Greg Brown Plays The Napa Valley Opera House, 11/14

Music man Greg Brown will play The Napa Valley Opera House, November 14th at 8 p.m.  Greg Brown's songwriting has been lauded by many, and his songs have been performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. He had 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.

Music runs in Browns family: his 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.

Brown has 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 Extempor Records.

Ticket Prices for an Evening with Greg Brown are $30 and $35, for a complete performance schedule or to buy tickets, click here.

The Napa Valley Opera House is located in the heart of downtown Napa. A national historic landmark originally constructed in 1879, NVOH celebrates its 130th anniversary in 2010. NVOH restored its intimate second-floor, 480-seat Margrit Biever Mondavi Theatre in 2002 after 30 years of planning. During the 2009 Season, patrons experience an eclectic array of performing arts including theatre, dance, comedy, jazz, blues, world music, and family programming in a world-class setting.

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