Pearly Brown
American musician
Reverend (or Blind) Pearly Brown (August 18, 1915 – June 28, 1986) was an American singer and guitarist, known primarily as a street performer. He also played harmonica and accordion. Brown's repertoire included gospel blues, blues, country, and spirituals. His bottleneck style of slide guitar inspired Georgia rock and roll musicians. He performed at the Newport Folk Festival, Carnegie Hall, and—as one of the first African American performers—the Grand Ole Opry.
Biography and legacy
He was born in Abbeville, Wilcox County, Georgia, and was blind from birth. While still young, he relocated with his family to Americus, Sumter County, Georgia. A schoolteacher, recognizing his determination to succeed, arranged a place for him at the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon, Georgia, where he completed eight years of formal education and learned Braille. After graduating, he was ordained as minister by the Friendship Baptist Church of Americus.
Brown spent the 1930s in Florida and Georgia as a minister, a bean picker, and—by 1939—as a street musician.
The public source identifies “Pearly Brown” as american musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pearly, Brown and American.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Pearly Brown”, the useful work is to connect “american musician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17497008. VIAF identifies the subject as 14368769. The Library of Congress control number is no96065483. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1986 and 1939.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pearly Brown”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pearly Brown primary sources, Pearly Brown archive and Pearly research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pearly Brown” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.