Junior Brown
It took a little while for people to catch on to Junior Brown when he came onto the scene in the early '90s. He didn't fit snugly into country music's pop-lite aesthetic at the time; Brown was too much of the real deal. There was something sorta campy about a guy with a 10-gallon hat playing a "guit-steel"—the electric guitar/pedal steel hybrid Brown invented—so it took a British label to release his 1990 debut, 12 Shades of Brown. Of course, now Brown is known worldwide. He's an accomplished player, and he's got a silky deep voice to boot. And while country music has morphed over the past 25 years, Brown just keeps plugging away, leaving naysayers in the dust.
by Mark Lore
by Mark Lore