David Huckfelt & Pieta Brown

Event Description

David Huckfelt

David Huckfelt is a singer/ lyricist /activist and founding frontman of Minneapolis indie-folk cult favorites The Pines. An Iowa native and former theology student, Huckfelt attended the Iowa Writers Workshop before turning his attention to songwriting and performing. With improvisational mastery, Huckfelt’s shows and songs of no-spiritual-surrender have earned him a devoted following from small-town opera houses & theaters to national festival stages like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Edmonton and Calgary Folk Fests, and the legendary First Avenue mainroom, sharing stages with Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris, Bon Iver, Calexico, Trampled By Turtles & more. An early encounter and collaboration with radical Native American poet John Trudell introduced Huckfelt as friend & partner to an array of Indigenous artists & activists including Winona LaDuke, Louise Erdrich, & Keith Secola, working for climate justice and tribal sovereignty under the banner of music + resistance. With roots in the same fertile Midwestern soil that produced legendary folk singers like John Prine and Greg Brown, David’s new solo work preserves a rugged optimism that blasts through layers of dark in real time with songs that speak volumes, soft & clear.

Pieta Brown

The daughter of two preacher’s kids, Pieta Brown’s early upbringing in Iowa was in a rural outpost with no furnace, running water, or TV. There, she was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her father, Greg Brown, the now beloved Midwestern folk singer. Later, while living with her mother in Birmingham, Alabama during her formative years, Pieta drew on and expanded these influences and began writing poems and composing instrumental songs on piano. By the time she left home at 18 she had lived in at least 19 different houses and apartments between Iowa and Alabama. Emerging from a disjointed and distinctly ‘bohemian’ upbringing, Pieta began performing live and making independent recordings soon after teaching herself how to play guitar. “I grew up around a lot of musicians and artists living on the fringe, and have always felt most at home among them,” Pieta says.

Hailed as a “self-styled poetess, folk goddess and country waif” by the BBC, Pieta Brown first came to international prominence with the release of her self-titled debut in 2002. With a relentless energy and vision, over the course of ensuing years, she’s gone on to tour the US, Australia, and Europe extensively and release another eight critically lauded records, prompting NPR to applaud her “moody, ethereal” songwriting, and the New York Times to praise her “sweet, smoky voice.”

Continually revealing new layers as both a songwriter and performer, Pieta is being recognized as one of modern Americana’s true gems, with much attention being paid not only to her distinct sound and style, but also the power of her singing and songwriting.  With new musical experiments and collaborations in motion, Pieta’s music and artistry continue to expand and rise.