Molly Hatchet Lead Singer Dies at 53

I saw this last Monday, and should have posted it then:

Molly Hatchet Lead Singer Dies at 53
The Associated Press
Published: Mar 14, 2005

DAVIE, Fla. (AP) - Danny Joe Brown, the lead singer of the Southern rock band Molly Hatchet, died of complications from diabetes, his family said Monday. He was 53.

Brown died Thursday at his home in Davie, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, his sister Lyndia Brown said.

"He had been in the hospital for about four weeks before he died, and he wanted to come home and he was home for 30 minutes when he died," Lyndia Brown told The Associated Press. "He was surrounded by his children and his wife."

In 1975, the Jacksonville native joined Molly Hatchet, named after a Southern prostitute who allegedly beheaded and mutilated her clients. Brown was frontman for its self-titled album in 1978, which went platinum. In 1979 the next album, "Flirtin' With Disaster," sold over 2 million copies.

Brown left the band in the early 1980s because of his diabetes.

After creating his own group, the Danny Joe Brown Band, he rejoined Molly Hatchet in 1982 to participate in the album "No Guts ... No Glory." The was album had limited success and the group eventually disbanded.

Molly Hatchet reunited and toured in 1996 for release of the album "Devil's Canyon."

Brown ended his career after a stroke in 1998, according to reports.

"Danny was way more than a signer for rock 'n' roll band. He was great brother, a wonderful son," Lyndia said. "He is going to be missed terribly by everybody."

I enjoyed MH many years ago, and just let their tunes slide from my regular listening until I went to see my older brother when he was dying. I had not seen him in ten years when I went, and it was a good week. Molly Hatchet was played quite a bit on that 1400 mile return journey, and exactly ten days after I returned, he died at 43...

--WP