Senior citizen drums up a ruckus

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Sunday, Ruth Brown, 78, will mark her 79th birthday at her home in Manor, just east of Austin. A week later, she will climb up on the stage at the legendary Antone’s blues club in Downtown Austin and rock the house.

You see, Brown has a long history of experimentation with life.

“Well, it actually had to do with my husband,” she said, “because we both were: 'Let's try it!' That was more or less it, come up with an idea, let's try it, go for it, you know. So we tried many things. Some worked out; some did not, but the thing we learned was that the ones we didn't do were the ones we would later say, 'What if?'”

Brown’s husband, Clifton Brown, passed away seven years ago. She misses him deeply but she is grateful for their lively marriage. He was an American soldier serving in Germany when he went on leave in Denmark, meeting his future wife at a café.

After their wedding, they lived the military life for some 20 years, moving so many times Ruth Brown can no longer recall all the places they once called home.

“The longest we stayed in one place was just under two years,” she said, “and the shortest time was about two months.

“We moved constantly and that sort of set a pattern. So after we got out, we just continued. We have lived in, I think about 13 or 14 states. We have lived in Germany, Demark; we have lived in Japan. We loved new places, new things to see and new things to explore and do.

In those places, the Browns also experimented with activities.

“We played golf; we played tennis; we played racquetball. Volleyball we tried but I'm not very good at that,” Brown laughed, “not that I'm good at the others either, but at least it worked somewhat.

“But we never kept score; we just played for fun and for exercise. As long as something was fun we would keep doing it. When it stopped being fun, well, let's try something else.”

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that when Brown’s daughter, Suzanne VanRandwyk, 49, started taking guitar lessons and playing with other students in public performances, Ruth took notice.

“Every so often they have what they call a showcase at Antone’s ,” she said. “So I started going to those and I met a lot of the other women and they're just a great group of very diverse women from teenagers to my age.

“One day we were standing and talking at the beginning of the year and I said, 'Yeah, if I didn't have arthritis I would take (guitar) lessons, but I can't play with my hands, you know, because of the arthritis.

“So I jokingly said, 'probably the only thing I could do would be drums.’

“So the reaction was, 'Why don't you?'

“And I said, 'Why don't I?' So I started taking lessons.”

Brown soon realized taking lessons would not be enough; she would need to practice at home. So she rented a drum set and put it together in her bedroom, scouring the Internet for instructions.

Then, she picked up a couple of drum sticks and got after it.

“It's actually great fun,” said Brown. “It's always fun to make noise and I like the rhythm and I like all the different ones, trying out the different drums and the symbols and stuff like that.”

Then, the budding drummer learned that the Girl Guitar school was putting together a new class that would produce a new band made up of beginning musicians. She took the plunge.

“There's a lot for everybody to learn,” she said, “so it's limited how much time (is available) for each. So we're keeping it fairly simple, you know, but (it’s) still good.”

The gig for Brown’s band will be part of a larger showcase scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 11. The doors at Antone’s will open at 5 p.m.

The drummer is not the least bit nervous.

“You know, the regret in life is not the mistakes you make,” she said. “You learn from that, and the failures you have; you learn from those things. The one when you get my age, when you sit back and look with regret is those chances you didn't take, all the possibilities you didn't explore.

“That's what, you know, what if, I wonder what if. Those are your regrets when you get older.”

Ruth Brown will never have to regret that she didn’t take a chance with playing the drums and somewhere, perhaps, her late husband is tapping a foot and sporting a wide, wide grin.