Greg Brown
Honey in the Lion's Head
(Trailer)
First Appeared at The Music Box, March 2004, Volume 11, #3
Written by John Metzger
Apparently, the folk scene is alive and well in Iowa, and it all revolves
around singer-songwriter Greg Brown. Not only did his wife Iris DeMent and
daughters Pieta and Constie add their vocals to several tracks on his new album
Honey in the Lion’s Head, but local hero Bo Ramsey served as co-producer
while augmenting the material with some guitar of his own. Save for a single
original tune (Ain’t No One Like You) and a cover of Jim Garland’s I
Don’t Want Your Millions Mister, Brown and his entourage succeed in
forsaking contemporary material in order to dig deep into American tradition.
Indeed, the remaining 10 tracks are all standards, plucked from the ravages of
time and considerably revitalized. Take the familiar songs Old Smokey and
Who Killed Cock Robin, for example. On each, Brown conveys a wealth of
emotion, which long ago was stripped away from them through overexposure. As a
result, the former becomes a woeful lovers’ lament, the latter a melancholy
mourning. Elsewhere, he somberly strolls through the Carter Family’s I Will
Never Marry and finds religion on the set’s rousing finale of Samson
and Jacob’s Ladder. There’s no question that at first glance Honey in
the Lion’s Head appears as a sparse and somewhat sleepy song cycle, but
given a chance, it seeps under one’s skin and cuts like a knife, straight to the
bone. 
Honey in the Lion's Head is available
from Barnes & Noble. To order, Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2004 The Music Box