Is Junior Brown Country?

It's A Mixed Bag

by Jay Johnson

If the question is multiple choice, and you can only choose one answer, the answer is yes Junior Brown is country.  However, after listening to his newest release, the genre straddling, musical whirlwind "Mixed Bag", you might begin rethinking your answer. Many insiders to the “business” of country music ponder the question and, regrettably, often disregard the guit-steel innovator altogether.  Junior Brown is not safe and easily pigeonholed as are most of the artists favored by country radio programmers.

The opening track, the Jerry Hubbard rockabilly classic, Guitar Man, showcases both Junior’s guit-steel prowess and compelling baritone voice.  The rollicking version does justice, and pays homage, to all the fine versions of the song cut by other artists, and surpasses most!  The man from Austin, Texas, who wrote nine of the thirteen songs, offers several songs sure to please the most staunch country purists among us.  "Ain’t Gonna Work Today" was written for every man that’s arisen on a Saturday morning with just enough energy to get his gear together and go fishing, but not nearly enough energy to even look at the “honey-do” jar.  Slower numbers such as "Our First Bluebonnet Spring" and "Runnin’ With The Wind" are elegant in their musical simplicity and the smooth vocals are evocative of the late country great, Jim Reeves.  Lyrically simple and almost corny at times, Junior’s delivery, voice inflection and phraseology bring a heartfelt poignancy to words that might sound silly if sung by anyone else.  Such is the case with "Little Town Square", the tear-jerker about a simple, small town boy that adopted the park in his home town and met with a tragic fate.  Moral and ethical lessons about parental responsibilities are delivered in "Grow Up America" with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.  A few extra dashes of spice are added to this musical gumbo in the forms of the ragtime sound of "Riverboat Shuffle" and the jumping "Catfish And Collard Greens".  Also worthy of mention is the musical nod given to one of Junior’s heroes, Ernest Tubb, with "Kansas City Blues".

It’s ironic that musical virtuosity can preclude a musician from achieving widespread success, accolades and popularity, but that’s precisely what appears to have happened to Junior Brown.  Granted, his humorous video "My Wife Thinks You’re Dead" is getting some airplay on TV as of late, but he can’t, or won’t, restrict his musical interests and talents to country music alone.  Resultantly, he is too hard to categorize for most radio programmers so they simply ignore him.  Junior Brown is deeply rooted in country music, but those roots also find their way into the fertile soil of blues, rockabilly, ragtime, western swing, et al…

Jay Johnson – Cleveland, Ohio
December 29, 2003

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