Press

Matt-

Love the liner notes from Jim.

Love the record-like CD disk.

Love "The Condiments" on Hot Dog!

Love the line-up of musicians you chose, and recorded at different
studios. Maness, Bryson, Joss, Gaffney!

And I love the song selection- you avoided all those I am so tired of,
and found a few chestnuts as well..."Play together again, again"

It is a real departure for Jann to do this kinda tribute, but she
carries it. Perhaps if anything, her great brassiness does not come
through like it does on stage, but this is studio stuff, and it is
impeccably mixed. I like the digital emphasis you gave the pedal steel.
The fiddle fits so well when you employ it. I almost think you were channeling Pete Anderson on some of your work, Matt. Sweet.

You probably wanted to hear some negative stuff, but I am having a hard
time finding any.
OK- here is one: 11 songs is way too short.

It was great seeing you guys. Best of luck with this, and if there is
anything I can do, just ask.


Christopher Burkhardt
FanCorp Western Lifestyle Publishing
1570 Corporate Dr. Suite A
Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Buckin' Around Jann Browne
Real honky tonk music is rough around the edges: the beat propulsive in a
way that suggests carnal things, the guitars stinging and acidic and the voices
sand-papered beyond glossy smoothness. Jann Browne doesn't just know these
things, she's lived them -- and that hardworn authenticity makes Buckin'
Around, her tribute to the late great Bakersfield guitar picker and country
singer, that much more potent.
Embracing so many of the standards -- “Love's Gonna Live Here,” “Hot Dog,”
“Waitin' In Your Welfare Line,” “Excuse Me (I Think I've Got A Heartache)”
with a raucous robustness that beats like swingin' doors, Browne enlists
many of Southern Cali's A-Team of honky tonkers (Buck alum Jay Dee Maness,
Desert Rose Bander Bill Bryson, Haggard vet Scott Joss and worldclass girl singers
Iris DeMent and Joy Lynn White) for a tribute that is unabashedly “Hell,
YEAH!” Her “Play Together Again, Again” is a joyous sound -- redolent of the
huge emotions that make jukebox sob-standards so addicting, while “Loose Talk”
is the canny wordplay that's easily missed when embracing this sorta music
as pure hick, no waiting.

Buck Owens was born in Sherman, Texas; Jann Browne in Georgetown, Kentucky. They’re both Californians to the core, part of the grand sweep of our history. I say this because I think Jann would look good in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Part of the Grand Sweep of Our History” and also because it is true. Pioneers headed west, and the most pioneering headed west til their feet hit water. As Frank Lloyd Wright put it: “They turned the country up on its side, and everything loose fell into California.”
Further east, things were too set, and feisty folk like Buck and Jann were drawn to California, a state that’s had a hot foot since at least World War Two. Audiences here weren’t interested in sitting still to warmed-over music. They expected more, and challenged performers to come up with it.
As Buck once explained, “Out here in the western part of the United States, there weren’t any Grand Ole Oprys or schoolhouse shows. Out here they had dances and honky-tonks, and if you couldn’t play music they could dance to, you couldn’t get a job. So I was always accustomed to a lot of beat and driving-type music.”
Meaning he rocked. And unlike the Nashville norm of using studio players to tamp down and tart up an artist’s music, Buck recorded with his stage band, resulting in a signature immediacy that served him well through 75 charting singles. He was still driving and twanging right up into the night he died, March 25, 2006.
One of the nice things about stardom is you can influence people you never even meet. An even nicer thing about stardom is sometimes you do meet people you’ve influenced--as Buck did with Jann--and get to hear how well that influence turned out.
Jann grew up listening to Buck’s records, and the first song she tried to learn on guitar was “Love’s Gonna Live Here.” She’s carved her own niche in country since then, but Buck’s songs have always had a place in her setlists.
Even though Nashville was pretty kind to Jann during her early 1990’s foray there—yielding two hit singles—it wasn’t quite her, and she’s been nothing but herself since she returned to the Golden State some years ago, crafting indelibly personal music. You’ll find nothing reverential or rote about “Buckin’ Around,” since that wouldn’t be much of a tribute to an individualist like Buck. Instead, it’s Jann being Jann, as feisty and free as ever, with a great crew buckin’ behind her.