Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill-health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent, in a telephone interview Saturday.

Cady, who received a call from Brown’s manager Jim Bateman, said the musician was with his family at his brother’s house when he passed away Saturday.

Brown’s home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, which wiped out much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, Cady said.

“He was completely devastated,” Cady said. “I’m sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit but I’m sure it weighed heavily on his soul.”

Although his career first took off in the 1940s with blues hits “Okie Dokie Stomp” and “Ain’t That Dandy,” Brown bristled when he was labeled a bluesman. In the second half of his career he became known as a musical jack-of-all-trades who played a half-dozen instruments and culled from jazz, country, Texas blues and the zydeco and Cajun music of his native Louisiana.

By the end of his career, Brown had more than 30 recordings and won a Grammy award in 1982.

“I’m so unorthodox, a lot of people can’t handle it,” Brown said in a 2001 interview.

Brown’s versatility came partly from a childhood spent in the musical mishmash of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas. He was born in Vinton, La., and grew up in Orange, Texas.

Brown often said he learned to love music from his father, a railroad worker who sang and played fiddle in a Cajun band. Brown, who was dismissive of most of his contemporary blues players, named his father as his greatest musical influence.

“If I can make my guitar sound like his fiddle, then I know I’ve got it right,” Brown said.

Cady said Brown was quick-witted, “what some would call a ‘codger.'”