Junior Brown
A couple of weeks ago my band had the honor of opening for Junior Brown. Sadly I hadn’t really heard of him before but I would soon learn I had heard him and I just didn’t know it. I would also soon learn that Junior Brown is on such a high guitar level that I’d put him in the class of Stevie Ray Vaughan & Hendrix.
When I set up my drum kit the stage manager made it very clear to stay away from “the twins.” Don’t go near “the twins.” Don’t bump into “the twins.” I almost expeceted him to say “don’t even look at the twins.” The twins were his two fender twin amps. As you can see from the picture his guitar is not your normal guitar. The top is basically a Fender Tele and the bottom is a slide steel guitar.
His band consisted of a solid “role player” bassist and a drummer whose kit consisted of a snare drum and 1 cymbal. What a great load in!
The “twins” were loud as hell. Not in a heavy metal kind of way but in a clean, Nashville country kind of way. He attacked that guitar with a vengeance. He absolutely pounded the thing and made that instrument sing. Every time he played a note I thought he was going to break a string. Those strings must have been very heavy. He’d then quickly grab his slide and jump down to the slide and pull off insane slide lix like you’ve never heard. He could switch back & forth in a fraction of a second. When he would play a decending lick and run out of frets, he’d just grab his tuning pegs and just crank them down, down down. Amazing. No wonder guitar player ragazine voted him #1 a few years ago.
Though he’s known for his guitar playing, his voice was incredible. When he’d grab those pegs and go down, down, down…his voice was right there. He could belt out some of the lowest of the low vocals. I’d classify his music as half country, half blues, half “Nashville.” Yes that’s 3 halves because his stuff is SO good.
