Keith and Margie Brown appear in a 2013 Dispatch file photo from when they were featured in Catfish Alley magazine. Keith, 68, passed away Thursday, leaving behind a legacy of encouraging younger musicians, interacting with audiences and incredible guitar playing. 	
			Keith Brown and David Crenshaw shared every homeroom together when they attended Caldwell High School, and while Crenshaw remembered Brown’s other artistic talents, like drawing, he had no idea Brown played the guitar until about 35 years after they graduated.
Shortly before they were set to attend their class reunion, Brown reached out to Crenshaw, telling him to bring a bass guitar with him so they could play together.
“In fact, he said, ‘Bring your axe,’” Crenshaw recalled, laughing. “It’s like, my axe? What are you, a timber man?”
Though he hadn’t planned to do it, just as Crenshaw was leaving his home in North Alabama for Columbus, he grabbed his bass to bring with him. That Friday, he listened to Keith play casually before the event.
“I heard him play and thought, ‘You know he’s pretty good. I can hang with that,’” Crenshaw said. “So Saturday, I bring my stuff in and Keith says, ‘Hey, Margie (Keith’s wife) and I are going to play the first set and then the second set you can come up.’ … He started playing the first set and my jaw hit the floor. It’s like, ‘Oh my. I had no idea he was that good. I don’t know if I can hang with that or not.’”
After that first set together, Crenshaw and Brown continued to play together when they could, most recently at their 50th high school reunion in April.
“He made you feel like a million dollars, and I loved playing with him,” Crenshaw said. “I just didn’t get to play with him enough. I had assumed there would be more times.”
Brown, the guitarist half of Golden Triangle ubiquitous duo Keith and Margie, passed away Thursday at 68.
For years, Keith and Margie have been fixtures of the region’s music scene. Keith, a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, and Margie, a gospel-raised vocalist, met when Margie needed a guitar player who could handle the melody to Oleta Adams’ cover of Brenda Russell’s “Get Here” for a gig.
What started as a friendship grew into a partnership and then a marriage of 33 years, Margie said.
“He was the love of my life,” Margie told The Dispatch. “We just hung together through the storm. Through rain, through sunshine, we stayed together. It was a wonderful relationship, and I’m going to miss him dearly.
“I was his shadow,” she added. “I was right with him everywhere he went.”
To watch the two of them play together, musician Ronnie McGee said, was to see two people genuinely in love with each other and with their craft.
“You could tell they just had a love for doing what they did and had a love for the people that were there – genuine love for their audience,” McGee said. “And that always came through in what they did.”
Keith was an incredible guitarist, Margie said, but one of her favorite parts of performing with him was the way he would interact with the crowd, especially youth.
“Sometimes he would take their little hands while he was playing and let them play along with him, and they would get a joy out of that,” she said. “… That made me happy, to see him out there interacting with the other people.”
‘Playing that wild guitar’
The way Keith interacted with people, particularly younger musicians, is one of the things Dale Robertson remembers most. Where some musicians can be quick to tear each other down, Robertson said Keith was an exception – someone who made a point of building others up instead.
“For me, Keith was one of the ones I looked up to because I was like, ‘That’s who I want to be like’ … because he’s nice to the young guys,” Robertson said. “… I really respect the way that he carried himself, and the fact that he seemed to genuinely care about the younger generation coming up behind him.”
That generosity showed up in how he’d play with others too. Robertson remembers Keith being reluctant once about joining him at a gig to play the guitar solo of the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why,” trying not to steal the spotlight.
“He really had never played it before, and the soul that came out of him amazed me,” Robertson said, calling Keith one of the best he’s ever heard. “It was just so beautiful. … It wasn’t like the record, but it was really beautiful. (He) could have been the guy in the studio that day.”
Many remember Keith for his rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” a song in which Margie said she would simply sit back to watch Keith “just playing that wild guitar.”
“He always played sitting down,” said musician and sound engineer J Dee McKay. “When he stood up, it was either for the Isley Brothers or he was going to do the national anthem.”
Despite his talents, Keith extended his encouragement to any musician willing to step on stage with him.
“He came and asked me to sit in one time when I went to see him, and I got up and tried to fumble through a tune as best I could,” said local musician Jeffrey Rupp. “And when I was done, he just made me feel like Eric Clapton, and I wasn’t.”
Like Keith’s music, Rupp said his kindness will be greatly missed in the Golden Triangle music scene.
“You say Keith and Margie and everybody knows who you’re talking about,” Rupp said. “I think we tend to take each other for granted while we’re around, particularly like us old guys (who are) around a long time. I think it’s just going to make us all pause and realize what a hole he’s going to leave and how much he’s going to be missed.”
A GoFundMe has been made by friends of the family to help cover expenses.
			
						
			McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.			
			
      
      
        Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
      
    

			
      
      
        Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.