Next Up: Greg Brown with Bo Ramsey

I have the incredibly selfish pleasure of previewing Greg Brown next week. The reason I say selfish is that there is no one I would rather see on our stage. In total honesty, you can thrown any act you want at me... there is no one on the planet I would rather have here. Sometimes an artist just speaks to you.

Greg has an extremely devoted following. I am one of them. When seeing the ticket invoices come in, I noticed several from more than 300 miles away. One even from the U P of Michigan.

Probably ten years ago I thought I had soaked in everything Greg Brown there was to soak in. I became aware of something called "vines" while following one of the blogs devoted to Greg. A vine is where you reply to a posting that is an offer to send you one of Greg's bootleg recordings for free. Each person generally offers two copies. In return, you are supposed to keep the vine going at a later date by offering it to two more people. That is the way his shows live on. It is also the way I became addicted.

I did offer up some of the shows later in vines but not all of them. For this, I have always felt guilty. Maybe by hosting this show I can relieve myself of some of this guilt. One time - a month after requesting one of these vines - I got a package from South Africa. The bootleg was from a show in New England with Karen Savoca and Pete Hietzman (playlist allums). I was very curious as to how did this vine weave it's way through Africa and back to me. It turns out the sender was a scientist in the jungle that was saving monkeys!

Greg has a baritone voice like none you have ever heard before and a range to go along with it. He will be appearing with long-time sidekick Bo Ramsey. The two of them have teamed up on some of my all time favorite CD's. Together they make magic. Bo has been here 3 times before - twice with wife Pieta Brown (yes, Greg's daughter) and once with his own blues ensemble.

Check out Greg's bio on All Music.