Pieta BrownCharlie Parr: Photo by Bryan AakerRoots night at The Cedar with a double-bill featuring two of the best regional roots/Americana artists around: folkie Pieta Brown, and Duluth’s finest, acoustic bluesman Charlie Parr.
No-nonsense Charlie Parr gets back to basics with a plaid shirt, winning fans everywhere the old-fashioned way with a ton of hard work playing every music venue in sight, and a tremendous repertoire of original and classic folk-blues cover songs that he delivers in the traditional piedmont style. Always an audience favorite at The Cedar where he gets the sound quality his music richly deserves.
Pieta Brown's blend of folk, rock, country and blues has garnered numerous comparisons to musical forbears such as Rickie Lee Jones, Bobbie Gentry, and Bob Dylan. Lyrically and musically poetic, Brown's deceptive simplicity and seductive purity combine to create songs that meet somewhere between the Carter Family and Tom Waits. Pieta's 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 something of a stealth vehicle for a substantial writer’s voice that’s lean, elegant and - above all - utterly devoid of pretense.
The daughter of two preacher's kids, Pieta spent her childhood in Iowa and Alabama amidst a bohemian and musical family. In her bare-bones Iowa upbringing Pieta was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her folk-singer father, Greg Brown. Later, while growing up in the deep south of Birmingham, Alabama, Pieta drew on and expanded these musical influences and began writing poetry and composing songs for piano. While still in her early 20s, Pieta Brown picked up a May Bell arch top guitar, released her eponymous first album and hasn’t looked back.
"Self-styled poetess, folk goddess and country waif, Pieta’s music resonates with a seductive simplicity and lyrical grace." (BBC)
Tickets are on sale now from Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
Post new comment