Freak Flag by Greg Brown

Greg Brown, accomplished songwriter, co-founder of the influential indie roots label Red House and former musical director for Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion radio program, is a prolific songwriter...and it's a good thing. As the result of a fateful lighting strike on the studio where he was working, Brown lost the recordings that were to comprise his next album. For most artists, losing that much material would have been a creatively scarring and demoralizing experience. For Greg, it was just an excuse to turn inward once again, and write more songs. Of the songs that came to comprise his 24th album Freak Flag, the title track is all that remains of that ill-fated lost original album. Greg wrote ten new songs, moving on to record them at Memphis, Tennessee's legendary Ardent Studios. This time there were no storms, but creative lightning did strike again, resulting in what many have called Greg's best album. Like a jagged stone worked by ocean waves, Brown's signature rough hewn-yet-velvet-smooth baritone is in fine form on Freak Flag. Produced by Bo Ramsey, the album also includes a cover of Brown's wife Iris Dement's "Let the Mystery Be" and Brown's daughter Pieta's song "Remember the Sun."