Sign up to receive the Chastity Brown Newsletter!

MAY 17, 2012
Cake-in-15 reviews Chastity's show at the Aster in Minneapolis!
"Chastity has that kind of power. She slides in between songs, calling them out to her band as she goes, and her voice is as singular as a birdsong in a desert. She covers Gillian Welch’s “Look At Miss Ohio” and glides seamlessly into tracks from her recent Back-Roads Highways. In some ways, this most recent album—and subsequent performances—seem like a return to the roots for Chastity. The blues come naturally for her, they infiltrate her set without her even knowing it, because just as I stopped taking notes, Chastity stopped monitoring herself. She lets herself go in a performance, allows herself to feel every word she’s singing—and that’s what is possibly the most beautiful and striking part of her show. Looking around at the audience, pin-drop silent, lost in the unified tapping foots and bobbing heads and in-seat jiving, it’s obvious that Chastity Brown has the power to evoke some incredible, buried emotion in people—something distinctly American, something truly painful and glorious at the same time." 
 
MAY 14, 2012
Chastity at the Dakota Jazz Club last week! 
 
 
 

MAY 3, 2012

"Back-Road Highways" reviewed in the most recent issue of Lavendar!

"The Minnesotan-by-way-of-Tennessee singer-songwriter returns with her fourth release, a strong set of driving, soulful tunes that evoke locations of the title, be they in the deep-South or the heart of the Midwest. Brown works with a wide pallet of musical influences, producing songs that sound instantly modern and timeless at the same moment. Brown traveled back to her home state to make the album and that only seems to have intensified her already rock-solid self-confidence. After all, it takes a lot to honestly put yourself out there for the world to see, and songs like the album opener “House Been Burnin’” or middle-album standout “Leroy” find Brown bringing us into her world. The music evokes everything from down-home soul to modern country, all presented with aplomb."  -Ed Huyck, Lavendar Magazine 

 

APRIL 24, 2012 

Chastity is featured in the May issue of MN Monthly Magazine!

Read the interview here! 

"Chastity Brown can sing the blues off a pair of jeans, then turn around and quietly play the banjo, just to keep you on your toes. Blending folk and soul, she's opened a volcanic seam on the rugged landscape of American song." 

-Ellen Burkhardt, MN Monthly Magazine

APRIL 24, 2012

Chastity & Co. play a Shitty Barn Session in Spring Green, WI on May 9th!

Get your tickets!


APRIL 19, 2012

City Pages Awards Chastity Brown Minneapolis' Best Folk Artist!

"Putting Chastity Brown in a single musical category doesn't do justice to the artist's unnerving capabilities, but at least the platform of folk is broad enough to hold her. With three full-length albums already under her belt and another just released (Back-Road Highways, produced and engineered by the revered Nashville-based record label C & D Music Network), Brown — a Tennessee transplant with her own brand of southern sultriness — brings something unique to the Twin Cities music scene. Her music is forged through an intelligent commitment of soul, blues, and roots influences, each discernible in individual tracks, but what gives Brown her strength and elevates her far above her peers is the palpable emotion she invests in her songs and performances. Brown is not just a folk artist, she is a poet, one who pours every ounce of her life and feeling into her music, one who is impossible to ignore. Her past, her struggles, and her wisdom are scattered throughout her storyteller's songs, folded into lyrics sung in her dark honeyed voice. Chastity Brown is far from easy-listening. Hers is not the record you put on in the background, it is the record you hear once and never forget, and it is that soul, that brute-force emotion, that separates her from the pack."  

APRIL 12, 2012
Chastity opens for Dar Williams on April 26th!
Fresh from her stunning performance celebrating the release of Back-Road Highways, Chastity returns to the Cedar Cultual Center in Minneapolis to support Dar Williams on April 26th! Presented by Sue McLean and Associates. Tickets available here! 
 
APRIL 1, 2012

Minneapolis & St. Paul - catch Chastity on Radio K's Culture Queue at 6pm! 

MARCH 25, 2012

"Back-Road Highways" reviewed in Twin Cities Daily Planet!

