Happy Labor Day Weekend to all,

Just attended a fantastic live performance yesterday (Aug 30th) in Sausalito, CA, here in the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring legendary Country guitarist/singer Junior Brown .

Brown's backup band consisted merely of his bass player and his drummer on snare & cymbal alone, allowing JB to showcase his virtuostic playing.

Brown is widely respected as one the top guitar players in the world today, irregardless of music genre, playing a self-invented guitar which he named a "guit-steel", and plays while standing. The top neck is a traditional 6 string, while the lower neck is a full size lap steel for slide playing.

Believe it or not, I discovered Junior Brown's music by mere accident a couple of months back while searching on the internet for music clips of surf music, and was instantly blown away by his guitar chops on: SURF MEDLEY . In addition to Brown's primary genre: country, he melds blues, rock, happa hawaiian in his music as well. As an arranger player who believes in the less is more approach to arranger playing (Keep it simple KISS rhythm section (ala: bass & drums only) I especially appreciate how Brown does this in order to better showcase his live playing, including all his cool guitar/efx fills. I sure would love to learn to be able to emulate some of his ideas on the keyboard now.

Ok, here are some pics I took at the concert:







PLUS: a couple of quick vid clips I shot with my Canon SD500 sub-compact camera of which includes a relatively lack luster quality video rec feature, as it's primarily intended as a point and shoot sub compact pocket camera, so apologies for the poor video quality.

Vid Clip #1

Vid Clip #2

RECOMMEDATION:
When above YouTube links appear, select: "Watch in High Quality".

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 08-31-2008).]

Last time I saw Junior was several years ago he had a standup bass and a girl (his wife I think) playing acoustic guitar plus the drummer with snare and cymbal.
What a great showman he used to throw in licks from tunes from the who and jimmy Hendrix in the middle of his country tunes.
"Highway patrol" and "my wife thinks your dead" were a couple of my favorites.

Thanks for the reminder I enjoy listening to those songs again.

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 08-31-2008).]

Nice photos and videos Scott. I really enjoyed watching and listening to him play. That is a very interesting guitar combining a lap steel with an electric 6 string.

Scott ... thnx for posting that ... and good job with that little Canon ...

t.

Mike, yeah FUN SONG! . . . Highway Patrol is among my Junior Brown penned favorites as well, and I've even added this one to my performance repetoire now, and receiving enthusiastic audience response.

Nigel, yes, I especially appreciate the way Brown is able to so smoothly go back and forth to interweave his 6 string and lap steel playing within a single song and/or medley.

Hi Tony, glad you enjoyed those spontaneous snapped pics and vid clips. I love the ultra pocketable portable convenience the Canon Elph series provides, allowing one to keep it slipped in your pocket at all times to capture pics and vids at a moments notice. That said, because the SD500 is several years old now, I believe there are far improved ultra portable sub compact cameras (+ vid) out there now. Can you (or anyone else recommend an upgrade to the SD500 which offer substantial improvements in both still & VID quality, yet still compact with similar zoom features?

Thanks,

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 09-01-2008).]

Not able to listen to this yet Scott as on vacation in Spain..but if your interested in actuualy seeing somebody on a par or even better then look up Tommy Emmanuel.

Rgds
Noel

Scott when you do highway patrol do you try to emulate the guitar work on the solo?
I'd love to hear it if you'd care to email me.
Mike

Tommy is Da BOMB!!!! Oh Yeah!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ylrDwCQj4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuuBKuPZUuI&feature=related

Donny is right...Tommy is DA BOMB! Now,THAT'S a guitar player!

Junior is entertaining, but as any old lead guitar player from the 60's-70's can attest, nothing very special in the guitar department, except the showmanship factor in the Tele/lap steel instrument. Literally ANY guitar player from that era good enough to work clubs 5-6 nights can play ALL these songs as well or better. Fun to watch, though. Met him when he came through Lexington...pretty neat guy, who has created a niche for himself using marginal material, but hard work and showmanship.


Russ