Red House Records Blog Cabin

Pieta Brown–back from tour!

Pieta Brown just returned from a 28-date North American tour opening for Mark Knopfler.  We asked her if she would share her thoughts on this experience and what it was like opening for one of her musical heroes.  Pieta was kind enough to provide not only her reflections on the tour, but some great behind the scenes photos.  Her latest album on Red House, One and All is available now!

Here’s Pieta’s song “Other Way Around” from that album.

Pieta Brown-Other Way Around

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Spring has landed here on the plains and the Lilly Of The Valley is already fading into yellow.  Got home last week from 5 weeks out on the road opening shows for Mark Knopfler and his killer band.  I went in…went out.  Got some serious schooling.  I went up…down…wrote a new song.  I drove my ass off.  And so on. I even slept some!

The tour…especially the music…was grand.  I’m still reeling.  I’ve still got “a high temperature…” to quote Bo Ramsey quoting Little Walter.  And as Tim O’Brien (multi-instrumentalist in Mark Knopfler’s band on the North American Tour….and artist in his own right!) wrote in a quick email after we all got home about a week ago, “I’m feeling like my whole system got realigned and now I’m resetting it to my regular world. Some of it may never go back. Maybe a good thing.”

I was honored to get the call to open the shows for Mark Knopfler…as I have a vivid memory of finding a tape cassette when I was a kid…living between divorced parents.  I remember finding that tape…putting it in the tape player…and playing it over…and over…and over again.  I eventually wore that tape out.  It was a Dire Straits tape.  I was way too young to drive, but I would make all the grown-ups play the tape on all the journeys…across town…out in the country.  There was something in Mark’s voice and in the voice of his guitar that was hypnotic and comforting at the same time.  I was completely into it.

Now 20 some years later I still am.  Seeing and hearing Mark Knopfler and his band play live so many nights only deepened my respect for him as an artist and musician.  And it made me hope that when I’m 60 I’m as badass and as tuned in as Mark is.  And as steady.

Mark had an 8-piece band!  A mystic orchestra!  And the sweetest management and production crew you could ever meet…they were all men.  Most (not all!) of them 20+ years my senior. And they treated me like a queen.  And like a friend.   And I reckon that is the best you can hope for as a woman out on the road!  Or anywhere for that matter…

As for my own shows, I had my best friend in the world, Bo Ramsey with me to maneuver down the crowded highways.  Bo and I had a few magic sets.  Many solid ones.  A few rough ones that luckily got lost in the shuffle.  Most of the crowds were listening crowds…which really knocked me out.  There were a few rowdy crowds out there on the East Coast, but it wouldn’t have felt too rock-n-roll if there weren’t a few of those…and even the rowdy ones treated me pretty kindly. I played a lot of new songs from One and All…and I played a lot of the less new songs.   I sang a couple of songs I have never sung before…and may never sing again.  I tried to figure out how to sell CDs from stage…still not sure I figured that one out.  Marketing and playing music don’t go together very well in my head.  ”Shut up and play your guitar. Just sing the songs.” That makes more sense to me. But Mark’s fans were sweet! And they bought a lot of my CDs!

So here I am at the end of that road with a bunch of fevers…Tim O’Brien gave me banjo fever…Richard Bennett and Mark Knopfler and Bo gave me a bigger guitar fever than I already had.  Guy Fletcher and Matt Rollings gave me key fever. Mike McGoldrick gave me the whistle fever.  Danny Cummings and Glenn Worf gave me shake-it fever.  You put all those guys together and the result is stunning.

And now, down behind the fevers I’m left with a song in my heart that I could never sing. It’s a borderless, ageless song with a thousand voices or more.  And like the Lilly Of The Valley outside in the yard…fading into yellow now…I reckon the song will give way to the wind and the rain and the sun and the dirt and the snow. And with any luck it will come back again and again and again.

-pieta, middle of may, 2010

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Pieta hand-selected some of her favorite tunes from the musicians who were part of this tour.  With their permission here are the streams of those tracks.  Enjoy!

1. Tim O'Brien-Look Down that Lonesome Road

2. Bo Ramsey-Hate to See You Go

3. Richard Bennett-Saguaro

4. Mark Knopfler-You Can't Beat the House

5. Michael McGoldrick-Waterbound

6 Guy Fletcher-Man In Front of Me

7. Tim O'Brien-Foreign Lander

8. Bo Ramsey-Stranger Blues

9. Richard Bennett-Pink Oleander

10. Mark Knopfler-Piper to the End