The Braun family first set up shop in south-central Idaho after “Musty” moved the clan from North Dakota back in the ’50s to accept a gig in Jackpot, Nevada.
The next generation, “Muzzie” and his brothers Gary and Billy, would carry on the family tradition and set the Salmon River Valley on fire musically as the “Braun Brothers.” Muzzie turned out to be quite the songwriter and even garnered comparisons to ol’ Willie among other poets working the country side of the tracks.
But it would be when Muzzie put together a group featuring his offspring and himself that the Braun family fame began to spread. It wasn’t long before “Muzzie Braun & the Boys” with sons Cody, Willie, Gary and Mickey in tow appeared on the Grand Ol’ Opry and even showed up twice on the Tonight Show
Well, as boys are wont to do, the kids grew up in the biz and on the “twisted wicked road,” hitting, as the song says, “a million miles by 17.” They would then go on to do some traveling of their own and form the nucleus of two of the most incendiary rockin’ country bands working today.
I’m not sure what phenomenon is responsible for the sheer magnetism fluxing around “Reckless Kelly” (Willie and Cody) and “Mickey & the Motorcars” (Mickey and Gary), but there must have been something in the water up the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River where Muzzie and his wife JoAnn raised their crop of hot pickers and soaring vocalists.
Both bands got traction as part of the ever-burgeoning Austin, Texas, music scene and ever since have been attracting a quite wide-ranging cross-section of head-bangin’, two-steppin’, swing-dancin’, cowboy croonin’, mosh-pittin’, and beer-swiggin’ buckaroos and buckarettes to their shows across the country.
Each August, however, the brothers schedule their own road gigs around what has become one of the West’s best music festivals: The Braun Brothers Reunion up in Challis, Idaho. Not far from Stanley, another of the Braun’s Sawtooth Mountain stompin’ grounds, Challis sits on the cusp of the White Cloud Range just around the bend from that gorgeous and historic Yankee Fork country.
Muzzie and JoAnn, along with a mess of volunteers from both Idaho and Texas, do most of the heavy organizational lifting for this hard-rockin’ “gallopalooza,” which includes many musical friends of the Brauns over the three-day party weekend. The past few years have seen the northern Utah contingent making the trip northward for the Reunion grow as word spreads among the faithful.
It’s becoming more and more of a “must do” calendar item for Park City, Heber, and Kamas folk as was evidenced a couple of years back at Deer Valley when Robert Earl Keen mentioned the Reunion and Reckless Kelly from the stage and received a surprising — to him anyway — eruption of recognition from the crowd. It’s become a flat-out infectious gathering of musicians and improvisational celebrants.
And the same goes for Reckless Kelly shows anywhere. When they came to play The Stateroom in Salt Lake last year, the show sold out so quickly they immediately added another which also sold out. Of course, the fact that the Heber-centric “Barfly Wranglers” opened for them both nights didn’t hurt ticket sales any up in the mountains.
And that very same scenario is about to repeat itself this upcoming weekend with a slightly reconfigured Barfly Wranglers opening for Reckless Kelly once again at The Stateroom both Friday and Saturday nights. Suffice to say, there’s been plenty of buzz about the shows up in the Wasatch Back since word began to spread.
Scuttlebutt has it that Saturday night has either already sold out or is very close to it. Reckless Kelly’s biggest fan, “Reckless Shelly” Martinez, might still be holding on to a few tickets, but pickings are definitely slim. At press time, Friday is still looking ticket-rich, however. Some fans have booked rooms and, not unlike last year, will be painting the town in a reckless fashion throughout the weekend.
A couple of things that make Reckless Kelly such a crowd-pleasing ensemble, apart from their overall passion and great sound, are the depth of their original material and the virtuosity of their musicianship.
Obviously, Willie Braun’s compositional brilliance and lead vocals along with brother Cody’s multi-instrumentality, both honed up the creatively-nutritious Yankee Fork, speak well of Musty and Muzzie’s pioneering trail.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.