“Everyone asks if Burgandy Brown is my real name and it just makes me chuckle", says the Colorado native. "I love to tell people that my mom was just a crazy hippie, because that makes so much more sense than the actual reason: Tommy Bolin had a song called ‘Sweet Burgundy,’ and my mom loved him as a guitarist and she thought it was a beautiful name. Her favorite color is purple, but she didn’t want to name me Purple or Lavender, so she thought that Burgandy would fit."
That 1976 nugget from the onetime Deep Purple and James Gang guitarist was the motivation for Burgandy’s given name and it also instantly pegs her onetime concert promoter mom as a rocker. "I always remember that she’d be jammin’ out to Aerosmith, Mötley Crüe, Alice In Chains, or Def Leppard, so I grew up with a lot of that around her." That rock & roll sensibility is certainly evident in the pair of songs that Brown has already recorded and released as a precursor to her recently released debut album, 'My Lucky 13', but no more so than the country influences she picked up from her grandparents. "My grandpa always listened to Elvis, she says, and my grandma loved Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Hank Williams, Jr."
In 'Basics', her pedal-to-the-metal acoustic foot-stomper of a lead single, she embodies classic country-rock, especially in the full-throttle, quick-hit chorus: "Live more, laugh more, love more and hug more/That’s what we need to get back to the basics." Brown takes it down a notch with 'Risk', giving it a musical feel and believe-in-yourself lyrical bent similar to the slow-burn side of ’90s rock stars Creed, with something of a ’70s Linda Ronstadt vocal quality. Both songs have been delivered on Two For The Road, which preceded Burgandy’s new album, 'My Lucky 13', by a few months. Both 'Two for the Road' and 'My Lucky 13' are currently for sale on-line at; iTunes, Napster, and CD Baby. The new release includes the single 'Set it Off'; a tale of a scorned woman with a "right back at 'cha attitude", and 'Slip-n-Slide'; a fond reminiscence of a childhood summer day. "We took our entire repertoire, which is probably over 50 songs, and picked everything that we thought was the best, even if the songs might not necessarily tie hand-in-hand with one another."
Burgandy was born in Los Angeles, but shortly thereafter her family was on the move to a farm east of Denver. It was there on the Eastern Plains of Colorado where she developed a love for the local sports teams, especially the Broncos. It's also where she discovered her love for music. "I started singing in elementary school and my Grandma got me singing in church. I started singing solos when I was probably 9 or 10". A couple of years at Denver’s School of the Arts and years of private lessons have helped Burgandy develop a rich, commanding voice. Brown recalls that she was in her early teens when music turned into something that she could possibly do for the rest of her life. She wrote her first song in her freshman year of high school; that song, ’Don’t Lie To Me', was included on 'Eastern Plains', a four-song EP that she recorded in 2004. Around that time, Burgandy joined a popular local band as a background singer and experienced firsthand the thrill of performing at the breathtaking Red Rocks Amphitheatre. One of her dreams is to be able to sing her own songs there someday.
Now in her early 20s, Burgandy Brown has recorded her first album, even as she juggles a pair of part-time jobs and her senior year at Colorado University-Denver, where she’s majoring in Sociology. "Originally I was going to school for Political Science", she says. "I was very wide-eyed and wanted to do something good to change the world, but sometimes you just realize that you can only do so much, so I decided to change my major. I’m still getting my minor in Political Science, as well as Psychology. Understandably, that kind of a workload doesn’t leave much time for gigging, but after playing her first official show in May of 2006, Burgandy and her band played out all summer, including an opening slot for Reckless Kelly. And then there was the one-off performance in March 2007 when Denver’s new Country radio station, 92.5 The Wolf, asked her to be the evening’s entertainment at a party welcoming their new morning DJs.
While Burgandy is just getting started with her musical career, two of the three guys she makes music with began playing together when Brown was still in pigtails and preschool. "EJ and I met in 1989 and played in a band together for a few years", guitarist Bryan Dennis explains, referring to drummer EJ Worden. In the ’90s they played the metal/rap of the day, released two recordings as 'Hippie Werewolves' and toured the US sharing stages with No Doubt, Sublime, 311, Everclear and Corrosion Of Conformity. After years of living apart, Dennis and Worden reconnected when Burgandy invited them to back her up. "They were part of a previous band that my mom worked as a concert promoter. I actually went on tour with them when I was six. We crossed paths again about four years ago and started working on my project", Burgandy recalls.
The combination of the young, upstart frontlady and the veteran backing band has worked out well for everyone, with guitarist Dennis becoming more than a sideman. "Lately I’ve been co-writing with Bryan,” says Burgandy. We’ll have a jam session and he’ll play this really cool guitar lick and I’ll make something up to it. That’s how 'Risk’ and 'Set it Off' were born. I came up with the tune to ‘Basics’ in my head, but Bryan actually created the music for it. For his part, Bryan sees a lot of potential in Burgandy. "She’s got a ton of natural talent, which is really on her side because the rest of us have to work hard. She’s easy to work with, though."
Burgandy Brown’s debut full-length release includes 13 songs written by Brown and Dennis, and while you can’t necessarily take the country out of the girl, no one said you can’t mix in a little of this and a little of that.
“Initially I thought of myself as a country artist, but my music has evolved so it’s hard to classify now", says Burgandy, who admittedly listens to everything from Justin Timberlake and Fall Out Boy to Carrie Underwood, Beyoncé and Nine Inch Nails. "I like to try writing in different genres and experimenting with different things. I’ve got a couple songs that aren't really country at all: one has a real Pulp Fictiony sort of feel and another one is an anthemic, inspirational song called 'Out Here'. It’s going to be a very eclectic album." Burgandy and Bryan are working hard with EJ and the rest of the guys to write songs for a second full-length album that will begin pre-production soon.
Jim Nelson