Greg Brown's mother played electric guitar, his grandfather played banjo, and his father was a Holy Roller preacher in the Hacklebarney section of Iowa, where the Gospel and music are a way of life. Brown's first professional singing job came at age 18 in New York City, running hootenannies (folksinger get-togethers) at the legendary Gerdes Folk City. After a year, Brown moved west to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, where he was a ghostwriter for Buck Ram, founder of the Platters. Tired of the fast-paced life, Brown traveled with a band for a few years, and even quit playing for a while before he moved back to Iowa and began writing songs and playing in midwestern clubs and coffeehouses. This latest release is a true treat. Besham's Bokerie sealed it for me. A keeper!
http://gregbrownmusic.org/hymns.cfm
Folk icon Greg Brown will unveil Hymns To What Is Left (Sawdust Records, marking his 25th studio album) through online distributor CDBaby on October 2nd, 2012, the same day that his wife Iris Dement releases her much-anticipated album, Sing The Delta (Flariella Records).
Fueled by a signature rumbling baritone voice, (after receiving multiple Grammy nominations, over a 30 year career and building an astonishingly deep songbook - that has been covered by dozens of frontline artists - while touring incessantly), Brown’s recent Freak Flag (Yep Roc 2011) was stunning in its tenderness and unfiltered emotional depth; beyond that, it found Brown reenergized to the recording process, making way for his latest truly potent tour de force, Hymns To What Is Left.
At the core of Hymns To What Is Left is the near-magical, copacetic interplay of Brown's driven and graceful acoustic picking with longtime collaborator/producer Bo Ramsey's distinctive artful soundscapes via bell-toned electric guitars and haunting slide.
In co-producing the album, Ramsey and Brown dug all the way into “less-is-more” and came out with a recording spotlighting Brown’s artistry on all levels. No drums or bass, the rustic mix was rounded out with contributions by Bob Black (banjo), Al Murphy (fiddle and mandolin), Dave Moore (button accordion), and daughter Pieta Brown (banjo, piano, harmony vocals), and cameo otherworldly harmonies by wife Iris Dement and daughter Constie Brown.
The result is an album of 14 uniquely unforgettable songs that find Greg Brown at the peak of his estimable vocal powers supported by an all-world stringband that's absolutely locked-in--in short, a masterpiece that may well be the finest front-to-back endeavor of his career.
Highlights are many and varied:
The opening Arkansas sets the tone, a raucous barnyard dance coasting downhill.
The mystical Besham's Bokerie (bewildering spelling and all) came to Brown in a dream. Luckily he made it into a song and tapped into his arresting falsetto to tell the tale.
Black's intrepid banjo and Murphy's hill-country fiddle stake out a delicate, elegant old-timey framework on the lovely Brand New Angel (recently recorded and showcased by Jeff Bridges in the movie Crazy Heart.)
Now That I'm My Grandpa is a masterwork--a clear coming together of Brown's lyrical directness and spiritual destination, as well as a linchpin to the album's collected self-awareness ("life is way less lonely when you're part of everyone").
The wondrous Fat Boy Blues applies a raggedy Tom Waits vox with a first-person Randy Newman approach ("one day I just woke up, fat as I could be, now I stumble out to the kitchen, for another chicken or two..." and the priceless "oh, yes, I am the walrus, and I have got the fat boy blues") to an irresistible, absolutely-slinky groove.
Private, simple and uncluttered, I Could Just Cry (How Sweet You Are) is one of the most perfect realizations of unconditional familial love. Country/folk great Don Williams has searched for this song all his life.
The title track, Hymns To What is Left, is another surrender of sorts, a subtle, gentle acceptance that experiences and feelings--even when painful--truly are the stuff of Life. Not to mention musically spellbinding.
Good To You is a crystalline country blues, and Greg & Bo's guitars are luminous.
No two ways about it, On The Levee is epic, a slow-opening, multi-dimensional work of art that feels like the magnificent, meticulously-drawn rush of the final pages of "100 Years of Solitude." Brown's vocal is conversational, eerie, ominous; the instrumentation likewise.
Hanging Man is deep and grand. An allegory in song. A perfect hymn?
End Of The Party and Earth is A Woman take us out. All the way out.
The closing benediction, Earth Is A Woman revisits an enduring trope as old as man-, er, human-kind (clearly, if 'earth was a man,' we'd all have been toast long ago). Recorded in one take, it neatly culminates a magnificent collection of hard-won wisdom, jaw-dropping musicianship and generous, inclusive humanity. And that's a lot to get in just one little reckid, ain't it?
