Mel Brown still provides the backbeat to Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Mel Brown quickly dismissed any mention of being a musical legend in Portland.
'No. No, no, no,' Brown, 80, told KOIN 6 News. 'I'm just one of the musicians that grew up around here and lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.'
Inarguably, Mel Brown's drumming places him as one of the most influential musicians in the history of the Rose City. In fact, his portrait hangs on a wall at the .
Honoring Portland's Godfather of Jazz, Mel Brown
His talents took root in Portland's jazz heyday. Black railway workers and porters moved west in the early 20th Century and brought the blues and jazz from big cities back east.
When World War II broke out, many people came to Portland from the South
Despite the and ongoing struggles in Portland's still-largely segregated communities, a rich jazz scene in historically Black Albina flourished. Brown grew up not far from clubs that brought in top tier talent.
'We had a paper called the Oregon Journal, and I used to deliver the newspapers around town. So you're around the music up and down Williams Avenue and you'd hear the door open up and you'd hear the music coming out in a whole bit. And it was like, 'Oh, OK, I think I want to do this,'' Brown said. 'But the people who were actually performing inside, those people also lived in the neighborhood. And so they would hear me sometimes during the day trying to beat on something and they would say, 'Oh, little kid, come here, let's show you what this is about.' I was like 14 or 15 years old and they just started coming out and just trying to help me out to get with the music.'
Already playing professional gigs by his senior year of high school in the early 1960s, Brown attended Portland State University on a music scholarship.
'I got a call to play a show. The drummer got sick, it was down at the Crystal Ballroom and it was a last minute thing, 'Come in, we need you quick.' And I go on to play not knowing the person I had to play behind,' he said, 'and that was Ike and Tina Turner.'
A later gig in Vancouver, British Columbia playing with Tommy Chong paved the way for a contract in Motown.
Where We Live: Portland's Mel Brown
'They had a TV special in LA, it was called 'TCB, Taking Care of Business'. It was The Temptations and The Supremes. And they called me to play the drums on that. And Barry Gordy said, 'I like the way he plays. I'm going to move him and put him with The Temptations. And that's how I got with The Temptations.'
After literally touring the world, Mel Brown returned to Portland in the late 1970s. Since then he's been a fixture of the city's live local music scene, still playing weekly gigs.
'I'll always be doing that all my life because people don't realize it, music kind of keeps you together. I've been around the world about nine or 10 times, and I may not speak the language, but every other country I've gone to, if you play music and play well, you end up having friends who you stay in touch with,' he said.
'Music is everything, brings everybody together.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Sinners' bonus feature, ‘Good Night' live, Sabrina's song of the summer, ‘Fantastic Four' theme, and what to stream this weekend
Welcome to , your VIP guide to the best of pop culture for the weekend ahead, curated by the Gold Derby team of experts. (June 6-June 8) , Ryan Coogler's cinema-saving horror epic, is now available to rent or buy on VOD platforms like Amazon. Michael B. Jordan stars as Smoke and Stack, identical twin charming criminals who open up a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. Everything is going great, until the vampires show up. It's a heady mix of horror, crime, comedy, drama, sex, blues music, Black ownership, family, and a bunch of other genres and themes that makes for the year's most exciting and important movie. Check out one of the bonus features, titled "Thicker Than Blood" and available digitally and on the upcoming 4K disc release, showing how Jordan got into character(s): More from GoldDerby 'Sinners' bonus feature: See how the gnarly makeup effects came to life Danya Taymor could make Tony Awards history with a win for 'John Proctor Is the Villain' How 'Severance' creates Lumon's 'manufactured perfection' through VFX After more than two years, we're finally heading back to Wellsbury. And you don't want to miss it. The third season of Netflix's beloved dramedy Ginny & Georgia (now streaming) picks up in the aftermath of the events of the shocking Season 2 finale, which saw Georgia (Brianne Howey) arrested for murder during her wedding to Paul (Scott Porter), the affable town mayor. So, how does a show — and a family — come back from that? By sticking together, obviously. In Season 3, with Georgia under house arrest and awaiting trial, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) finds herself forced to set aside the central duo's differences and fight for her family on multiple fronts, including waging battles against those she never expected. These 10 episodes are a turning point, not just for the show, but for the two dynamic women at its