| CUSTOMER REVIEWS: | 3/5 - Down Home Corn
I've been a Junior Brown fan since the earlier days. Not only is he a superb guitarist, he is a clever and gifted songwriter whose facility with words sometimes leads him to write some of the most maudlin and corny yet literate country songs around.
<br />On Down Home Chrome, Brown shines once again with his guit-steel virtuosity, but succumbs to writing some of the corniest songs I've heard in a long time. Like bad puns, some of the lyrics can really make a fan cringe.
<br />What's good? I like The Bridge Washed Out, the swinging Hill Country Hot Rod Man, the traditional Let's Go Back, the jazzy You Inspire Me, a competent cover of Hendrix' Foxy Lady, and the obligatory bout with the blues, Monkey Wrench Blues.
<br />The corniest of the bunch are Little Rivi-Airhead, Jimmy Jones, Two Rons Don't Make A Right, and Are You Just Cuttin' Up?.
<br />Junior Brown's voice fits his style well and he seems best when playing either traditional style country or the blues. However, on Down Home Chrome there is not much of either. But he does have an excellent band so the music alone keeps this CD from falling below three stars.
<br />Hard-core Junior Brown fans will like this, but some casual fans may drift away in dismay if he continues along his cornball path. But I look at it this way. Corniness is part of his musical persona, there were hints of it from the beginning and its not going to suddenly disappear. So if the down home corn makes you cringe, try to ignore that and focus on what attracted you to Brown's music in the first place. The basic Brown formulas and style are still intact.
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3/5 - Rippin' 8-string steel
On his seventh solo album, Junior Brown augments his signature truck-driving, honky-tonk twang with cool lounge-lizard jazz guitar ("You Inspire Me"), soulful Albert King-style string bending ("Monkey Wrench Blues"), and even occasional horns. But the highlight is Brown's Guit-Steel -- a custom doubleneck hybrid of Tele and lap steel -- which lets him jump mid-song between 6-string chicken pickin' and whining 8-string tone-bar licks. His steel playing is remarkable: Whether comping Western swing chords, plucking cry-in-your-beer country fills, or whipping out stuttering double-stops, Brown nails his lines with righteous intonation and a fat, swooping tone. As always, he delivers his tongue-in-cheek lyrics in a resonant baritone, his Guit-Steel timbres are unfettered with digital processing, and his solos have a live, reckless edge.
5/5 - Oh My God
When it comes to Junior Brown, what can one say, except "Oh my God..."? |
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Friday, December 25, 2009
Last visit: 24/12/2009
