Junior Brown
Down Home Chrome
Telarc International
By Mike Sheahan
 Junior
Brown is no poet. There is no need for a lyric sheet in his liner
notes and you'll never see groups of fans sipping lattes while
arguing over the meaning of his lyrics. At best Brown's words
are playful filler to live through while waiting for another
of his scathing turns at the double necked 'guit-steel' he's
famous for playing. With this in mind, fans and new comers alike
will have no problem reveling in Junior Brown's latest effort,
Down Home Chrome.
Brown gets right to the point in the leadoff track, a 12 bar
blues called "Little Rivi-Airhead." Forget cornpone
lines like "she's got a head full of air and a foot full
of lead" and "she's got more under the hood than she's
got upstairs" and head straight for the smokin' solos in
between. "Airhead" features two that conjure comparisons
to Dick Dale, Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix all at the same time.
It's playing so tasty even your wife won't hit the forward button
as she rolls her eyes at the 'dumb girl/fast car' jokes.
The next three tracks keep the party jumpin' as Junior Brown
proves that if he's not on the short list of the best instrumentalists
playing today (arguably, he is), he sure as hell is amongst the
most innovative.
By the time "Hill Country Hot Rod Man" rolls around
you should be dizzy from what you've heard and reaching for the
phone to leave steel and electric guitar solo's on all your friends'
answering machines. Then it hits you like a blind side 2x4 to
the temple. "Hill Country Hot Rod Man" is a jumping
blues (with Sam Levine, Mike Haynes, and Chris Dunn on saxophone,
trumpet and trombone) that features Brown burning up both necks
of Big Red at the same time. Sure that's technically impossible,
but I can't explain the song any other way. We're not talking
about overdubs here and I'm sure there were no Pro Tools within
fifty miles of Brown's studio, this is simply playing so fast
and genre bending that one is left just to wonder how he does
it.
Junior Brown is also a confident man. Surely he knew that
taking a turn at the Hendrix classic Foxy Lady would draw comparisons
between him and the master. Jimi die-hards could never admit
it but Brown holds his own in such a comparison. His two-and-a-half
minute solo borrows from other Hendrix tunes (bits of "Machine
Gun" and "Manic Depression" can be heard with
a careful ear) while remaining entirely Brown's own. At nearly
three minutes and sounding mostly improvised it is far more 'out
there' than the original yet never wanders into a wank-fest.
That is no small feat and it makes this song, like the rest of
Down Home Chrome truly something to be heard.
Lyrical missteps abound, however. Lines like "She's got
a black belt in shoppin'" and "Did she break the little
nest egg I was sittin' on" from "Where Has all the
Money Gone" are cringe worthy for sure. The mostly spoken-word
"Jimmy Jones" comes off more like a piece of black
comedy than the tragic tale it's intended to be. But to spend
too much time on these flaws is akin to studying the new Porsche
and going on and on about its bumpers.
Like its predecessors (this is Brown's seventh release) Down
Home Chrome is all about Junior Brown and the magic he makes
with Big Red. In his hands, simple fills between vocal lines
become acrobatic feats and solos are death defying main events.
And that, folks, is worth all the lyrical cheese and corn in
Nashville.
www.juniorbrown.com
www.telarc.com
Contact Mike Sheahan at sheahan-at-rockzilla.net
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