center as well. So, with this compelling new chapter, Ginny & Georgia is the awards contender to watch this weekend. However, if complicated mother-daughter relationships aren't up your alley, other contenders include: Ocean With David Attenborough: Save the cheerleader Save the ocean, save the world. That's the sentiment behind National Geographic's new feature-length special, which sees multi-time Emmy winner and world renowned naturalist David Attenborough take viewers beneath the waves to explore our planet's diverse, yet interconnected, marine ecosystems. As has become the norm for nature documentaries over the last decade (or more), Ocean focuses heavily on the threats that the deep blue sea faces due to humanity's hostile influence, but it also highlights inspirational stories that reveal all hope may not be lost, if we take action now. The documentary airs Saturday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Nat Geo. It streams the next day on Hulu and Disney+. Good Night, and Good Luck: It's not often we get to experience television history in this day and age, but this weekend marks the first time a Broadway production will be broadcast live on television. The Tony-nominated play starring George Clooney, which was adapted from the 2005 Oscar-nominated film written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, will air its penultimate performance. The play tells the story of veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow taking on Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s. The performance airs Saturday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on CNN. It will stream on CNN's website, as well as Max. The 78th Annual Tony Awards: If you need more theater in your life after watching Clooney do his thing (who doesn't?), then you're in luck! The Tony Awards — arguably the best of the major awards shows thanks to the rousing live performances that give it non-stop energy — will honor the best of the stage. Cynthia Erivo hosts the spectacle, which features performances by the casts of Gypsy, Sunset Boulevard, Just in Time, Death Becomes Her, and more. As a bonus, the original cast of Hamilton is reuniting to celebrate the show's 10th anniversary (doesn't it feel much longer?). The telecast airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. It will stream on Paramount+. We're not cooking the books — our top pick for a movie to stream this weekend is . Ben Affleck reprises his role as Christian Wolff, an autistic man who's a genius with numbers and also really good with guns. He works as an accountant for criminal organizations while also serving as an informant for the Treasury's financial crimes division. In The Accountant 2, Affleck is joined by Jon Bernthal as Christian's soldier-for-hire brother Braxton, who had a small role in the first film but gets bumped up to basically co-lead here. When Christian needs help with a job, he calls on his estranged brother, and they reconnect as they go on a gun-toting road trip together. It's literally Rain Man as an action thriller. It's funnier than the original, and Affleck and Bernthal are very entertaining together. After a modest theatrical run, it's now streaming on Prime Video, which makes sense; it's very much in the same vein as the Road House remake, one of the streaming service's biggest original hits. If you're math-phobic, here are some other movies to stream or watch on-demand this weekend: : Director Dan Trachtenberg's quest to revitalize the Predator franchise continues with this animated feature that's now streaming on Hulu. The bloody action flick is something of an anthology movie, as warriors from various time periods — a Viking, a ninja in feudal Japan, and a World War II pilot — go up against a Predator alien who sees them as a challenge. It's Trachtenberg's second released Predator movie, after 2022's cult favorite Prey, and will be followed by live-action thriller Predator: Badlands later this year. : Robert De Niro and Robert De Niro star in this Mafia drama. De Niro plays dual roles as 1950s mobsters Vito Genovese and Frank Costello as they fight for control of the Luciano family. It tells famous tales of Mafia history in a way you've seen many times before, but De Niro, screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas), and director Barry Sonnenfeld (Bugsy) know what they're doing. There are three actors from The Sopranos in the supporting cast — Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, and Matt Servitto — if that's something you take into account in deciding whether to watch a mob movie. The Alto Knights flopped in theaters but is looking to find a second life on Max. : Writer-director-producer Tyler Perry is back with a new Netflix drama. Taraji P. Henson stars as Janiyah, a woman at the end of her rope. She's a single mother having an exceptionally bad day. She gets evicted from her apartment, robbed, and disrespected everywhere she goes. She just needs to deposit her check at the bank so she can pay for her daughter's medicine, and when even that goes wrong, she ends up a suspect in a crime she didn't mean to commit, and it turns into a hostage situation. It's