Biography
Hailing from the East Coast, folk singer and songwriter Greg Greenway excels at blending introspective, people-focused stories with captivating tunes across diverse genres, including activist protest songs and rustic, world-influenced compositions. He rose through Boston's vibrant folk community and became a fixture on the New England club and festival circuit throughout the 1990s and 2000s, issuing multiple solo records before co-founding the vocal trio Brother Sun in 2011. Greenway has kept pursuing distinctive ventures, and after delivering the wide-ranging 20,000 Versions of the Sun in 2016 he launched a duo with longtime folk performer and teacher Reggie Harris under the name Deeper Than the Skin.
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Greenway grew steadily drawn to songwriting during his years at William and Mary College in Williamsburg. A visit to Boston exposed him to the city's flourishing folk circuit, and after finishing his studies he moved north to Massachusetts to pursue music professionally. An early collaboration with bassist Doug Wrey in the late 1970s opened numerous performance dates across New England; he later assembled the group Trace of Red, yet his solo material ultimately brought the broadest recognition. His first album, A Road Worth Walking Down, appeared in 1992 and received a Boston Music Award nomination, as did the protest anthem "Free at Last," written in response to Nelson Mandela's imprisonment. Demonstrating his stylistic breadth, the record also featured "Massachusetts," a humorous tribute to the commonwealth's highways that gained notice on NPR's Car Talk.
Throughout the following ten years Greenway put out further collections, among them 1995's Singing for the Landlord and 2001's Something Worth Doing, both addressing social inequities alongside private reflections and everyday observations. By the close of the 2000s he had compiled an extensive solo catalog and began the subsequent decade with the harmony-driven project Brother Sun, whose members were Greenway, Joe Jencks, and Pat Wictor. The ensemble emphasized three-part vocal blends while incorporating elements of jazz, gospel, and pop; between 2011 and 2016 the trio issued three albums, after which Greenway released his seventh solo effort, 20,000 Versions of the Sun. Three years later he joined forces with folk singer Reggie Harris on the live undertaking Deeper Than the Skin. Drawing from Civil Rights history and America's ongoing racial fractures, the pair developed a distinctive concert format and workshop series that combined music, narrative, and verse. Their work yielded the 2019 recording Deeper Than the Skin: A Musical Presentation of Race in America.
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Greenway grew steadily drawn to songwriting during his years at William and Mary College in Williamsburg. A visit to Boston exposed him to the city's flourishing folk circuit, and after finishing his studies he moved north to Massachusetts to pursue music professionally. An early collaboration with bassist Doug Wrey in the late 1970s opened numerous performance dates across New England; he later assembled the group Trace of Red, yet his solo material ultimately brought the broadest recognition. His first album, A Road Worth Walking Down, appeared in 1992 and received a Boston Music Award nomination, as did the protest anthem "Free at Last," written in response to Nelson Mandela's imprisonment. Demonstrating his stylistic breadth, the record also featured "Massachusetts," a humorous tribute to the commonwealth's highways that gained notice on NPR's Car Talk.
Throughout the following ten years Greenway put out further collections, among them 1995's Singing for the Landlord and 2001's Something Worth Doing, both addressing social inequities alongside private reflections and everyday observations. By the close of the 2000s he had compiled an extensive solo catalog and began the subsequent decade with the harmony-driven project Brother Sun, whose members were Greenway, Joe Jencks, and Pat Wictor. The ensemble emphasized three-part vocal blends while incorporating elements of jazz, gospel, and pop; between 2011 and 2016 the trio issued three albums, after which Greenway released his seventh solo effort, 20,000 Versions of the Sun. Three years later he joined forces with folk singer Reggie Harris on the live undertaking Deeper Than the Skin. Drawing from Civil Rights history and America's ongoing racial fractures, the pair developed a distinctive concert format and workshop series that combined music, narrative, and verse. Their work yielded the 2019 recording Deeper Than the Skin: A Musical Presentation of Race in America.
Albums