Pieta Brown

PIETA BROWN
"...moody, ethereal...I will listen to this album over and over again."
---NPR's All Songs Considered
“…best discs of 2007…”
---Wall Street Journal
“..a songwriter of great depth…”
---Indie911.com
It is a voice that demands attention without rattling the cage - soft, seductive, bearing the flickering, genteel ghost of a Southern drawl. You lean into it to get closer, to catch the drift, and quickly discover that this aural voice functions as a stealth vehicle for a substantial writer’s voice that’s lean, elegant and - above all - utterly devoid of pretense.
On the sublime ‘Remember The Sun’ (One Little Indian Records), Pieta Brown continues to ride the upward arc begun with her eponymous debut in 2002 and subsequently extended by 2005’s critically acclaimed ‘In the Cool’. ‘The new CD landed at 2 on music critic Michael Ross’ list for the Village Voice’s 35th annual critic’s poll, and the Wall Street Journal included it in their list of the best of 2007.
‘Remember The Sun’ finds Brown writing and recording on a deeper level than ever. Recorded and mixed by Tom Tucker (Jonny Lang, Lucinda Williams, Prince) in Minneapolis, the album boasts a stellar, flexible core group featuring Bo Ramsey providing his trademark array of riveting guitar soundscapes, world-class session ace Chad Cromwell (Neil Young, Mark Knopfler) on drums/percussion, Jon Penner on bass, Ricky Peterson (Prince, John Mayer) on B-3 organ and keyboards, and David Mansfield (Alpha Band, Rolling Thunder Review) on violin and viola. Floating over it all is Pieta singing and playing acoustic and electric guitars, piano and Wurlitzer piano. Pieta also handled production chores with help from Ramsey and Grammy Award-winning executive producer Chris Goldsmith (Blind Boys of Alabama/Ben Harper/Charlie Musselwhite).
The daughter of two preachers' kids, Brown spent her childhood in Iowa and Alabama amidst a broken but very musical family. In her bare-bones bohemian upbringing in Iowa there was no electricity or running water. There, Pieta was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her father, two-time Grammy nominee Greg Brown. Later, while living in Birmingham, AL with her full-time working mother, Pieta drew on these influences and began writing poetry.
Pieta then began a rambling lifestyle that found her wandering from the sprawling American Southwest to the teeming cities of the Northeast. Each locale left its mark on her musical makeup, accounting for an artist who brings together the unvarnished humility of Loretta Lynn, the honest modern rock punch of P.J. Harvey, the country sass and poetry of Neko Case, the urbane sophistication of Norah Jones and Rickie Lee Jones, and the soulful Southern grit of Bobbie Gentry, and - coloring it all - a deep abiding saturation in folk and blues that’s beyond her years.
By the time she hit her early 20s, Brown had already gained a reputation as a gifted performer and it wasn't too long before she came to the attention of Lucinda Williams' guitarist and bandleader Bo Ramsey. He subsequently co-produced ‘In The Cool’ in 2005 - a release that was named one of the year's best by Amazon.com and a number of newspapers across America. It also broke the Top 20 of the Americana Music Association radio chart and the Top 30 on the AAA radio chart.
Pieta’s eagerness to expand the scope of her musical palette has led to her latest CD, as well as fruitful (and ongoing) collaborations with such notable and disparate artists as Calexico, on whose new record, ‘Carried To Dust’ (Sept, 2008) she adds guest vocals. Other artists she has collaborated with include The Wood Brothers, The Pines, Bo Ramsey, Iris Dement and her father.
Today, Pieta stays focused on her goal: “Long before I ever put a record out there for somebody else to hear, my aim was to be a great artist, and that’s what I’ll always be going after. All my life, I’ve been close to writing and music and all kinds of art...and that closeness continues to drive me.”