Buster Brown

During 1959, blues harmonica players nearing fifty who scored number one R&B hits remained exceptionally rare. Buster Brown nevertheless reached that position with his catchy "Fannie Mae," which led the listings. The forceful track additionally crossed over to pop radio with notable success.

A native of Georgia whose harmonica technique reflected the influence of Sonny Terry, Brown had never cut a professional record—apart from an unissued 1943 Library of Congress session—when Fire Records chief Bobby Robinson escorted the short, stockily built artist to a New York studio in June of 1959 to lay down "Fannie Mae."

Brown's brief stretch as an improbable hitmaker soon ended. Follow-up releases on Fire yielded only modest results: a somewhat uneven 1960 reading of Louis Jordan's "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" and the buoyant 1962 rocker "Sugar Babe," his last effort for the label. A 1964 session at Chicago's Checker Records produced a gleaming version of the traditional blues "Crawlin' Kingsnake," yet it vanished without notice.