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Junior Brown's Bio:

Junior Brown's fifth album, Long Walk Back, shows off Junior's diversity and his "guit-steel" guitar wizardy. The guit-steel is Junior's own invention and features both guitar and steel guitar necks on one instrument. Brown is a multi-Grammy nominee who tours in large venues and comes home to Austin to play intimate country, swing and rock at the Continental Club and other local venues.

Brown's baritone voice has endeared him to fans from many genres and his guitar prowess leave listeners in awe. His first solo release, 12 Shades of Brown, was in 1990. It has been followed by Guit With It, Junior High and the acclaimed Semi-Crazyin 1996. Two songs from Junior High went to number one on The Nashville Network (TNN). His videos have earned Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards. Grammy nominations were for "Best Album," "Best Song"and "Best Male Vocal." He's appeared all over the TV dial, been in commercials and the movie "Still Breathing."

Brown has evolved from classical piano training as a child through surf music, acid rock, and honky tonks as a sideman in other fellow's bands. Not until he decided to be true to his own vision of good music with a good dose of guitar licks thrown in did the Stetson wearing Brown begin to develop a following. He delivers lyrics full of word play and double meaning backed up by his wife on rhythm guitar, whom he introduces as "the lovely Miss Tanya Rae."

The Village Voice compared him to Jimi Hendrix, saying, "His Hendrix fixation, it's now obvious, is not a slacker grabbing gimmick, but an honorable exploration of the highways and byways Jimi opened, and a journey moreover, where in Junior's loose-as-a-goose wristing, combined with his guit-steel's unique and extraordinary range, actually elevates him into the class of musical humans going where no man, Hendrix not excepted, has gone before." Junior himself claims to have been influenced by Bob Wills. Long Walk Back demonstrate both influences, beginning with the straight country sound of "Long Walk Back to San Antone" and ending with the eight-minute blues jam "Stupid Blues" featuring former Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell.

Junior Brown's website shows plenty of photos and has music clips and tour dates.

User: Ryan

Junior Brown's Albums
Exciting Collection From the Curb Group - Disc 1
Live at the Continental Club: The Austin Experience

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
Junior Brown the multi-dimensional Americana/honkytonk artist who dazzled fans in 2004 with his Telarc debut iDown Home Chrome ratchets up the intensity with iLive at the Continental Club: The Austin Experience a richly layered set that captures the witty songcraft and mind-bending fretwork that have become his trademark in the live setting.
Greatest Hits

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
Junior Brown is a singer/steel guitar player who blends rock and roll and country.
Down Home Chrome

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
If you think Junior had a tendency toward being pretty weird when he was being normal wait til you hear him being weird. With its overabundance of 60s blues-rock guitar gimmicks his awkwardly Xeroxed Hendrix vocals on Foxy Lady the lounge schlock of You Inspire Me a pun-filled story song (Two Rons Dont Make It Right) thats absurd even by his usual standards and a rampant misogyny that grows tedious even if its meant to be funny this album has its share of lapses. But when the man just bears down and plays t right on his guit-steel as he does on Hill Country Hot Rod Man and the Chicago-style Monkey Wrench Blues he wipes the slate clean again. Though perhaps a couple notches below his best work thisll still satisfy Browns established fans. John Morthland
Mixed Bag

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
Though the title could as easily apply to most of Browns output IMixed Bag understates the eclecticism of this radical traditionalists first release in almost three years. For fans of his pyrotechnic picking on his double-necked guit-steel theres an album-opening assault on Jerry Reeds Guitar Man as well as supercharged romps through Catfish and Collard Greens and Wild Goose Chase. While the musical rewards of such virtuosic displays may wear thin quickly the balladry of Running with the Wind and Our First Bluebonnet Spring strikes a richer deeper vein while the patented wordplay of Cagey Bea (about a Russian spy) and Little Town Square attests to Browns distinctive songwriting. The biggest stretch is the horn-laden Dixieland of Riverboat Shuffle before the musicianship of veteran stalwarts such as pianist Hargus Pig Robbins and drummer Buddy Harman returns the collection full-circle to classic country. Don McLeese
Long Walk Back

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
On ILong Walk Back Junior Brown attempts to expand upon his signature sound: He leaps off into extended guitar jams; he accentuates the retro-novelty aspect of certain songs by adding anonymous background choruses; he even tries to croon a ballad. Unfortunately the further he moves from concise honky-tonk shuffles and crisply written country tunes the more he strays from what he does best. ILong Walk Back works wonderfully when Brown keeps a tight grip on both his talented one-of-a-kind guitar technique and on his colorful baritone voice. But when he indulges his guitar prowess or when his voice challenges its limitations he leaves behind what makes him special. Michael McCall
Venom Wearin" Denim
Semi-Crazy

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
Almost every article ever written about Junior Brown has compared him to Ernest Tubb and Jimi Hendrix. Brown does sing in the bottomless barroom baritone of Tubb and does pick his guit-steel (his invention a combination of Telecaster guitar and a tabletop steel guitar) as if he were Hendrix in a brim-turned straw cowboy hat. What few observers point out is that Brown writes songs like Roger Miller. That gift for exaggerated lyrics is more obvious than ever on Browns third full-length album Semi-Crazy. Brown is less interesting when he gets serious as on the sentimental romantic plea Darlin Ill Do Anything You Say. No matter what he plays though Brown always entertains with his buttery deep-voiced purr and his sudden bursts of picking virtuosity. Geoffrey Himes
Junior High
12 Shades of Brown

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
With his long tall drink of bourbon voice--owing more than a little to idol Ernest Tubb--and his guit-steel a weird contraption that fuses a lap steel with a telecaster the idea for which reportedly came to him in a dream--Brown has become one of the most successful of the alternative country honky tonk heroes. His work is in the fashionable retro style but his wild Hendrix-meets-Cooder guitar gives it a rough and loud rock roll edge. Browns debut is his freshest loosest album featuring the borderline novelty numbers My Baby Dont Dance to Nothing But Ernest Tubb and Hillbilly Hula Gal as well as material in a bluesier mood. Roy Francis Kasten
Guit with It

Junior Brown Album Editorial:
Most artists playing and staying true to traditional country styles get pigeonholed as retro acts in the 1990s. Junior Brown on the other hand is viewed as something fresh and vital. Youd like to think its because of his appealing baritone drawl deft songwriting touch and fleet set of picking fingers but you just know that its the Hendrix flourishes and his guit-steel creation that make him relevant to the contemporary Nashville tastemakers. Either way Browns mix of Hawaiian-tinged ballads honky-tonk weepers steady shuffles and boy-girl duets is as potent as country gets in the 1990s. This 1993 effort his first for Curb not only showcases his rather formidable guitar technique and wall-shaking voice but also proves him to be a sneakily clever lyricist whether being ronic sarcastic or honest. Marc Greilsamer

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