"Soulful acoustic artist and Twin Cities icon Chastity Brown, singer-songsmith-guitarist, has everything it takes to go national. Including an incredible new album, Back-Road Highways (C & D Music Network). ... With melodic structure bordering on hypnotic. Vocals, beautifully raw-edged, leaning less on power, more on subtlety (make no mistake, Chastity Brown still can sing her way through a brick wall). Back-Road Highways is a career hallmark. The fine fun of “After You,” a rollicking blend of gospel, calypso, and country-western, stays with you long after the song’s been sung. “Solely” haunts, an eerie bluegrass-tinged ballad. “Could’ve Been a Sunday” is a trademark masterstroke. This song captures Chastity Brown’s quintessential attribute, soul-searching grit and grace."  

- Dwight Hobbes, Twin Cities Daily Planet 

MARCH 22, 2012

Chastity featured in the Twin Cities Onion/A.V. Club!

"Attempting to succinctly categorize local songstress Chasity Brown’s boldly style-blurring tunes invariably challenges any music critic, and is likely to leave them either tongue-tied or spouting off invented-on-the-spot subgenre nonsense. (“It’s sort of R&Bluegrass music, kind of an alt-soultry thing going on.”) The simple truth is that pigeonholing Brown’s wide-ranging and joyously eclectic tunes is a fool’s errand, and it sort of misses the point. Recorded in her native Tennessee, Back-Road Highways, Brown’s fourth album, manages to confidently marry the sounds that made both Memphis and Nashville landmark music cities. Even on Brown’s glossiest countrypolitan tunes, her voice aches with raw emotion, while her forays into gospel and blues possess a surprisingly accessible melodic sensibility. The end result is the best of both worlds."          - Rob Van Alstyne, The Onion 

MARCH 21, 2012

Chastity is featured in this week's print edition of the City Pages!

"And there are plenty of entry points. The album's opening track, "House Been Burnin'," is a sultry, deep, red southern torch of a song, where Brown flaunts her blues influence. "If You Let Me" incorporates a slow-burning electric organ for a heady gospel sound.."          -Natalie Gallagher, City Pages

MARCH 18, 2012

Tune into 89.3 The Current's Local Show tonight at 6pm to catch Chastity and the guys' in-studio session! 

 You can also check out the session & additional photos here.

MARCH 16, 2012
"After You" is 89.3 The Current's Song of the Day!
"Back-Road Highways is a record which conveys an evident journey. It's the product of two years traveling between Minnesota and Tennessee where the majority of the recording was done, grounded in Brown's southern roots, and a process which involved dozens of musicians and producers. The result is an album which grandly flows, more of a lyrical poem than 11 separate tracks. It's Chastity's ode to life and home. On this album, she has never sounded more confident."                                   -Jon Schober, 89.3 The Current
 
MARCH 9, 2012
Chastity Brown stopped by Studio A of the Northshore's 90.7 WTIP
Chastity stopped by WTIP's The Roadhouse show to talk with Buck and Bob about creating her new album, "Back-Road Highways."

MARCH 1, 2012

Chastity Brown releases "After You", first single from Back-Road Highways on Creative and Dreams Music Network

"The songs on Back-Road Highways will hit you square in the chest, knock the wind out of you, and make you stand up straighter." - Natalie Gallagher, City Pages

It may be the first of the month and we may be covered in slushy wet snow, but Chastity Brown is offering up a reason to celebrate with the release of her first single, "After You". The lead single from the forthcoming Back-Road Highways on the Nashville-based Creative and Dreams Music Network is everything that you could hope for from a sunny summer day - picked guitars and banjos, a drum line steady as tires on the road and Chastity's honey and soul voice sweeter than tea and just as refreshing. "After You" epitomizes why Executive Producer Fred Cannon wanted to cut a record with Chastity in Nashville after hearing her work on just one song - it's light, fluid, heartfelt and pulls the listener right in. It's the perfect way to kick of Chastity's Minnesota tour dates and now it is available to the public.

Download "After You" here: http://www.creativeanddreams.com/after-you

Back-Road Highways will be officially released on March 24th with a show at the Cedar Cultural Center, with Romantica and Black Audience opening. *******************************************************************************

Catch Chastity and the band on KUMD 103.3 FM, Duluth Public Radio at 2pm on Thursday, March 1st!

