Junior Brown
| Junior Brown | |
|---|---|
Brown with his guit-steel at
Antone's in Austin, Texas, 2006 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jamieson Brown |
| Born |
June 12, 1952 Cottonwood, Arizona, US |
| Genres | Texas country, Neotraditional country, Outlaw country, Americana |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter, actor |
| Instruments | Electric guitar, lap steel guitar |
| Labels | Curb, Telarc |
| Associated acts | Hank Thompson |
| Website | www.juniorbrown.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| "Guit-steel" double-neck guitar | |
Jamieson "Junior" Brown (born June 12, 1952) is an American country guitarist and singer. He has released nine studio albums in his career, and has charted twice on the Billboard country singles charts. Brown's signature instrument is the "guit-steel" double neck guitar, a hybrid of electric guitar and lap steel guitar.
Brown was born in Cottonwood, Arizona, at an early age his family moved to Kirksville, Indiana. He first learned to play piano from his father (Samuel Emmons Brown Jr) "before I could talk". His music career began in the 1960s, and he worked through that decade and the next singing and playing pedal steel and guitar for groups such as The Last Mile Ramblers, Dusty Drapes and the Dusters and Asleep at the Wheel while developing his guitar skills. By the mid-1980s he was teaching guitar at the Hank Thompson School of Country Music at Rogers State University, in Claremore, Oklahoma.
In 1985, Brown created a new type of double-neck guitar, with some assistance from Michael Stevens. Brown called the instrument his "guit-steel". When performing, Brown plays the guitar by standing behind it, while it rests on a small music stand. The top neck on the guit-steel is a traditional six-string guitar, while the lower neck is a full-size lap steel guitar for slide playing. Brown has two guit-steels for recording and live work. The original instrument, dubbed "Old Yeller", has as its standard six-string guitar portion the neck and pickups from Brown's previous stage guitar, a Fender Bullet. The second guit-steel, named "Big Red", has a neck laser-copied from the Bullet neck; but in addition to electric guitar pickups, both the standard and lap-steel necks use identical Sho-Bud lap-steel pickups. There is a pocket in the upper bout of the guitar to hold the slide bar when it is not in use. Brown also commissioned a "pedal guit-steel" which adds pedals to the instrument for more musical control. Brown has stated that the invention of the guit-steel was always a matter of convenience so that he could play both lap steel and lead guitar during live performances and not directly motivated by a desire to be a "one man band."
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Wikipedia