Iris DeMent at The Freight

Iris DeMent
The Freight
Berkeley, California
June 27, 2026

Singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist Iris DeMent returned to The Freight in Berkeley, California to hold forth on a Saturday evening. Iris Luella DeMent is famous for songs that touch on political and social issues as well as the romantic. She definitely knows how to warm up a room. With her distinctive twang, there is nobody else quite like her.

DeMent's personal history is remarkable. She told Terry Gross on her radio program "Fresh Air" in 2015 that "I was actually the last of 14 children. And when I was very young, my parents sold the farm and moved into town. And my dad took a factory job. And the way we wound up in California is my dad had staged a wildcat strike at the Emerson Electric plant with some other guys. And after a year of standing on the picket line, they didn't get the union. So literally, it was a last-minute thing. My dad packed up and hitched a ride out to California. And then later, my brother moved my mom and the last 10 kids out to California in the station wagon." 

Her mother's passionate piano playing and singing introduced her to music. DeMent penned her first song, "Our Town," at 25; had duets and tours with John Prine; and played piano on tour with Merle Haggard. Some of her songs have taken a strong political stance ("Wasteland of the Free" and "There's a Wall in Washington"), while others comment on American society ("Quality Time"). Many possess a poignancy that sets them apart. She also told Gross that "I am extremely shy and never wanted to be on a stage, but the music propelled me there."

The Coen brothers featured Dement's version of the hymn "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms" at the end of the movie "True Grit." HBO used "Let The Mystery Be" as the theme song for a season of its series "The Leftovers." 

For this show, DeMent combined tunes from heralbum, Workin' on a World (Flariella, 2023) with several covers, as well as tunes from her other albums. She told us she was "beyond thrilled" to have enlisted as bandmates the talented Liz Draper on electrified standup bass along with mandolinist, guitarist, and backing vocalist Anne Egge, who opened the evening with a brief but very entertaining set.

Taking the stage, DeMent opened with "The Way I Should" ("I live just the way I want to / And that's the way I should") before continuing with "These Hills."

Introducing her version of Guy Drollinger's "Driving in the Rain," long a DeMent concert staple, she told us, "You never know when you are going to hear your next new favorite song. I heard this at a party down the street." DeMent then moved behind the keyboard to play her warmth-exuding classic "When My Morning Comes Around." 

Referring to her jaunty "Workin' on a World," DeMent advised us to never underestimate the value of "keeping yourself in one piece." Featuring DeMent's wonderfully luscious piano, the tune is about her commitment to follow in the steps of the champions of justice who preceded her: "I'm workin' on a world I may never see / I'm joinin' forces with the warriors of love / Who came before and will follow you and me / I get up in the mornin' knowing I'm privileged just to be / Workin' on a world I may never see."

"I Won't Ask You Why," a love song written together with stepdaughter, singer-songwriter Pieta Brown, followed. Then it was back to guitar for "Listening to Singing." One of the finest tunes on her  sixth album The Trackless Woods (Flariella, 2015), the song celebrates the female voice: "Things are draped in a silvered light / It rustles its suggestive dress / Woven of fantasy, silken and bright." 

The Trackless Woods sets poems penned by Anna Akhmatova—a legendary Russian poet whom Stalin named as an enemy of the state—to music. The poems, which have been translated by Babette Deutsch and Lyn Coffin, spurred the interest of DeMent, whose interest in all things Russian came following her adoption of Dasha, a six-year-old from Siberia. As Dement told reporter Angelina Lewis for The Red & Black in 2016, "These are poems I set to music to understand the world that my child was formed from. From the love for my daughter, I give her back a little of her world." DeMent went on to say that Akhmatova "was so greatly loved and somehow managed to survive. The fact that she could continue to write and dig down so deep without bitterness and a depth in her spirit is so inspiring. I try to sing from my heart. People tend to accept it in their hard place. It's a gift to me."

The poignant "Nothin' For The Dead" was followed by a surprise: A cover of "Big City," a Merle Haggard tune. "He just put it all out there while he was here." DeMent commented. Sure helped me and a lot of people."

"My Home in the Sky," a song by husband Greg Brown, a singer-songwriter, was next, followed by "This Love's Gonna Last," and then "Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day": "We make love and then we kiss good night / He rolls over and he's out like a light / But I ain't mad about it / We got nothing to talk about anyway."

Returning to the piano to perform Akhmatova's poem "And This You Call Work," DeMent commented that "I think all poems have songs in them." Before beginning "Warriors of Peace," a dynamic tribute to John Lewis, Rachel Corrie and others. DeMent eulogized Alexei Navalny and remarked about those who "stood up to the gulag in Texas. We don't know their names, do we? Maybe I should change this. It might be songwriting time again."

"Rachel Corrie, she laid it on the line / When she took her stand for Palestine / The bulldozer rolled / She wouldn't budge / She had her feet planted down deep / In that little ol' thing called love / Though her life ended violently / Her gentle spirit's still walking here with you and me / And she lights up the stars above / That brave, young, warrior of love."

The musicians left the stage only to return with the elegant "The Sacred Now." DeMent capped off the evening with her crowd-pleasing agnostic anthem "Let the Mystery Be."