Greg Brown will be performing Sunday at the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, in a benefit for Project Healing Waters.
Greg Brown has always been inclined toward solitary pursuits. The 65-year-old singer-songwriter still loses himself in the pure feeling of fishing.
When Brown performs Sunday at the Myrna Loy Center, in Helena, his mission will be more than just music — it will be about sharing that pure feeling.
The show is a benefit for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, a national organization that helps disabled veterans regain physical and emotional equilibrium by teaching them fly-fishing.
“There is a guy named Randy Dicks (a member of the Helena chapter of Trout Unlimited), and I met him several years ago, a friend of a friend,” Brown said. “And that’s how I heard about this group that was taking wounded vets from Iraq and Afghanistan to all of these pretty rivers.”
Having started with a small number of soldiers from Walter Reed, the program has grown to 160 locations in 48 states. Learning how to fly-fish prepares wounded veterans to rise above other challenges in their daily lives, Brown said, noting that several of the participants are amputees or have lost mobility in their limbs.
“I just love that name — the name ‘healing,’” said Brown. “There is just such a calming, relaxing element to fishing. For me, it’s just such a beautiful thing to get out on the water for an afternoon.”
National organizations like Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishing Clubs have pledged their backing to Project Healing Waters, and with a small paid staff, over 95 percent of all donations go directly to the veterans. Feathers, rod blanks, hooks and other equipment come from local businesses and local fishermen. Drift boats, rafts, waders, boots and more are supplied by guides who are supporters of the program.
Fishing has always had a magical sort of purpose in Brown’s life. His dad was an avid fisherman and he remembers fishing in and around the Ozarks when he was a little boy. After his traveling preacher father moved the family to northeast Iowa when Brown was 11, he was exposed to the little spring creeks and brooks that yielded him his first trout.
“I do remember those little creeks,” Brown said. “And that first trout was in a little one that was about eight feet wide. I remember walking back proudly, walking across the log. That fish, well, he squirmed right out of my hands. And my dad said that I’ve been trying to catch that very fish ever since.”
Brown said he quit hunting at 17. His love of fishing, however, has continued through a career of dozens of records and hundreds of songs loved by his fans and admired by other songwriters. Small streams are still his first choice.
“Small streams make me feel at home,” Brown said. “I know that there is a novelty and all with all those big rivers. But I just don’t know how to fish them. I love those brook trout streams. It takes quite a bit to have healthy trout streams, and the conditions have to be real good. The health of trout streams is a good indication of how a particular watershed is doing in general. You just feel it when you are on a healthy stream.”
Though Brown has performed regularly in Bozeman and Missoula for many years, with performances in other Montana cities as well, his debut in Helena was in 2011 at the Myrna Loy Center.
“It’s a beautiful little theater,” Brown said. “It’s part of that old-fashioned and old-time feel of Montana.”
Brown will be doing some fishing during his visit to Montana.
And at this point in Brown’s long career, his approach to life is about searching for quality.
“I’m slowly fading out of the limelight,” he said. “It’s a nice thing to be a musician, though, because I don’t have to say, ‘hey I’m retired,’ or ‘that’s that.’ I can just ease out.”
His approach to songwriting is similarly relaxed. If something surfaces to be written he will groom it, but if it doesn’t feel natural, he’ll just shrug it off.
“It’s never forced,” he said. “I never say, ‘hey, I gotta go write some songs.’ But when I do get into the mode, I feel my senses sharpened, and I’m hyper-aware of things. There are things or places I’d normally walk by, but when I’m in the mode, I’ll stop and look.
“But it comes and goes when it wants to. Even if I’m not writing a bunch of songs, I still sit around and play as much as I ever did.”
Brown, known for his roots-Americana-storytelling style, said he doesn’t want to be the type of singer who shuttles from town to town in a mediocre limbo.
“After I’ve written quite a bit, there is always a danger of writing what you have done before, or writing because you just need something to do. I’m aware of that. I think I’ll get off the stage before someone drags me off the stage.”
In the closing phase of his career, Brown said he is proud to be involved in “worthwhile things.” He said Project Healing Waters is always watching out for additional equipment, volunteers, guides and, of course, financial support. It receives no government funding, relying entirely on private and corporate donations.
Not surprisingly, Brown said he plans to pad his travel time before and after the show with some time on rivers.
“I will definitely be doing some fishing in Montana,” he said. “There are beautiful spots there. But, you know, just like any fisherman who keeps to the secret places, I’m not at liberty to disclose just where I’ll be going.”
