GOT STEEL?

Junior Brown: Taking back his country: Armed with guit-steel, traditionalist seeks vengeance (GRANT BRITT, 10.03.07, Creative Loafing)

"They don't write drinkin' and cheatin' songs anymore," says Junior Brown, lamenting the state of country music these days. "But they do these things about being a redneck; how cool it is in my pickup truck, and we got it all figured out with this wonderful, glorious redneck life that I'm so proud of living."

Brown's no redneck. He plays what he's dubbed free-range country. That lack of fences has him covering territory from Ernest Tubb to Jimi Hendrix. Leaving his Austin, Texas, home as a teenager to play professionally in honky-tonks, he also spent time in Hawaii perfecting his steel-guitar skills.

Traditional country music is the backbone of Brown's music, but the guitarist says that art form is virtually extinct. "The only place you can hear country music anymore is on old records," says Brown, calling in on the way to a gig in Cleveland, Ohio. "Occasionally, on the 'Grand Ole Opry' you'll see some older guy who knows how to do it, but very rarely."

Tubb, who was an idol and a mentor to Brown, encouraged him to experiment but "'bring it right back down to the country,'" Brown says. With the aid of his guit-steel, a Telecaster fused to a lap steel, Brown takes his traditional country to young audiences who wouldn't have investigated the music on their own.