A Conversation with Pieta Brown (continued)

PM: Although you mentioned it obliquely, I can see that you're concerned about the war and the environment. Do you want to say anything about either of those things, or your spiritual life these days? Anything in those domains?

PB: Yeah. Before I made the record I was really doing a lot of listening to some old Neil Young records that I had never heard before, like Comes a Time, and the Staple Singers, and George Harrison. I was listening to all of them quite a bit, kind of reaching out just to the music trying to think about how to connect musically to that place of hope and light, but also have some weight. So that was something I was really thinking about in trying to offer or accomplish with that record I made.

PM: Yeah, and I think you got there, too. Are you reading anything that's turning you on lately?

PB: No, I haven't had time to do much concentrated reading lately.

PM: Yeah, the road is hard for that.

PB: I picked up that book called Thirteen Moons. I picked it up in the airport; it's by the guy who wrote Cold Mountain.

PM: Oh, I don't know about this book.

PB: And I just started that; I've only read about a quarter of it, but it's very mesmerizing.

PM: I sure loved Cold Mountain.

Although I aspire to be her friend, I will ask how is your friend, the great photographer Sandy Dyas?

PB: She is doing well. She put out a book of photographs of musicians.

PM: Oh, so that book has come out?

PB: Yeah. Most of them are from Iowa, although Kevin Gordon is in there.

PM: Well, he's an honorary Iowan, right?

PB: I think he lived here for a while. So she just put that book out, and it's been doing really well for her, and also for all of us musicians whom she took pictures of.

[We're planning to do an interview with Sandra Louise Dyas in our next issue or the one after, featuring some of the photos from her book, Down to the River: Portraits of Iowa Musicians. Here's one of the portraits of Pieta that you'll find in the book.]

PM: How about video or film, Pieta? A countenance as rare as yours should be so captured. Has it been, or will it be?

PB: I don't know. Maybe if somebody will give somebody some money.

[laughter]

PB: It seems like everybody needs money to do things like that.

PM: "Maybe if somebody will give somebody some money." [laughs]  I bet you sure could act, too.

PB: I would like to. I've done a little bit of it, actually, and I definitely am drawn to it. I like film and movies.

PM: I've got a couple of indie film friends. And I've been pitching a couple of women to them, and I'm going to throw you in the pool.

PB: Throw me in the pool!

PM: Yeah. "You need somebody who's got a striking appearance and who could really be an important new actor, you got to call Pieta Brown." Oh, that would really be something.        continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home