December 18, 2002
GUIT WITH IT:
When country wasn't cool: Junior Brown stuck by his guns to become a popular touring and recording artist (Alan Sculley, 12/12/02, Cincinnati City Beat)These days, Junior Brown is one of the coolest artists on the Country scene -- at least to people whose tastes lean away from the Pop-inflected Country that populates mainstream Country radio and toward the twangier traditional sounds of years gone by.With his guit-steel guitar, Brown's one-of-a-kind double-neck instrument that combines both a traditional electric guitar and a steel guitar, his snazzy suit and cowboy attire and a wry, yet folksy sense of humor, Brown has been one of the most unique -- and acclaimed -- artists to arrive on the national scene over the past decade.
But Brown remembers a time when he was anything but hip -- namely in the late 1980s when he first put together a band and began playing on the usually progressive-thinking Austin, Texas, music scene.
"When I started my own band it was frustrating because they (audiences) would yell for Rock & Roll and I just kind of played traditional Country," Brown, 49, recalls. "They would laugh at me. 'Hey, play us some Rock & Roll, will you?' (I'd answer) 'Well, why don't you go watch MTV? This is a Country band.'
"Then they'd make fun of me singing an Ernest Tubb song or something," the affable singer-guitarist says. "They'd be making their little chicken moves out there, like they were really hip and I was real square. So that made me angry, and I would reach down and turn that amp all the way up and just blast them. 'You want some Rock & Roll, here it is.' And in doing that, I actually stumbled on a style.
If Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, George Jones and Dolly Parton weren't all still around, Junior Brown would be the best act in Country music. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 18, 2002 1:40 PM
What about Shania Twain?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at December 18, 2002 4:35 PMPop.
Posted by: oj at December 18, 2002 6:11 PMwhoa there, nelly, 'Red Dirt Girl' Emmylou is the best act in country (or rock) and Junior tole me so hisself...better talk to the man before you shoot from the hip, err...unhip. Dolly says so too and Johnny agrees, according to daughter, no mean talent herself, Roseanne. And the only integrated country band ever, with two brothers...guitar and drums. Get real...you hosses been in Hanover too long. Us southerners in Boston know our country!
Posted by: john at December 18, 2002 9:30 PMI've seen him twice, but missed him last Saturday here in Atlanta on account of exams.
The hardest working man in Country Music? Gotta be!!
The best "country" stuff these days is being done by Texas and Red Dirt musicians like Brown, who just work their rears off with live shows and build a following that way. Not that Clear Channel takes notice. And for every Junior Brown or Robert Earl Keen or Joe Ely or Pat Green who "makes it" there's dozens more good musicians (anti-Kenny Chesneys?) working it every night at little places like that dancehall in Gruene
, hoping folks tired of the Nashville factory crap will notice. Good to see folks in Cincy and New Hampshire have. :)