Downhome Kansas-bred roots music blending country, folk, and blues influences.

12 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Country Folk, FOLK: Traditional Folk



Details:
Brent Malin is a singer-songwriter currently living and performing in Pennsylvania. He has performed his original country and folk songs for audiences throughout the country--from California to his native state of Kansas and beyond. Malin's music tells stark stories that scan the midwestern horizon, finding the pleasure and pain in the most mundane aspects of daily life. His well crafted lyrics and simple instrumentation make for bare sounding songs brimming with the folk wisdom of his prairie roots.

Brent came to music largely through his mother, a pianist, choir director, accountant, and jack-of-all-trades, as well as through growing up in the United Methodist Church where both his mother and father sang in the choir. On hymns like "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," Brent learned to sing the tenor line between his mother's alto and his father's bass; eventually Brent graduated to the bass line himself.

While Brent was a college student, his grandpa Malin died, leaving Brent--his youngest grandson--the nylon string guitar he had purchased from the Sears-Roebuck catalog a number of years before. Eventually, Brent took his guitar to Iowa City, Iowa, a vibrant folk and roots-rock music scene and home to such nationally known talents as Greg Brown, Dave Moore, and Bo Ramsey. From there, Brent moved to Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and San Francisco, continuing to perform both solo and in a variety of rock, roots, and blues bands.

Now living in Pittsburgh, Brent continues to play and record his own Kansas-bred Americana music--a style that a friend recently described as "Country and Mid-Western." His album Long Long Way was released in May of 2007.