Greg Brown
Greg Brown is an Iowa singer-songwriter with a deep, gravelly voice and a gift for songs about small towns, rivers and ordinary lives. A regular on A Prairie Home Companion in the 1980s, he became one of the most admired writers in American folk music.
- Born
- 2 July 1949, Ottumwa, Iowa
- Plays
- Guitar, harmonica, vocals
- Label
- Red House Records (its first artist)
- Married
- Singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, 2002
Career
Brown grew up in southern Iowa in a musical family; his father was a Pentecostal minister. In the 1980s he toured widely and appeared regularly on A Prairie Home Companion. He was the first artist to record for the Minnesota folk label Red House Records, and One Big Town (1989) began his long partnership with guitarist Bo Ramsey.
His albums earned independent music awards and two Grammy nominations, and in 2002 a tribute album, Going Driftless, featured Ani DiFranco, Gillian Welch and Shawn Colvin. He sang the role of Hades on Anaïs Mitchell's 2010 album Hadestown. He retired from regular touring in 2019.
Selected albums
| Year | Album | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Songs of Innocence and of Experience | Settings of William Blake poems |
| 1989 | One Big Town | Indie award winner |
| 1994 | The Poet Game | Indie award winner |
| 1996 | Further In | |
| 2000 | Covenant | Best Contemporary Folk Album, Association for Independent Music |
More songwriters: Tom Paxton · Utah Phillips · modern folk