MUSIC

McGonigel's Mucky Duck presents Greg Brown.

One of American folk music's most prolific and profound singer/songwriters of the past three decades, Greg Brown has earned respect from his peers and a far-flung, passionately-devoted fan-base via a burnished, intimate baritone, a seemingly effortless gift for swinging, organic melody and--perhaps most of all--a humble, unvarnished poetic grace that can imbue even the most mundane, everyday human endeavors and emotions with quiet dignity, startling insight and gently twisted humor.

Brown's songwriting has been lauded by many, and his songs have been performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Michael Johnson, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. He has also recorded more than a dozen albums, including his 1986 release, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, when he put aside his own songwriting to set poems of William Blake to music.

Freak Flag (the Iowa native's 24th studio album and first on Yep Roc) was recorded--for the most part--in Memphis, Tennessee's time-tested rock'n'soul incubator Ardent Studios with the artist's longtime sidekick/guitarist Bo Ramsey producing; it features nine Brown originals plus a gorgeous pair of cuts 'borrowed' from his mega-talented family--wife Iris Dement's "Let the Mystery Be" and daughter Pieta Brown's "Remember the Sun."