Songs of Innocence and Experience. - sound recording reviews

Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1996 by Winslow Colwell

Over the last few years, Greg Brown has grabbed a lot of people's attention, and it's about time. He's been writing terrific songs his whole adult life and played what must seem like every bar, church, and funky folk venue in the country.

Brown is an Iowa native, preacher's son, poet and articulate fool. His material is widely covered by other singers. But once I've heard his weary voice scrape itself around a lyric I can't imagine it done by anyone else. He's lived it, or observed it up close with a street poet's eye . He writes of the most old-fashioned love without getting sentimental, and often chooses characters passed over by other folkies. "Fooled Me Once," from Down in There, gives voice to a woman abused by her stepdad and lover, "Poor Back Slider," on the some disc, could be the story of either of those guys. Brown has the most finely calibrated bullshit meter I know, and truth comes through in every word.

His two most recent albums offer a fine place to get up to speed on Mr. Brown. The Poet's Game is a wonderful collection, blue and warm. The Live One's songs span Brown's career, they were recorded at a performance before a small crowd in Michigan (near his favorite fishing holes). A sampling of his great storytelling is there, and the edge he can put on the simplest phrase shines cleanly.

If you want to go deeper, In the Dark With You (1985) may have been the first time Brown found chemistry in the studio that matched the energy of his live shows. And his setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience are as fine an introduction to Blake as to Brown.

(Greg Brown's taste for fine dressing is legend across the land. I once brought a friend to a show, prepping her by confessing that I would love to have the man's wardrobe. He ambled onto the little stage, and she turned to me with the wildest look in her eye. Brown was wearing Day-glo tiedye, from hat to pants. "Like it?" he asked us. "I got the whole deal at a truck stop. Under ten bucks.")