MOLLY HATCHET Singer Remembered As Doting Dad

March 16, 2005

A funeral was held Tuesday (March 15) for the lead singer of the Southern rock band MOLLY HATCHET.

Danny Joe Brown died Thursday at his Davie home of complications from diabetes. He was 53.

"It was the growl" of Mr. Brown's voice that set him apart, soundman Les Targonski told the Palm Beach Post, getting in a quick smoke before the funeral started at the Cooper City Church of God.

"Danny was the consummate rock star," bass player Riff West added. "All the girls loved him and all the guys wanted to be him."

MOLLY HATCHET rode the tail end of the Southern rock wave out of northeast Florida that included the ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND, LYNYRD SKYNYRD, and .38 SPECIAL.

Mr. Brown, of Davie, fronted the band in its formative years. He quit after two albums because of his declining health, but returned to the band twice and cut a solo album before a stroke felled him in 1998. He had just returned from the hospital last week when he died peacefully in his sleep.

At the funeral service, Mr. Brown's children and bandmates remembered him as a doting father of five. A video montage captured Mr. Brown as a youth in both the Coast Guard and in the band, including a clip of MOLLY HATCHET members dressed up as cowboys on horseback.

"My dad led no ordinary life," his grown daughter, Ashley Brown, said.

Named after a 17th century prostitute who took an ax to her clients, MOLLY HATCHET hit it big from the start with its platinum 1978 debut. The follow-up, "Flirting with Disaster", sold more than 2 million copies.

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