Guit-Steel inventor Junior Brown comes to Barking Legs
Barking Legs is offering an opportunity you won’t want to miss: this Thursday, inventor of the guit-steel Junior Brown will grace the stage with an exciting hybrid of country, soul, and rock and roll.
But hang on, you might say. What the heck is a guit-steel?
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and Junior Brown is living proof. After sharpening his musical skills through the ‘60s and ‘70s, Brown got tired of switching between his six-string guitar and its steel counterpart. He had a dream of easy playing, literally: one night, Brown dreamt of his two guitars melting together to form one unique instrument.
With the help of Michael Stevens, Brown’s dream became a reality, resulting in a double-necked standard/steel guitar hybrid, allowing Brown to switch seamlessly between (and during!) songs. There are some other guit-steel players, but anything that comes after is a shadow of the original Junior Brown.
Add that to his grassroots success at the Continental Club in Austin, a signing with Curb Records, features in movies, TV shows, and ad campaigns, appearances on Letterman, Conan, and Saturday Night Live, and a SpongeBob SquarePants cameo, and you’ve got the impressive resume of Junior Brown.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell says of Brown, “Junior once told me he was very impressed by the way [Hendrix] was wild, and yet...very controlled. He knew where everything was going in a solo, and [Junior] tries for the same effect, and I think he hits it virtually every time.”