Semi-Crazy
Almost every article ever written about Junior Brown has compared him to Ernest Tubb and Jimi Hendrix. Brown does sing in the bottomless barroom baritone of Tubb and does pick his guit-steel (his invention, a combination of Telecaster guitar and a tabletop steel guitar) as if he were Hendrix in a brim-turned, straw cowboy hat. What few observers point out is that Brown writes songs like Roger Miller. That gift for exaggerated lyrics is more obvious than ever on Brown's third full-length album, "Semi-Crazy." Brown is less interesting when he gets serious, as on the sentimental romantic plea "Darlin' I'll Do Anything You Say." No matter what he plays, though, Brown always entertains with his buttery, deep-voiced purr and his sudden bursts of picking virtuosity.--Geoffrey Himes