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Kathy
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He played for Elvis (Genealogy Series: Blog 5)
3 stars|4 comments|November 09, 2008|1479 reads
 
I've been working all weekend on genealogy gifts for my relatives for Christmas.  I'm making about 15 fully personalized books, 100-150 pages each, of my genealogy research as it pertains to each recipient.  Today I began writing human interest stories featuring a few individual relatives, to be interspersed throughout the genealogy, and I decided to post them here, with minor changes, so you can enjoy them along with me.  The first one is a second cousin.

Photobucket


 

TONY BROWN
Record Producer
Tony Brown Enterprises, Nashville, TN

Tony Brown was born in Dec. 1946 to Floyd and Agnes Brown in Greensboro, NC.  He grew up as a preacher’s kid and attended elementary school in Walkertown, NC.  He took to the piano as a child and played for his family’s southern gospel group, a musical genre and talent that would take him far.

 Tony would later play keyboards for such artists as the Stamps Quartet, the Blackwood Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Elvis Presley, Rosanne Cash, and Emmylou Harris, before turning to a career in record producing.  He worked briefly for RCA in CA, but soon moved to Nashville where he spent most of his career producing for MCA Records (later named Universal), of which he became President in 1993.  As a producer, Tony worked with such artists as Vince Gill, Reba McIntire, Jimmy Buffett, Wynonna, Brooks & Dunn, Trisha Yearwood, Alabama, and George Strait, producing multiple gold, platinum, and multiplatinum albums.  In 2007 Tony left Universal Records and began Tony Brown Enterprises.      

Tony was listed in Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 Most Powerful People in the Entertainment Industry.  He has received multiple CMA, ACM and other country music related awards.  Among them:  Billboard’s Producer of the Year Award for 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993; in 1991 CMA’s award for producing the single of the year (Vince Gill’s “When I Call Your Name”); in 1994 received a Grammy nomination for producer of the year; in 2004 won ACM award for Producer of the Year; and in 2008 was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Piano Roll of Honor for his work with the Stamps in the 1960’s.


 


Sources: 
Kingsbury’s The Encyclopedia of Country Music
nashvillecitypaper.com
wikipedia.org  (Tony Brown)
musicianguide.com/biographies  (Tony Brown) 

 
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Voice in DC
 Voice in DC
November 09, 2008
Wow...pretty cool...have you ever met him?
Kathy
Kathy
November 09, 2008

Hi Voice!  No, my dad knows him, and he used to visit my grandmother when she was living, but I haven't met him.  I wrote to him today for the first time, to send him a 1915 photograph of our great-grandparents and their children.  (The children include his grandfather and my grandmother.)

Dennis Howe
 Dennis Howe
November 10, 2008
Great story, and an even greater gift. My family has a very thorough genealogy, it's a great way to let the younger generations know where they came from. It's also great fun to see the letters from earlier times, they give a fresh perspective on their lives. I especially like the perspective on unknowns who become famous later on in life, sometimes the perspective is as revealing of the writer as much as the subject!
Kathy
Kathy
November 10, 2008
Dennis, you are so right about the historian rewriting the history.  I am trying hard to avoid that, but I realize how easy it would be, especially in the genealogy research itself.  Your family is fortunate to have a well-documented history.  Do you know who put it together?  Although I'm making these books for Christmas, my work is just beginning.  I'm sure this will be lifelong project.