for the coming rock and soul revolutions.

Don Robey was born in 1903 in Houston’s Fifth Ward, an African-American neighborhood increasingly populated by migrants seeking work in the oil refineries. After several years running a nightclub in California, he returned to Houston in 1945 to open the Bronze Peacock Dinner Club, which catered to Houston’s well-heeled black community. With top-notch entertainment the order of the day, Ruth Brown, Louis Jordan, Lionel Hampton, and T-Bone Walker were among the club’s featured guests.

Robey had a keen eye and ear for talent. Legend has it that Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown jumped up uninvited on the Bronze Peacock’s stage one night to take over for an ailing T-Bone Walker. Other versions of the story claim that Robey, knowing Walker was going to have to take some time off, asked Brown to come to Houston. Whatever the details of how Brown came to be onstage at the Bronze Peacock, it was Robey’s interest in the young multi-instrumentalist that led him to form the Buffalo Booking Agency and, eventually, Peacock Records. Robey and the fledgling Peacock had moderate chart success with Brown and a handful of other artists, and he eventually closed the dinner club to concentrate on the music business. The move paid off in 1953, when Big Mama Thornton’s Peacock single “Hound Dog” went to the top of the R&B charts.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown: “Okie Dokie Stomp”
Recorded 1954, Houston, Texas

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Big Mama Thornton: “Hound Dog”
Recorded August, 1952, Los Angeles

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