Harmonic Convergences
Served Family Style
LEFT to RIGHT Shane Vannerson, drums; Micky Braun, lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Mark McCoy, bass guitar; Kris Farrow, lead guitar and horns and Gary Braun, harmony vocals, harmonica and electric guitar.
Photograph courtesy Micky and the Motorcars
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Some families seem to have musical notes embedded in their DNA. The list of family acts that have made it big crosses every decade and every genre—the Beach Boys, the Jackson 5, the Bee Gees, the Judds, Hanson, the Von Trapp Family, and the bratty twins Tegan and Sara, to name a few.
Whether you believe in nature or nurture, families who play music together communicate with one another in a special kind of way. Harmony, the blending of instruments, and telling stories through song all require the magical arts of listening and cooperation.
Music has taken the Stocking family to church on Sunday, the Flahertys to a hometown crowd in Bellevue’s City Park, and the Braun family to Hollywood. But, eventually, the music will always take them home.
The Brauns
Clayton, Idaho
There’s not a chord that these guys can’t strike alone or together. Here from left to right are Micky, Billy, Muzzie, Gary, Uncle Gary, Willy and Cody.
Photograph courtesy Muzzie Braun
A writer from Seattle cornered me recently, pressing me to name someone famous from Idaho. I reeled off people of notoriety in no particular order: Larry Craig, Sacajawea, the guy who invented the television, and Muzzie Braun and the Boys who appeared twice on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
In the 1980s and early ’90s, every self-respecting state fair and rodeo headlined the act, dad Muzzie leading with vocals and guitar, Cody on fiddle, Willy on drums, Gary on yodel, and little Micky on bass.
The matching Western outfits and Americana music were as impressive and well known as the family’s talents. Muzzie and his brothers Bill and Gary had been part of Idaho’s music scene since they were young boys in the ’60s—sons of Musty Braun, an early staple of Jackpot, Nevada, lounge acts.
In 1972, Muzzie and his young wife JoAnn moved to Stanley and eventually settled up Slate Creek near the scenic mining town of Clayton. Within five years, the couple had four young sons in a rustic house with no electricity.
Their remoteness and touring schedule necessitated home schooling. “The boys had a great perspective on a simple way of life,” Muzzie noted. “There was no TV, no Game Boy, no outside influences, so they used their imaginations and their talents. Most of their childhood was spent right by our sides.”
All four sons now reside in Austin, Texas: Cody and Willie with the chart-topping country group Reckless Kelly, which just released their seventh CD; and Micky and Gary, who front Micky and the Motorcars, an edgy country-rock band that looks more like they hail from the rough side of Seattle than Slate Creek.
“If they were still standing up on stage with straw hats and scarves, playing fiddle and yodeling, I’d wonder about that,” Muzzie observes.
The family’s following in Idaho is proven, even cultish. Last summer, they elected to cap the tickets to the annual Braun Brothers Reunion weekend in Challis (population 1,000) at 3,000. The three-day event includes every configuration of Braun talent—Muzzie, Billy, Gary, Cody, Willie, Gary the younger, and Micky—both orchestrated and spontaneous, with JoAnn tirelessly minding details that make it one of Central Idaho’s best summer parties.
Muzzie and JoAnn join both bands frequently on the road and in Austin. JoAnn discounts the inevitable band/sibling rivalry. According to her, her sons are tight, frequently golfing, going to baseball games, and hitting antique stores together.
Muzzie, with streaks of silver in his trademark full beard, is fine with missing some of what he calls Clayton’s “eight months of winter.”
The pair shrug off my attempts to clarify how famous they and the former “little” Braun boys are. If they would revel in their Tonight Show or Grand Ole Opry appearances, I’d have some ammo against the doubting Seattleite.
Instead, they leave me with simple words of wisdom, Idaho-style: “Above everything else, the boys are good people,” JoAnn says quietly, respectfully.
Adds Muzzie, “The fact that I have people come up to me and tell me what good kids we’ve raised—nobody has ever once told me they are jerks—that’s our success.” >>>
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