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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    "Head Full Of Hair..." Limited Edition CD with sizzling artwork by Luisa Muhr & photography by Aria Isadora

    Includes unlimited streaming of Head Full Of Hair, Heart Full Of Song via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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lyrics

PEARLIE

My maternal grandmother’s name was Pearlie Rice Jones. She got the Jones name from my grandfather when they married. Born in Marshall, Texas on December 30th 1918.

Growing up I would visit my grandmother and my other relatives living in Chicago, Columbus, GA or later St Louis.

Pearlie, she was quiet and thoughtful. She liked to do crossword puzzles and eat sweets like prepackaged cinnamon rolls and candy and she kept all kinds of things hidden in various plastic bags...within plastic bags.

When she walked she would sway kind of like someone coming back from the local bar as she would go to ride the bus, shop for groceries and always buy the paper. Once home she would sit on the porch decorated with reading glasses and ask us riddles like “what’s another name for a sweet pepper?” or “where do flamingos fly?” as her pen or pencil would flap it's wings along the black and white newspaper sky.

I spent a lot of time watching my grandmother sitting in the living room or alone in the kitchen. Unlike my paternal grandmother, she didn’t’ talk a lot but she would make these motions in the air as if she was pulling her hair out of invisible rollers, or untying braids and then taking things out of her mouth, maybe things she wished she’d said, and then sewing it back up again. To a child it could have looked like someone making shadow puppets. A butterfly, a dog, an alligator. But I knew better. I had a degree in grown ups. So I would stare at her trying to figure it out and she didn’t mind my staring. Every so often she would knock her knees together like Dorothy clicking her heels to go back home.

My mom said that she did try going home once. When she was much younger. After being lured by my grandfather’s sweet talking. She wanted a free pass home. Trying to get away from his temper and habit of taking without asking. But her parents said no. She wouldn’t tell them what he had done, so they wouldn’t agree, said she had to go back. And just like getting a poor move on a board game she kept on playing. After attending Prairie View College with a degree in home economics and science she went on to be a dutiful...house wife…and mother of 6.

And I would stare because I could and to be honest I thought she was funny and fascinating. Now I look at all of those old pictures of me as a baby in Marshall, Texas and all that stillness and all that wind. Wind blowing dust. Dust settling in corners we think we’ve cleaned and that dust we hope will keep things hidden and that dust to protect us from the sun cracking open our skin. Now I wonder what was my grandma doing in with those crossword puzzles? Was she just trying to kill time? or fulfill a need to answer unanswerable questions? or had she finally cracked the code that most of us are still trying to crack holding the answers at the crossroads of 12 down and 8 across.

credits

from Head Full Of Hair, Heart Full Of Song, released July 19, 2018
Pyeng Threadgill: vocals
John Shannon: acoustic guitar
Derek Nievergelt: upright bass
Kassa Overall: drums

Released July 19th, 2018
Words by Pyeng Threadgill, Copyright 2018
Arranged by Pyeng Threadgill, Derek Nievergelt, John Shannon & Kassa Overall

Produced by Pyeng Threadgill & Derek Nievergelt
Recorded by Tyler Wood & Derek Nievergelt with assistant engineer Colin Mohnacs at GB's Juke Joint, Long Island City, NY (January 2018).
Vocals recorded by Derek Nievergelt at Orange Fish Music, Brooklyn, NY (2018).
Mixed by Tyler Wood at Sauce Farm Studio, Catskills, NY (2018).
Mastered by Kevin Blackler at Blackler Mastering, Brooklyn, NY (2018)

Photo by Aria Isadora
Hair Art by Thema Taylor of Natural Edgez
Make-up by Keke Ciferello
Clothing Design by Royal Jelly Harlem
Graphic design by Luisa Muhr

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Pyeng Threadgill New York

Described as “charmingly eclectic" by St Louis Today Pyeng Threadgill sings ‘New Porch Music’ crafting an intimate journey through folk and Jazz with Afro- electronic inflections. In the midst of developing her fourth solo album and a multimedia project entitled "Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song", Ms. Threadgill shines a light on hair, adornment, and ancestry, and the power and pain therein. ... more

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