Gary Allan Brown or G.A. Brown is a student of John Prine and is neck-deep in Southern culture. Indeed, the great town of Ringgold, GAis home to the deep-fried southern wordsmith. Brown takes great pride in his subject matter — he pens songs about everything from fishing, pro wrestling, and The Carter Family. But, this isn’t his first rodeo; he has five albums and an EP in the bag.
The new record starts off with the anthem, “I Broke Wahoo’s Leg”:
Well I’m the man who turned Hank on to heroin.
I’m the man who broke Wahoo’s leg.Well I’m the man who taught John Denver how to fly a plane.
And I sold shotgun shells to Kurt Cobain.
Let it be known that this is a pure songwriter/hillbilly-poet type of album. The humor is there, but don’t let it take away from the pure poetry. There are a few covers on the album, from Prine to The Carter Family, but plenty of originals from a blue collar songwriter who spent as much time in a honky-tonk as he did in Sunday morning Bible school. I am sure.
If Reginald Spears went to the community college and was a songwriter, his stuff would probably sound like this album.
My pal Corey Keith said it best when discribing G.A. Brown: It’s as if Steve Earle and John Prine tag-teamed Bob Dylan and Jerry Reed was pushin’, and Roger Alan Wade would laugh at em and say, ”Y‘all can’t make a Sweet G.A. Brown’.”
Recently got to speak with him via phone and you can hear that right here.
