Junior Brown

Teetering between corny and classic, Junior Brown's new Live at the Continental Club: The Austin Experience finds him banging out a set of Americana-tinged fare featuring his acclaimed double-necked plucking and baritone crooning. Bottling the essence of Tex-Mex, Western swing and even surf music (an instrumental jog through the Johnny Rivers classic "Secret Agent Man"), Junior swerves through a varied repertoire that includes ditties of red-blooded despair and road-weary humor. On tunes such as "Broke Down South of Dallas," "Party Lights," "My Wife Thinks You're Dead" and "I Hung It Up," he regales us with the perils of drinkin' all night and stayin' out late with another gal, then catching hell from your frying-pan-wielding old lady or seeing the "party lights" flashing behind you on the early-morning drive back to San Antone. If retro twang with a hint of borderland carnival sounds like your bottle of cerveza, then you'll appreciate the old-school mishmash of Junior Brown.