Brown Milton

American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and pop together into a unique, distinctly American hybrid, thus giving him the nickname, "Father of Western Swing". The birthplace of Browns upbeat "hot-jazz hillbilly" string band sound was developed at the Crystal Springs Dance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas from 1931 to 1936. Browns music inspired the great string jazz musicians from Europe, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli who in 1935 formed the Hot Club de Paris quintet. Along with Bob Wills — whom he performed with at the beginning of this career — Brown developed the sound and style of Western swing in the early 1930s; and for a while he and his band, the Musical Brownies, were more popular than Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Browns career was cut short when he died on April 18, 1936 in a car accident, just as he was poised to break into national stardom. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less