Guitar enthusiasts would probably enjoy this guy. He plays traditional (think 60s style Merle Haggard or Hank Snow) country music, but he plays guitar more like Link Wray or another "surf" style guitarist:
Following years as Austin's best-kept secret, then a few more as the town's one must-see act for visiting musicians and label heads, Junior Brown and his music have since found an audience far beyond the Lone Star border. Junior's first two albums ("12 Shades of Brown" and "Guit With It") have helped establish him as a crowd favorite from Texas roadhouses to the hippest clubs of New York City and Europe. There's usually a wide-eyed look accompanying one who witnesses Junior's unique instrumental prowess for the first time... or the second, or third, for that matter. Junior invented his own guitar, one that combines the standard 6-string guitar and the steel guitar. He calls it the "guit-steel."
"I was playing both the steel and guitar, switching back and forth a lot while I sang, and it was kind of awkward. But then I had this dream where they just kind of melted together. When I woke up, I thought 'You know, that thing would work!' They made double-neck guitars and double-neck steels, so why not one of each?" A call was made to guitar maker Michael Stevens, whose expertise made the dream a reality, and around 1985 the guit-steel was born. Last year Junior once again enlisted the services of Stevens to make a second guit-steel, a cherry-red axe affectionately nicknamed "Big Red."
