Since the first time he picked up a guitar at the age of 5 – “It was just a natural thing, strumming behind my dad” – Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown has devoted his life to making music. Now 78, he should be, by any measure, a national treasure, a revered figure. That Brown, who performs this weekend at the Pittsburgh Blues Festival, falls somewhat short of the stature that is reserved for the B.B. Kings of the world is not lost on him. “The only thing I regret in the music field is that America is so one-eyed,” he says. “They couldn’t understand, they wouldn’t turn me loose in the field I wanted to be in. I was held back, out of country and Cajun and bluegrass, and they tried to me stick me in the old blues bag with that Mississippi Delta stuff.” It’s not that Brown disavows the genre entirely. He’s cognizant that some of his vast repertoire is blues-oriented. “I could have been the greatest on (blues) guitar on earth, but I refused to be that type of person,” he says. “So it was very, very hard for me to express what my real feeling in music was, because there were so many barriers in front of me.” Brown was born April 18, 1924, in Vinton, La., then raised in Orange, Texas, not far from the Gulf Coast. His father was a musician who played bluegrass, Cajun music, polkas and Texas fiddle music. By the time he was 10, Brown had started to play the fiddle and mandolin in addition to guitar. By the late 1930s, he was the drummer for The Gay Swingsters, a band that toured small towns along the Gulf Coast. Following a tour of duty in the Army, Brown went to Houston in the mid-1940s. He was at that city’s famed Peacock Club one night when his life changed. Headliner T-Bone Walker was ailing, and had left the stage in the middle of a set. Impulsively, Brown walked up, picked up Walker’s electric Gibson and began to play. “I invented a tune on the bandstand,” he says. “I didn’t know anything about writing or nothing, but I invented ‘Gatemouth’s Boogie’ right there. I made about $615 in tips in about 15 minutes.” Soon after, Brown was fronting a 23-piece orchestra and touring the South and Southwest. A string of hits followed, including “Okie Dokie Stomp,” “Boogie Rambler,” and “Dirty Work at the Crossroad.” Eventually, Brown moved to Nashville, Tenn., hosted a radio show, and even appeared on “Hee Haw” once with Roy Clark. But the respect he felt he deserved never came. “Society put me where they wanted to keep me, in the blues field,” he says, “Don’t call me one thing. I play music of all styles.” Brown’s past two albums are evidence of his diversity. In 1999, he released “American Music – Texas Style,” an album that included versions of the Duke Ellington standards “I’m Beginning to See the Light” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” along with other jazz-flavored tunes. His latest effort, “Back to Bogalusa,” is inspired by music from southwestern Louisiana, from Cajun to swing. It’s music that is fresh, vital and sadly overlooked by most media outlets and radio stations. Brown knows this, and knows there’s not much he can do about it. Today, he says, there’s no one he really listens to, that most of the artists he admired – pianist Oscar Peterson, the late Louis Jordan, and Ray Brown of Pittsburgh, who recently died – “one of our finest bass players,” he says – either don’t perform or have passed on. So, he fashions himself as something of a standard-bearer, a Lone Ranger of sorts, who staunchly refuses to compromise his music. “There were barriers in front of me,” Brown says. “but I bowled through many of them. As far as the superstar crap, they never gave me that status; as far as making a million dollars in a week or whatever, they never gave me that opportunity. But I kept climbing the ladder. “Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t really suffered,” he says. “But it’s not an easy road. It’s not easy getting to this position and holding it. It’s not easy to make the people of all ages, from infants to grandmothers, enjoy what you do. It’s not easy to have a reputation where people like you for what you are and not what you were made to be.”

Eighth annual Pittsburgh Blues Festival

$12 Friday and Saturday; $15 Sunday; free for age 10 and younger. $2 discount per ticket for online purchases Pittsburgh Brewing Co., 3340 Liberty Ave., Lawrenceville (412) 460-2583 or www.pghblues.com Friday Eugene & the Night Crawlers, 6 p.m. Sean Costello, 6:45 p.m. The Pawnbrokers, 8:15 p.m. John Hammond’s Wicked Grin, 9 p.m. Saturday Rude Mood, 3 p.m. Sugar Ray & the Bluetones featuring Monster Mike Welch, 4 p.m. Erin Burkett & the Mean Reds, 5:30 p.m. Ana Popovic, 6:15 p.m. Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, 9 p.m. Sunday Jill West & Blues Attack, 3 p.m. The Love Dogs, 3:45 p.m. Memphis Mike & the Legendary Tremblers, 5:15 p.m. Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, 6 p.m. Keb’ Mo’, 7:30 p.m.

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