a film that empathizes with everyone who is just a few bad breaks away from calamity. The supporting cast includes Sherri Shepherd, Teyana Taylor, and Sinbad. A sure sign that the weather's changing is the arrival of fresh singles aiming to be the season-defining hit. And previous title-holder Sabrina Carpenter is throwing her hat back into the ring with "Manchild," a country-influenced ode to the dim men in her life with a little disco thrown into the mix. The video accompanying the release feels like a deliciously overstuffed trailer for an off-the-wall '70s road movie. Ahead of the release of "First Steps" on July 25, Marvel Studios have debuted composer Michael Giacchino's full main theme for the Fantastic Four. Sonically, the track is a mix of bright mid-century retro-futurism and some more spacey synth. Disney is also releasing the theme on a "Galactic Blue" 7-inch LP, which is available for pre-order here. Get your first listen below. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Talking Heads' first live performance, director Mike Mills (21st Century Women) has created the first music video for "Psycho Killer," off the band's debut studio album, Talking Heads: 77. Four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan stars in the video as a person slowly unraveling over the course of her daily routine. Best of GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' Stephen King movies: 14 greatest films ranked worst to best The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Celebrate Juneteenth with Black-owned food trucks
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — If you are searching for some Black-owned food trucks to celebrate Juneteenth, look no further than this upcoming event, Black Food Truck Night. Hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier African American Chamber of Commerce (SBAACC), the event will celebrate culture, community, and cuisine, featuring DJ Static Shock to keep the energy moving. On Thursday, June 19th, SBAACC invites the community to 'enjoy some of the best local Black-owned food trucks, music, and vibes as we honor freedom and flavor.' Smoking Oyster Prayer in a Pot Louisiana Smokehouse Rajin Cajun Niema Cookery Corner (Winner featured on Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay) A Snacktivity Shreveport's 'Art•ish event highlights diverse Black artists Their event will take place at the Louisiana Daiquiri Cafe, located at 1881 Texas Avenue, Shreveport, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. According to the poster, it is presented by SBAACC and FAR Development Foundation, sponsored by State Farm Agent Katrina Worsham, State Senator Sam Jenkins, and the Power Coalition. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Buzz Feed
2 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
22 Wild Facts About Old Hollywood Celebrities
Shirley Temple was so popular and talented that there was a conspiracy theory she was not a child at all, but an adult with dwarfism. In fact, she was investigated by the Vatican, who sent a priest to confirm she was in fact a child — which they were, apparently, able to do. Many celebrities from the '40s were actually spies during World War II, including Josephine Baker. She lived in Nazi-occupied France and would flirt with Nazi officials and get them tispy until they divulged military secrets, then write the secrets down on invisible ink and stash them in her underwear. MLB Baseball player Moe Berg worked for the predecessor to the CIA (the Office of Strategic Services), and once traveled to Switzerland with orders to assasinate German scientiest Werner Heisenberg if he discovered the Germans might soon be able to develop an atomic bomb. Famous chef Julia Child worked for the same organization before becoming famous, with her most notable job being to create "cakes" that were used as shark repellant. And Cary Grant reportedly spied on people in Hollywood to find Nazi sympathizers, including the German-born Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, who had married heiress Barbara Woolworth Hutton. Grant actually ended up marrying the heiress after she separated from her husband. Also during WWII, Audrey Hepburn (as a child) used to perform at secret concerts in the Netherlands to raise money for the Dutch resistance, risking discovery and punishment from Germans. Oh, and BTW, guess who was allegedly a Nazi informant? Coco Chanel. During World War II, Coco Chanel was named as a Nazi informant by friend Vera Bate (who herself confessed to being a German agent). The French government arrested Chanel, who had several ties with Nazi intelligence organization Abwehr and its members. Chanel was eventually released due to a lack of evidence and possible help from friend Winston Churchill. Chanel's Nazi ties remained hidden for decades, though her "fear and hatred for Jews" was allegedly "notorious." Lucille Ball once claimed that she picked up Morse code during WWII through her lead teeth fillings. While driving home (and having previously experienced picking up music through her teeth), she began to hear a "de-de-de-de" sound. "As soon as it started fading, I stopped