Volunteers at the Me&Thee have a special affinity for Greg Brown. And, fortunately, Greg Brown feels the same away about our venerable Marblehead coffeehouse. A couple of years ago, The New Yorker published a piece about Greg in which he mentioned the hospitality and warmth of a certain evening at the Me&Thee. If you’ve ever seen this midwesterner perform, we think you’ll agree that he’s equally at home in the north, south, east and western parts of the country. But there was something magical about that evening for both artist and audience.

And, really, what can you say about Greg Brown? A guy whose mother played electric guitar, grandfather played banjo and father was a Holy Roller preacher from Iowa, where Gospel and music are a way of life. The musical scion stayed true to his roots. Brown’s first job was at the legendary Gerdes Folk City, where he ran a hootenanny. From there he ended up in Los Angeles where he was a ghostwriter for Buck Ram, the founder of the Platters. After awhile, Brown moved back to Iowa to write songs and play in clubs and coffeehouses in the Midwest.

If you’re new to Greg’s music, “If I Had Known” is a great introduction. It’s his first-ever collection, going back two decades. The album also includes a DVD documentary of interviews, jams, and live concert footage from 1996.

Brown’s latest CD, “The Evening Call,” is his 23rd recording. It’s been called his most “realized” album to date. You’ll find it a conglomeration of all the styles that Greg fans have come to admire. As one reviewer said recently: “While Brown is marketed as a folk singer, he’s actually too soulful to be contained by any one label.” To give an idea of the range of his writing, Greg’s songs have been performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Michael Johnson, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter, to name just a few.

While an homage to Kenneth Rexroth is featured in Greg’s latest album, his 1986 release, “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” pays tribute to an earlier poet. Brown put aside his own songwriting and set poems of William Blake to music. 1989’s “One Big Town,” earned Brown three and a half stars in Rolling Stone, chart-topping status in AAA and The Gavin Report’s Americana rankings as well as his first Indie Award from NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors). “The Poet Game,” his 1994 CD, received another Indie award from NAIRD. Greg’s critically acclaimed 1996 release, “Further In,” was a finalist for the same award. And “Slant 6 Mind” from 1996 earned Brown his second Grammy nomination.

It’s not every artist who gets a tribute album devoted to his or her music. “Going Driftless” is such a tribute to Greg’s music and it includes renditions of his songs by Lucinda Williams, Iris Dement, Ferron, Ani Difranco, Lucy Kaplansky, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Shawn Colvin among others. The profits from this CD are donated to the Breast Cancer Fund.

 

 

[Greg Brown’s] roots run deep: to the land, to family, and to the richest and oldest veins of American music. Hillbilly country, black blues masters, and the history of American folk resonate together in his records. His partnership with fellow Iowan Bo Ramsey is alchemical, and they help keep some of the most elusive and juiciest grooves of yesteryear alive. . . . There are grooves from the Delta, from the plains and from the hills. And a worldly hillbilly's take on the poetry of love, and it sounds good to me. Frank Goodman, puremusic.com