ON SALE NOW! Bo Ramsey will open the show! Greg 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. One Big Town, recorded in 1989, earned Brown three and a half stars in Rolling Stone, chart-topping status in AAA and The Gavin Report's Americana rankings and Brown's first Indie Award from NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors). The Poet Game, his 1994 CD, received another Indie award from NAIRD. His critically acclaimed 1996 release, Further In, was a finalist for the same award. Rolling Stone's four-star review of Further In called Brown "a wickedly sharp observer of the human condition." 1997's Slant 6 Mind (Red House Records) earned Brown his second Grammy nomination. His latest CD, One Night (Red House), is a re-release of a 1983 live performance originally on Minneapolis' Coffeehouse Extemporé Records.
Greg Brown's mother played electric guitar, his grandfather played banjo, and his father was a Holy Roller preacher in the Hacklebarney section of Iowa, where the Gospel and music are a way of life. Brown's first professional singing job came at age 18 in New York City, running hootenannies (folksinger get-togethers) at the legendary Gerdes Folk City. After a year, Brown moved west to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, where he was a ghostwriter for Buck Ram, founder of the Platters. Tired of the fast-paced life, Brown traveled with a band for a few years, and even quit playing for a while before he moved back to Iowa and began writing songs and playing in midwestern clubs and coffeehouses.
Reserved Seats: $25 adv • $30 door | Box Seats: $30 adv • $35 door
For more information: gregbrown.org
BO RAMSEY
Born and raised in the blue-collar Mississippi River town of Burlington, Iowa in 1951, Robert Franklin (Bo) Ramsey not only played a vital role in shaping Eastern Iowa’s distinctive blues-rock hybrid, but has continued in his still vibrant career as a performer, producer, recording session guitarist and touring “hired gun”. Ramsey broke out in the mid ‘70’s with the seminal Mother Blues Band, a honking powerhouse which also featured Iowa blues legends Joe Price and Patrick Hazell. In the latter part of the decade, the guitarist broke off to form Bo Ramsey & The Sliders. In the late ‘80’s Bo began a collaboration with revered folksinger Greg Brown that continues to the present. Ramsey has played guitar on ten of Brown’s discs, and produced 1990’s “Down in There”, 1994’s “The Poet Game”, 1996’s “Further In”, 1997’s Grammy-nominated “Slant 6 Mind”, 2000’s “Covenant” and 2006 “Evening Call” (all on Red House Records), as well as 2000’s “Over and Under” and 2004’s “Honey in the Lions Head” for Trailer Records. The past 16 years have brought a dizzying array of cross-pollinations. In between gigs with Greg Brown, Ramsey briefly co-fronted a band with Nashville singer-songwriter Kevin Gordon, led his own bands, and has recorded and toured with singer-songwriter Pieta Brown. Bo has recorded ten albums under his own name, four of which - “Down To Bastrop”(1992), In The Weeds”(1996), “Stranger Blues”(2006) and “Fragile”(2008) - remain in print on Bo Ramsey Records.In 2007 Bo produced The Pines “Sparrows In The Bell”(RedHouse).
