LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Greg Brown: Songs
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Back by popular demand, Greg Brown is making a return visit to The Tower. Greg was greeted with such an enthusiastic and energetic response when he first appeared in 2006, that his repeat performance seems a lock. The “come back to Bend, Greg” concert will take place on May 17th at 7p.m. He’s a gifted folksinger who is known for his gravelly voice and for his songwriting, which has been lauded by many and been performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Michael Johnson, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
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Greg Brown is the preeminent singer/songwriter on the contemporary midwestern folk scene, and became a national figure in the 1980s as house songwriter for Prairie Home Companion. Brown's music is a surprising fusion of midwestern roots and a searching, quirky imagination that took him east to New York's Greenwich Village in 1969, west on the Beatnik-hippie trail, and on to Las Vegas, where he had a job ghost-writing pop songs. All the sounds he heard along the way combined with the church music and country fiddling he had heard growing up in southern Iowa, and the result is a hip, funkily rhythmic blend that somehow retains its rural innocence.
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When Greg Brown joined Bill Morrissey for one song on Morrissey's Inside [Philo] album last year, the match seemed a natural one. The singer-songwriters, whose voices resemble growls, are known for folk ballads from their respective necks of the woods (Brown, the Midwest; Morrissey, the Northeast). Here the acoustic guitarists trade licks and vocals on a batch of covers of songs by Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon and Hank Williams and several traditionals. Morrissey ... occasionally adds harmonica and slide guitar. Often it's relaxing and wonderful. Sometimes it's a tough go, particularly in the slow, bluesy rendition of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and occasionally where their two voices cross.
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Greg Brown built his rep as one of the mover and shakers on the contemporary folk scene with his detailed writing and deep baritone. Honey in the Lion's Head takes a detour from his usual fare by delving into a dozen traditional songs from "Old Smokey" to "Railroad Bill." The arrangements, with an exception or two, are straightforward enough. A nice blend of acoustic guitars, banjo, and bass will allow most folk purists to put aside their singer/songwriter prejudices. Even with cozy arrangements... the final mix is sprightly enough to entice listeners who appreciate a clean, layered sound. Brown's deep, ragged voice also evokes "authentic" folk music, as though he'd just been discovered in some Appalachian holler by a folklorist.
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Midwestern singer songwriter Greg Brown is both a road poet and keen observer of the natural world. He says that the way he likes to think about his work is that they are stories sanded down into songs. His new CD is called, Covenant, it's his 17th album. He talks to Jacki from his home in Iowa City.
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On the outside, Greg Brown is one part hobo and one part grizzly bear. On the inside, he's all poet, a troubadour through and through. He's ... got a touch of the blues -- not the Chicago-based Mississippi blues, but the middle-class, Midwest blues. The difference is the wind doesn't always howl in a Greg Brown song; sometimes it blows like a Shop-Vac.
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