A bass line from Bluffton (continued)

When we left Lynn Brown in Part One, the young man from Buck Island had traveled a remarkable distance from Michael C. Riley. He had gone from South Carolina State to Les Cooper and the Soul Rockers, and eventually into the musical world of Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions.

By early 1968, “We’re a Winner” had reached No. 1 on the R&B chart, but there was another part of Lynn’s talent that I hadn’t fully appreciated when I first began looking for him.

Lynn was a songwriter too. His name appears on songs including June Conquest’s “Take Care” and The Amazers’ “Without a Warning,” and he also received a writing credit for “New Dance Craze” by The Five Stairsteps & Cubie. I could go much further into record labels, recording sessions and song credits, but I don’t think we need to. What matters is that Lynn wasn’t simply standing behind famous people playing bass. He was becoming a musician and writer in his own right.

Perhaps an even better measure of Lynn’s talent is what other musicians remembered about him. Future bassist Keni Burke recalled being inspired to pick up the bass after hearing Lenny Brown when Burke was only twelve years old. Another musician who would later play bass with Curtis Mayfield learned by listening to Lynn. Those little memories tell us something a record chart can’t: other musicians were paying attention to what this young man was doing.

It is easy to wonder where all of this might have led. Lynn was still in his twenties, writing music, recording and traveling with some remarkable musicians. We will never know what might have come next, though, because in May of 1968 his story took a heartbreaking turn.

Lynn and four other young musicians had been in Columbia, South Carolina, and were traveling through Georgia toward Atlanta. With him were Billy Griffin and Joseph Thomas, fellow musicians associated with The Impressions, along with Arlan Mitchell and Clifford Mayberry from Jackie Wilson’s band. Their station wagon was pulling a small trailer carrying their belongings and musical equipment as they made their way toward another performance.

Near the Mulberry River, just south of Braselton, Georgia, their station wagon left Interstate 85 and went down an embankment. All five young men were killed. Lynn was only in his mid-twenties, and newspapers across the region carried the terrible news of the young musicians who had been on their way to another show.

There are more details in those old newspaper reports, but I don’t want to dwell on them. The accident explains why Lynn’s musical story suddenly ends in 1968, but it shouldn’t be the thing that defines him. After spending so much time learning about his life, I would much rather bring him back to the place where this story started.

In 1985, a reporter sat down with Lynn’s mother, Mary Jane “Jannie” Brown, at a time when she had already watched Bluffton change around her for most of a lifetime. She talked about Albert, their land on Buck Island, raising nine children and the many joys and losses that had filled those years. Among the children she had lost, the newspaper quietly mentioned a son lost “to a car wreck.”

That son was Lynn.

Reading that old interview put everything else I had found into perspective. I had been searching for Lenny Brown the bass player, following him through old newspapers and record credits and into the world of Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions. Jannie Brown didn’t need any of those things to tell her who Leonard was. Before the records, the touring and the famous names, Lynn was her boy from Buck Island.

That is also why the memories people have shared with me matter so much. George Chaplin helped bring Lynn’s name back into my conversations. Mr. Brother Kitty remembered seeing him come home and play at Michael C. Riley. Another local connection has shared a family memory of her parents helping Lynn on another part of his musical journey. Piece by piece, those memories have helped put a Bluffton life around the name I kept finding in old music records.

Bluffton looks very different today from the town Lynn Brown left behind. Buck Island has changed tremendously, old family land has been surrounded by development, and many of the places and people that could once tell these stories for themselves are gone. Yet every once in a while, enough pieces survive for us to put someone back into the picture.

Nearly sixty years later, we can still play “We’re a Winner.” We can hear Curtis Mayfield, Fred Cash and Sam Gooden singing, and underneath those famous voices is a bass guitar helping hold the song together. Most people hearing that record will never have a reason to wonder about the young man playing it, much less know about the little river town in South Carolina where his story began.

But Bluffton can remember him differently. We can remember Leonard “Lynn” Brown as Albert and Jannie Brown’s son from Buck Island, a Michael C. Riley graduate who carried his music far beyond the town where he grew up. We can remember the young man who left home, found his place among some remarkable musicians, wrote songs of his own and even came back to play for the students at his old school.

Years ago, all I had were a few words someone passed along to me: “Lynn Brown. The Impressions.” It took a long time, plenty of digging and, most importantly, the memories of people who knew old Bluffton to understand just how much story was hiding behind those words.

Now when I hear an old Impressions record, I listen to the bass a little closer. I hope after hearing Lynn’s story, maybe a few other people around Bluffton will too.

Paul Tollefson is the Director of Tennis at the Hampton Hall Club. After moving from Hilton Head to Bluffton he became enthralled with the history of the town and the people and cultures that call it home. He has found a passion in writing and enjoys being able to share the stories and pictures of long-time locals. He is the co-creator of the Facebook page “Bluffton Then and Now.”