Pierce Pettis

Pierce Pettis (born April 14, 1954) is an American singer/songwriter from Fort Payne, Alabama.

A former staff writer for PolyGram Publishing in Nashville, Pettis' musical career was started in 1979 when Joan Baez covered one of his songs, "Song at the End of the Movie", on her album Honest Lullaby. Following that release, Pettis became heavily involved in the "Fast Folk movement" in New York in the 1980s alongside artists such as Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega.

In 1984, Pettis released his first independent solo album, Moments. Signing with High Street Records in 1989, he made three albums with them: While the Serpent Lies Sleeping in 1989; Tinseltown, produced by Mark Heard in 1991; and Chase the Buffalo, produced by David Miner in 1993. None of these releases made Pettis a household name, but his music became extremely popular with other artists. The production on While the Serpent Lies Sleeping is erratic, apparently trying to balance a folk-rock sound with Pierce's mostly introspective and introverted lyrics. Pettis and producer Doug Jansen Smith argued often over the production, and did not work with each other subsequently. Mark Heard, Pettis's own choice as producer for Tinseltown gave that album a more straightforward folk sound, with the occasional touch of bluegrass or rock. The lyrics are also more provocative, and the album includes a few tracks that are basically protest songs. Heard and Pettis became close friends, and after Heard's untimely death in 1992, Pettis made a decision to include a Mark Heard song on every subsequent album of his own until Heard's songwriting abilities gained greater attention, a practice Pettis continues to this day. Chase the Buffalo, undoubtedly the most lyrically rich album of the High Street years, established Pettis firmly as a "songwriter's songwriter" and further developed the solid folk atmosphere of the previous album, adding more prominent bass and percussion instruments and starting to move away from keyboard sounds. Lyrically the album struck a fine balance between songs looking inward and looking outward.

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