For Austin, Texas, standout Junior Brown, authentic country music is where it’s at. But with Nashville redefining what mainstream country music is — namely, pop/rock music with fiddles and steel guitar — Brown is often left out in the cold when it comes to country fans.
“What’s ironic about it is a good part of most of my set is, ya know, traditional country music, with other things mixed in,” says Brown, who will headline the Fourth Annual Honesdale Roots & Rhythm Music & Arts Festival on Saturday. “The ironic thing is it’s the country music fans that seem the least interested.”
Brown laughs at the incongruity, but his career has blossomed nonetheless, with fans the world over taking to his old-school yet unique sound, thanks in part to the guit-steel, a double-neck instrument of Brown’s invention that combines a 6-string with a steel guitar.
Media accolades have been constant, with Musician magazine calling Brown a genius and Life naming him the only contemporary musician in its “All Time Country Band.”
Brown’s relative outsider status to the Nashville machine has allowed him to develop his music and his fanbase on his own terms.
“It’s a little bit of everything. All different ages and different groups. One of my fondest memories is opening up for Ray Charles 10 or 15 years ago in Baltimore and just being mobbed [by black people],” he says, laughing, “wanting autographs. Music is one of the few things that can break through that racial tension. It just warms my heart that I’m able to be part of that.”
Brown’s vocal and guitar style has allowed him to be remarkable versatile. “I did well in Nashville, I won the awards,” he says, including the CMA Country Music Video of the Year in 2006, but he’s also taken on more adventurous scenarios, like a 2006 tour with Bob Dylan.
Austin, known for its vibrant, quirky music scene, including the massive South By Southwest conclave, has proved to be a fertile breeding ground for musicians like Brown.
“I don’t know,” says Brown when asked why Austin has been such a musical hotbed. “I think it’s a combination of several things, one being the fact that Texas has sort of always had its identity as a place where music developed. Ya know, honky tonk, country music began there as a result of the German and Czech settlers who had moved there in the 1800s. A lot of stuff developed out of that era and with the dancehalls. They developed an ability to listen. Perhaps the folk movement of the ’50s and ’60s had something to do with that appreciation, a little college town that appreciated local music and supported it.”
South by Southwest has grown to the point where it’s almost unnavigable, but the festival and industry get-together has a fond place in Brown’s heart — for good reason.
“I’m very grateful to South By Southwest, because that’s where I got my break years ago,” he says. “I had one of those showcases, and it happened to be at a club I had already been playing, the Continental Club, that I was fairly popular at. If I could pick one performance that turned my career from obscurity to fame, it would be that one.”
Brown lent his sonorous voice to the “Dukes of Hazzard” 2005 movie, in which he was the narrator.
“I think it came about that Johnny Knoxville, one of the stars of the movie, was a fan of mine,” Brown says. “They wanted to have Jerry Reed originally, and someone else they were considering, and they couldn’t get them. … I was a little disappointed when I saw the final movie. I didn’t think all the trashy stuff needed be there. I don’t think it needed it. I don’t mind things like that if it’s needed to get the movie across, but I was disappointed that it had to be so seedy.”
Brown has released nine studio albums, but none since 2004’s “Down Chrome”; “Greatest Hits” came out in 2005, and “Live at the Continental Club: The Austin Experience” was released in 2005. Currently, he’s working on new material — of some sort.
“I got some project going on, real exciting stuff that I can’t talk about,” Brown says, laughing heartily. “It’s gonna be sort of a surprise when it’s done.”
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Fourth Annual Honesdale Roots & Rhythm Music & Arts Festival. Friday, June 19, 8 p.m. kickoff party w/ The Slam Allen Band at JJ Mack’s (Route 191, Honesdale). Saturday, June 20, music 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Honesdale Central Park. Junior Brown, Michelle Willson & The Evil Gal Orchestra, Heybale. Opening act: The Murder Ballads. Free. Post-festival Party at The Limerick (Main Street) w/ The Murder Ballads. See Web site for complete schedule: www.honesdalerootsandrhythm.com
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