Pieta Brown gets down and dirty

Just in case you thought that women singer-songwriter are all dainty and demure, you need to hear Pieta Brown and her third album, In the Cool on Valley Records (listen to four songs at her My Space site). If "This Old Dress" sounds a little sentimental, it's also a hell of a sweet honky-tonk tune and a lot less weepy than most assembly-line Nashville music nowadays. On "Precious Game" and "In the Cool," she oozes downhome grit like many of her male counterparts couldn't if they tried. Forget about the bone-headed review in All Music Guide which claims that Brown sounds too lazy and uninterested in her music- she cares plenty. Her voice is sultry and expressive enough to make you sweaty.