Robert Clifford Brown[1] (July 15, 1910 – November 6, 1966),[2] known professionally as Washboard Sam, was an American blues musician and singer.

[2] Brown's date and place of birth are uncertain; many sources state that he was born in 1910 in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest that he was born in 1903 or 1904, in Jackson, Tennessee, on the basis of Social Security information.

[2] He moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1920s, performing as a street musician with Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon.

Samuel Charters included Brown's "I've Been Treated Wrong" on the compilation album The Country Blues for Folkways Records in 1959.

[3] He died of heart disease in Chicago, in November 1966,[2] and was buried in an unmarked grave at the Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery, in Homewood, Illinois.