An amusing guy
Junior Brown plays country and western – and a whole lot more

By Don Weiner

Junior Brown in concert Photo by Eric Rife – Used by permission Copyright © Eric Rife / Eric Rife's Photo Gallery

Junior Brown is an amusing guy, and it's not merely because he infuses each new release with a big helping of humor.

Case in point is his newest collection, "Down Home Chrome." Brown is pictured on the CD cover decked out in his signature cowboy hat and freshly pressed suit and sitting in a hot rod outside of a log cabin. The only indication that something may make him a little different from other artists populating the country-music charts is the instrument sitting on his lap, the double-necked "guit-steel" – a combination electric and steel guitar Brown dreamed up and had built.

It's not hard to imagine some good ol' boy wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart and spotting this CD right there near the latest releases from Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw. He's never really heard of Junior Brown, but since he likes both kinds of music – country and Western – he decides to buy it and give it a listen.

This is when the fun starts.

Junior Brown in concert Photo by Eric Rife – Used by permission Copyright © Eric Rife / Eric Rife's Photo Gallery

First up is "Little Rivi-Airhead" a tongue-in-cheek song about a lead-footed cutie with more under her hood than her hairdo, and our Junior Brown initiate thinks he's struck country gold. But before long, Brown's delving into lounge-style jazz ("You Inspire Me"), slow blues ("Monkey Wrench Blues") and psychedelic rock (an almost note-for-note re-creation of the Jimi Hendrix classic "Foxy Lady"). Suddenly our listener has a look on his face that wouldn't be out of place in "Blazing Saddles" when the residents of Rock Ridge first see Sheriff Bart riding into town.

For those who know and love Brown's music, none of this comes as a surprise. After all, this is a guy who has capped off concerts with a lengthy surf music medley.

Brown's eclectic tastes, virtuoso guitar playing and sense of humor are what make him appealing to an audience whose musical tastes don't stop at the Nashville city limits.

But, as always, he doesn't completely abandon the country audience. Consider "Jimmy Jones," a mostly spoken-word tale of a casualty of war.

Still, it's hard for Brown to play it straight. That's in evidence on such country-flavored tunes as "Where Has All the Money Gone?" and "Two Rons Don't Make It Right," a cheatin' song about a gal mistakenly dating identical twins. Even on "Hill Country Hot Rod Man," he adds some horn-section backing to accentuate his fret-board work.

Now that Brown has a found a new home at Telarc – a label that specializes in jazz, blues and classical music – we probably can expect even more diverse musical explorations from a man who says he has no boundaries to his songwriting. That may not be good news for the traditional country crowd, but it is for the rest of us.

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