Evening Call (Dig)

Greg Brown | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 8, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Red House
• ASIN: B000GCG600
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #125,296 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With a recording career three decades long, one could expect to find someone trapped by the confines of their own yard. Not so with Greg Brown. While he sounds welcome and familiar on his 23rd album, he also continues find new and novel treasures in the forests he roams. His mix of cowboy resonance and existential poetry creates potent songs that sneak up on you, reappearing in the dark silences of night and the squinting brightness of sunrise. His angular narratives are filled with the quest for meaning in the modern world and the desire for connectedness with others, tempered by the knowledge that fractious moments are unavoidable. The accompaniment eschews the communal strumming of his folkie brethren, instead using the swagger one would expect from a set of songs recorded in Memphis. While Brown is marketed as a folk singer, he's actually too soulful to be contained by any one label. --David Greenberger

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars in touch with what's real and important, August 23, 2006

By 

R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evening Call (Dig) (Audio CD)

Greg Brown is a heartland troubador, both literally and metaphorically. Based in southeast Iowa where he grew up, Greg is a strong, deep voice of sanity in a world gone mad. THE EVENING CALL is a powerful set of 12 new songs, featuring Brown's gravelly baritone, acoustic guitar and harmonica along with the reliable accompaniment of Bo Ramsey on electric guitar (plus bass, drums and keyboards). If you've followed Greg Brown over the years, you will have recognized his trajectory toward the slower and lower, closer to the earth, closer to the bone, closer to the heart, closer to what's real and important. THE EVENING CALL takes us the closest yet, grounding us in earthy love and matters of the soul, in the face of the rampant materialism of our spiritually sick society and world.

Four songs stand out in a consistently strong set -- "Cold & Dark & Wet" is the downside, the hell of lovelessness. "Bucket" is the sweet upside, one of the most perfect of Greg's many songs. "Kokomo" is a raunchy cautionary tale about succumbing to worldly temptations. "Whippoorwill" sings of love and devotion. The only number that doesn't do it for me is "Eugene," which isn't a song, but rather a spoken-word rambling ode to camping and fishing across the US of A.

Greg takes his stand in the realm of everday life, rooted in the here and now. That he is all too aware of the wider world is evidenced by "Treat Each Other Right," with the refrain "We got so evil, I feel troubled tonight. This old world brought us all here, so why can't we treat other right." The song concludes with this thought -- "...I'd say we all better pray to each other for forgiveness before we all lose our sanity."

Amen, Greg! And thanks.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars greg brown wine, my brothers and sisters..., August 13, 2006

By 

jason palmatier "the medication worked!" (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evening Call (Dig) (Audio CD)

... better with each and every passing calendar. this man is an ambulatory historical landmark and a cartographer of the truest American heart, no less. that he continues to grow new and sweeter songs while never leaving his particular musical garden only shows that he is authentic, singing and writing and singing what he is. "evening call" is a another beautifully raw piece of work; raw being honest and accurate and lovely to folks with deeper souls and simpler wish lists. if the stark, spurned groove of "cold & dark & wet" does not move you, then heaven help you.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Someone to Count On, August 9, 2006

By 

Karl Sundquist (Duluth, MN.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evening Call (Dig) (Audio CD)

Greg Brown, along with Bo Ramsey, never disappoint. This new recording of all new material takes you to that place, that, in my mind, only Greg Brown can. Down by the river with a fly rod in hand; those intimate moments with a loved one; the description of places that make you want to live the song. Whenever a Greg Brown recording comes out, the only disappointing thing is that I have to wait again until his next release.