Country blues singer and probably guitarist (b. about 1884, reportedly in Pace, Bolivar County, MS, d. after 1932, presumably in St. Louis, MO), who recorded six titles for Vocalion in 1932.
Little is known about "Hi" Henry Brown, except that he played in the St. Louis Blues scene of the 1930s. Charley Jordan, a prominent guitarist and singer from this scene, accompanied Brown on his three known Vocalion releases, which included Brown's 1932 blues about the sinking of the Titanic, included in such anthologies as People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938, St.Louis Blues 1929-1935: The Depression, and Jordan's Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, Vol. 2 (1931 - 1934).
In his liner notes to St.Louis Blues 1929-1935: The Depression, Don Kent speculates that Brown "may have come from Pace, Mississippi." He also notes that one of the longest-surviving St. Louis blues players from the Depression era, Henry Townsend, who died in 2006, considered Brown to be Lane Hardin, a fellow St. Louis bluesman from the 1930s, playing under a pseudonym. Hardin, meanwhile, is thought to have made additional recordings in the 1940s under the name Leroy Simpson, one of which appears in Anthology of the Blues Vol 4 - Blues From the Deep South. Beyond this, blues historians have reported few other details about "Hi" Henry Brown's life and music.