Backing Berry were Johnnie Johnson on piano, L. C. Davis on tenor saxophone, Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on drums.
[6] Glenn C. Altschuler, in a caption to photo of Berry, states that the lyrics of the song "played slyly with racial attitudes and even fears.
"[7] Martha Bayles noted that "Berry's penchant for bragging about his 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man''s appeal for white females outraged a lot of people.
The song was also performed by the so-called "Million Dollar Quartet": Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley in a jam session on December 4, 1956.
"Brown Eyed Handsome Man" was performed in the Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet, which opened in New York in April 2010,[13] and was included in the album Million Dollar Quartet, recorded by the original Broadway cast, with Lance Guest as Johnny Cash, Robert Britton Lyons as Carl Perkins, Levi Kreis as Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddie Clendening as Elvis Presley.