Greg Brown's always been known for his husky, papa-bear pipes, but here his crater-deep growl makes Leonard Cohen sound like Leo Sayer. His voice is fittingly framed by the winningly dusty guitar tones of Brown's longtime right-hand man, Bo Ramsey. Between Ramsey's skeleton-dance slide work and Brown's mud-spattered moan, Hymns to What Is Left often sounds like it's rising straight up from the earth like a tree (now that's roots music). And from the familial love of "Now That I'm My Grampa" to the existential "Hanging Man," the veteran singer/songwriter's increasingly concise lyrical skills mesh perfectly with the album's sparse sound.
- 1996
- 1992
- 2000
- 2011
- 1994
- 2002
- John Gorka
- Gillian Welch & Willie Nelson
- Pieta Brown
- Dave Moore
- Leonard Cohen
- Ramsay Midwood
- Jason Isbell & Elizabeth Cook