 

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Chastity Brown Announces Nashville-Recorded Album BACK-ROAD HIGHWAYS & MN Release Shows!

DULUTH - March 1st @ Amazing Grace (tickets go on sale 2/1)

GRAND MARAIS - March 9th & 10th @ Gunflint Tavern

LUTSEN - March 12th @ Papa Charlie's

MANKATO - March 16th @ Coffee Hag

MINNEAPOLIS - March 24th @ Cedar Cultural Center (tix on sale now)

Songwriter Chastity Brown, whose mix of roots, soul and blues make her a unique voice, is proud to announce the release of her fourth full-length album, Back-Road Highways, on the Nashville-based C&D Music Network. Recorded with a complement of studio musicians with acts like Mavis Staples, Garth Brooks and BeBe & CeCe Winans to their credit and touring with a cross-section of some of the best local talent, Back-Road Highways is a powerful statement from this expansive artist. Chastity will officially release Back-Road Highways at the Cedar Cultural Center on March 24th and will celebrate the record at shows across Minnesota throughout March. Expect the lead single, "After You" for public download coming later in the month.


 

Chastity was recently interviewed by Twin Cities MetroMix, 11/3/11  

"That's the hardcore folkie in me, because goals like that remove us from what music is: a platform for us to hang out. Music is what keeps us connected."

 

*Friday, Novmeber 18th at 3pm- 

Catch Chastity and the band on Minnesota TV (Channel 5/KTSP) "Twin Cities Live".

*Wednesday, November 23 at 7pm- 

Chastity's next full band performance at The Cedar Cultural Center  in Minneapolis, MN w/ Jeremy Messersmith. (tickets go on sale 10/14 @ noon)

Chastity and the band picked as favorite act at Bayfront Blues Festival!

"Chastity Brown, a Memphis girl-turned-Minnesotan, couldn’t sign on to the “sit down and play nice” style of the acoustic tent. She finally had to kick her chair aside and stand up and dance, her cowboy boots moving and tapping.

Brown has a big soulful voice that sounds like her guts are being squeezed.

Andi Spike, a blogger from St. Paul, is a blues fan who was covering the event for her fashion-music-vegan living website Bunny Warrior. She favors young blues musicians, she admitted, and said she likes the way they incorporate modern influences.

Spike said Brown was her early pick for a favorite of the day.

“I think she was the best I’ve seen,” Spike said. “She has surprised me the most.”

 

Chastity Brown plays Vita.mn's Music & Movies in the Park Friday August 19! 

 

Chastity Brown to play a solo set at the CONGRESSIONAL BLUES FESTIVAL in Washington D.C. on Wednesday July 27!

 

Chastity Brown records for C & D Music Network in Nashville, TN this June and July 2011! 

Here is a sneak peek of her new material, her first banjo tune, "After You," peformed live at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, MN.

 

Chastity will be releasing 7 NEW VIDEOS in 7 DAYS in MAY!!!!

From the wonderful folks at Cakein15:

"Soulful and explosive singer-songwriter Chastity Brown is doing something special for the month of May- releasing seven videos of her and her band in seven days. The last time we saw Chastity, she was killing it for Record Store Day at the Electric Fetus and then guesting on a haunting rendition of “Plastic Lines” for the No Bird Sing Theft of the Commons record release, but neither of those were really nearly enough of her glorious voice. So if you want more of Ms. Brown (and we figure she warrants the honorific, NYTimes & Lauryn Hill Style) then follow her on Twitter or Facebookto get the updates and the videos. She dropped the first video today of her combo opening up at First Avenue for Jeremy Messersmith with the tune “Strong Enough”. Keep watching the dial, and if you need more to fill you up, here is a post from her Cake Shop house show last year to keep you going!"

Find her on Facebook in order to catch the videos as they are released.  Starts Monday, May 9th!  

 

While Chastity is in Nashville recording new songs for the next two weeks, she has a show at the legendary BLUEBIRD CAFE--

Tuesday, April 12 @ 6:30 pm

Other big Nashville news coming soon!