Pieta Brown – In The Cool

The eldest of singer-songwriter Greg Brown’s three daughters, Pieta Brown divided her youth between her father’s bare-bones Iowa farmhouse and her physician mother’s home in Birmingham, Alabama. Which is to say that she comes by her easy blend of rustic folk roots and languid deep-south blues as honestly as her pedigree as an observant, evocative tunesmith.

As on her self-titled 2002 debut and the subsequent I Never Told, themes of dislocation, shadowy remembrance, longing, regret, and the inexorable cycle of repeated mistakes continue on In The Cool. A pair of songs — the decimated-heart tale “Ring Of Gold” and the rollicking “Precious Game” — allude to the ravages of war.

Guitarist/co-producer Bo Ramsey delivers his trademark array of haunting, liquid soundscapes, and keyboardist Kevin McKendree, drummer Bryan Owings and bassists Dave Jacques and Hutch Hutchinson provide a blue-ribbon country-soul rhythm section. Her father and his wife (Iris DeMent) sit in on the sepia-toned “Lonesome Songs”; DeMent also appears on the exquisite “This Old Dress”.

Brown’s emotional maturity, sultry vocals and painter’s eye for detail have been evident from her first outing, but In The Cool exhibits a greatly expanded range in tempo and song styles. The swampy, gutbucket title cut, the midtempo rocker “4th Of July” and the aforementioned “Precious Game” resonate, making the melancholy entries such as the country-noir gem “#807” that much more seductive in contrast.

There’s sticky heat, dust and bugs all around her, but — much like Bobbie Gentry — Pieta Brown unerringly finds that cool spot.