the car and then started backing up until it was coming in full strength. DE-DE-DE-DE-DE-DE DE-DE-DE-DE! I tell you, I got the hell out of there real quick. The next day I told the MGM Security Office about it, and they called the FBI or something, and sure enough, they found an underground Japanese radio station. It was somebody's gardener, but sure enough, they were spies," Ball recounted. The story sounds completely ridiculous, but it's possible it was true. There is no record of Ball talking to the FBI, or Japanese spies being found in that area at that time, but there is evidence shrapnel in someone's body, at least, can pick up AM radio waves, which suggests lead tooth fillings could work the same way. Cary Grant tried LSD over a hundred times in the 1950s as a form of psychotherapy to deal with his childhood trauma. 'After weeks of treatment came a day when I saw the light,' Grant said. 'When I broke through, I felt an immeasurably beneficial cleansing of so many needless fears and guilts. I lost all the tension that I'd been crippling myself with. First I thought of all those wasted years. Second, I said, 'Oh my God, the humanity. Please come in.'' Eartha Kitt reportedly once had a threesome with James Dean and Paul Newman. She's been quoted as having said, 'Those two beauties transported me to heaven. I never knew that lovemaking could be so beautiful," though this quote is extremely difficult to confirm. In fact, there are quite a lot of scandalous sexual secrets from Old Hollywood that can't be 100% confirmed but are still fun to hear. For instance, there's speculation that Marlon Brando and James Dean had an S&M-based relationship. Ernest Hemingway once inspected F. Scott Fitzgerald's dick in the bathroom because Fitzgerald was worried it was too small after his wife Zelda complained about it. Hemingway assured him he was "perfectly fine,' telling Fitzgerald, "You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened. Go over to the Louvre and look at the people in the statues and then go home and look at yourself in the mirror in profile." In another example featuring a famous writer, James Joyce wrote some truly scandalous love letters to his wife Nora Barnacle, many of which extolled her farts. 'You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.' Agatha Christie, possibly the most famous writer in the mystery genre, once created her own mystery when she disappeared in 1926 for 11 days — and the reason is still contested. After putting her daughter to bed, Christie (who was aware her husband was having an affair), drove off and her car was later found abandoned, hanging over the edge of a pit. She had left three letters behind, one to her brother-in-law claiming she had gone to a spa, another to her secretary with "scheduling details," and a third to her husband, who never revealed what the letter said. To find her, the police dredged a lake, brought in dogs, enlisted the help of over 10,000 people, and even looked to her novels for clues. She was eventually found at a spa, like she had told her brother-in-law — except according to her husband, she no longer remembered who she was or recognized him. She had checked in under his mistress' name. In the only time Christie ever spoke of it, she admitted to considering driving into the pit her car was found by, and hitting her head — this, accompanied by the trauma of her husband cheating and her mother dying, led to memory loss. Still, people have continued to speculate it was all a publicity stunt. Steve McQueen came very close to being killed by the Manson family along with Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent. He had been invited to Tate's house that night, and the only reason he didn't go, according to his then-wife Neile Adams, was that he 'ran into a chickie and decided to go off with her instead." According to a biography of McQueen, he had been having an affair with a blonde woman at the time, and even invited her to come to Tate's with him. However, she said "she had a better idea for just the two of them." McQueen, unlike Tate,* was on a list of targets for the Manson family. His death was planned to look like a suicide. Tate and her friends weren't specifically targeted, according to prosecutors — she just happened to live in the house once owned by music producer Terry Melcher, who had rejected proposals to make a record with Manson. Speaking of serial killer Charles Manson — he was friendly with a number of big players in Hollywood, including Dennis Wilson and Mike Love, the co-founders of the Beach Boys. In fact, Manson and his friends actually moved into Wilson's house. Wilson later allegedly told Love that he'd seen Manson murder a Black man (though this is contested), causing Wilson to break off the friendship. Marilyn Monroe's last known words were to actor Peter Lawford, who was a brother-in-law to Robert and John F. Kennedy, as he had married their sister, Pat Kennedy. He stated she ended the call with, "Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to Jack, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy." The Jack in reference was then-President JFK. This is noteworthy because there were longstanding rumors of an affair between JFK and Monroe, as well as Robert F. Kennedy and Monroe. There are also rumors that Robert F. Kennedy visited her that night, though this was denied by the Kennedys. Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, who was there all day and night and was the one to find her dead, later claimed Robert had visited and they'd fought. When Murray found Marilyn dead around 3:30 a.m., she was reportedly holding her phone, and then-LA chief of detectives Thad Brown reportedly claimed she was found with a crumpled-up piece of paper with the number for the White House on it. Besides her connections to the Kennedys, there were other suspicious details around Monroe's death. Murray initially called Monroe's psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, who called the doctor who had prescribed the pills, Dr. Engelberg, before calling the police. The police did not arrive for close to an hour after Murray first saw Monroe's body. Lawford later claimed that he'd heard about her death at 1:30 a.m. The wife of Monroe's press relations manager Arthur Jacobs also later claimed that her husband had received the call that Marilyn was dead at 10:30. Natalie Wood, who starred in a number of films including West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause, and Gypsy, also died under extremely mysterious circumstances. The 43-year-old was with her husband Robert Wagner on his boat on a weekend vacation from filming Brainstorm when she drowned. According to Wagner himself (though he initially denied this), he and Wood argued, and then he went to bed without her. The next morning, her body was found a mile away. Wood had been drinking, and it's possible her death was an accident, but she was found with bruises that could mean she was attacked. Nearby witnesses had heard a woman scream. The captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, allegedly drunkenly confessed to Wood's sister years later that he'd seen Wagner push Wood, who then fell overboard, and that Wagner refused to rescue this is unconfirmed. Wagner has denied he had anything to do with Wood's death. But I mention this one specifically for a wild Hollywood fact that not many people seem to know — Christopher Walken, Wood's Brainstorm costar, had also been on the boat that night. He had reportedly also argued with Wagner, and Wagner was (according to Davern) angry Natalie had invited him. Walken has not said much about the night beyond affirming it was an accident and that he had nothing to do with it. "I don't know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing." He also said, "The people who are convinced that there was something more to it than what came out in the investigation will never be satisfied with the truth. Because the truth is, there is nothing more to it." One of the wildest Hollywood secrets involves Loretta Young and Clark Gable. For years, there were rumors Young's adopted daughter Judy was actually her biological daughter, conceived with Clake Gable. The rumors wouldn't be proven true until Young admitted to them in her posthumous memoirs. It turned out Young had conducted an elaborate cover-up to make it seem like she had adopted the child. Loretta even reportedly had Judy's ears pinned back in an operation because they so resembled Gable's. Gable never had any role in her daughter Judy's life. Young refused to tell Judy the truth, and according to Judy's memoir, when Judy confronted her about the rumors, Young ran into the house and Young never spoke publicly about the circumstances of Judy's conception, according to her daughter-in-law, Linda Lewis, in the '90s, Young had asked her what date rape meant after hearing the term on Larry King Live. After Lewis explained, Young replied, "That's what happened between me and Clark.' On the train ride back from shooting Call of the Wild on location, Gable had allegedly snuck into Young's compartment. According to Lewis, Young didn't want Judy to know, so Lewis kept quiet until both Young and Judy were dead. Finally, we'll end with a few last examples featuring Errol Flynn, because the man had a wild life and allegedly did some wild things. First of all, he wrote in his autobiography that he once had a job castrating young sheep with his teeth. Second, Flynn once apparently showed up on the doorstep of Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, angry about something she had written about him, and began masturbating. "I began laughing, and continued laughing until he finished with a dramatic flourish all over my doorstep," Hopper reportedly told Paul Newman. "I'll say one thing for Errol. He's the only man I know who can ejaculate in front of a fully dressed woman who's laughing derisively during the entire process." And finally, David Niven claims that Flynn once brought him along to view 'the best-looking girls in L.A.'...which, as it turned out, meant parking by Hollywood High to watch the girls get out of school. He then allegedly told a police officer who questioned why they were there that he was "enjoying the scenery." What shocking old Hollywood facts do you know? Let us know in the comments!
