ONE AND ALL
RED HOUSE RECORD
Release Date: April 6, 2010
Listen at myspace.com/pietabrown

Defining new release from Americana's brightest new star!

Pieta Brown will release a new album One and All, the gorgeous full-length follow-up to her Americana-charting EP Shimmer, produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan). A captivating voice and unmistakable talent, Pieta is being called "one of the best modern songwriters" (Sonic Boomers) - a fact that is proven with this compelling collection of original songs. Using guitars, keyboards, and pedal steel, Pieta creates a colorful soundscape where Americana, indie-rock and raw folk come together in one distinctive package.

With artful storytelling, hypnotic melodies and raw, soul-tinged grooves, One and All captures both the beautiful and complicated parts of the human experience, blurring the lines between love and loneliness with recurring images of flowers and "fallers," lovers and strangers. Pieta brings these bittersweet songs to life with an all-star cast of musicians that includes Joey Burns (Calexico), Brian Wilkie (Alison Krauss) and frequent collaborator Bo Ramsey (Lucinda Williams, Greg Brown).

Encouraged by Bo, Pieta took the lead role in producing the album. Although she has recorded in some of the country's top studios - Ardent (Memphis), Master Mix (Minneapolis) and the old A&M studio (Los Angeles) - she decided to record this album in a low-profile studio in Iowa City.

"One of the things I've learned from working with great musicians and producers like Bo Ramsey and Don Was is to serve the song," Pieta says. "I decided that being able to have more time in a studio just across town, where I could really get comfortable, would do a lot more for serving my sonic vision of these songs than any fancy microphone or other musician could ever do."

Recorded mostly live (in just four and a half days), the album has an organic, bluesy feel. Taking her cue from her love of old blues records and contemporary artists like Sade and Ray LaMontagne, Pieta centered the production around the groove of the song. "The beat was as central to the sound of the recording as the melodies, words and sound of my voice," she says. "In chasing that sound, we arrived at the idea of using two drummers." Pieta brought JT Bates (The Pines, Alpha Consumer) and Steve Hayes (Bo Ramsey, Jeffrey Foucault) into the studio with the rest of the band, and they all played live until they found the right feel for each song.

One and All proves that Pieta can rock or drawl with equal ease. Tracks like "Out of the Blue" have a wistful dreamlike quality, while others have a driving energy like "El Guero." Recently recorded on Shimmer as a stripped-down acoustic number, Pieta had always heard "El Guero" as "a rough edged rocker" as it is on this new recording. From the rock feel of that song she slides into "Faller," a sweet tune sure to be a hit on AAA, Americana and indie radio. Written, in part, for her musical heroes Tom Petty and JJ. Cale, she wrote it while touring with Cale.