Musician Chuck Brown, 'Godfather of Go-Go,' dies at 75
Chuck Brown, the gravelly voiced bandleader who capitalized on funk's percussive pulse to create go-go, the genre of music that has soundtracked life in black Washington for more than three decades, died Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore. He was 75. /Washington Post
--- A proud community formed around Brown’s music. He called it go-go because it wouldn’t stop. Day-Glo concert posters stapled to telephone poles in the ’80s promised 4 a.m. curfews, but Brown was happy to play his guitar past sunrise. His music endured through the dawn and through the decades, into the 21st century, but never too far outside of Washington, where he loomed so large.
“Chuck was like the Washington Monument,” says radio and television personality Donnie Simpson. “He was like Ben’s Chili Bowl. He was the big chair. He was all of that. Chuck Brown was Washington D.C. . . . People feel you when it’s genuine and Chuck was always that.” --- /Washington Post
