Personal Life
- Oldest of seven children.
- First husband Jimmy Brown (trumpeter) was found to be already married.
- Married Earl Swanson (saxophonist) in 1955, the father of her son Earl Swanson Jr.
- Married to Bill Blunt (police officer) for three years.
- Was mother of Ronald David Jackson ("Ronnie") with Clyde McPhatter of The Drifters, although Ronnie grew up believing that his father was Brown's former companion and accompanist Willis "Gator" Jackson.
- Her nephew Rakim is considered one of the most influential rappers in the history of the hip hop genre.
Brown died in a Las Vegas-area hospital on November 17, 2006, from complications following a heart attack and stroke she suffered after surgery in the previous month. A memorial concert for her was held on January 22, 2007 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
Brown is buried at the Roosevelt Memorial Park, Chesapeake City in Virginia.
Read more about this topic: Ruth Brown
Famous quotes containing the words personal life, personal and/or life:
“Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters “woman’s peculiar sphere,” her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn’t written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“A woman can get marries and her life does change. And a man can get married and his life changes. But nothing changes life as dramatically as having a child. . . . In this country, it is a particular experience, a rite of passage, if you will, that is unsupported for the most part, and rather ignored. Somebody will send you a couple of presents for the baby, but people do not acknowledge the massive experience to the parents involved.”
—Dana Raphael (20th century)