Ian Brennan

Ian Brennan (; born June 15, 1966) is an American music producer. Of the albums he has produced, Tinariwen's Tassili (2011) won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album and Zomba Prison Project (2015) was nominated; and Ramblin' Jack Elliott's I Stand Alone (2006) and Peter Case's Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John (2007) were nominated for Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. Brennan has authored six books, two on anger, Anger Antidotes (2011) and Hate-less (2014); a novella, Sister Maple Syrup Eyes (2015); and three on music, How Music Dies [or Lives] (2016), Silenced by Sound (2019), and Muse-Sick (2021). Brennan travels in search of countries and languages whose music is under-represented internationally, making field recordings of musicians and producing albums of their work. He started out making nine albums of his own music, and hosting benefits, making live recordings and releasing compilation albums of local bands in San Francisco. Early life Brennan was born in Oakland, California to James Brennan, a railroad engineer, and Marilyn Brennan, a nurse from a tiny town in eastern Kansas. He grew up on the Pleasant Hill border in the same suburban home his entire life. He and his older brother and sister have a mere two-and-one-half-year span between the three of them. This is due in part to his sister, who is the middle child, being born more than two months premature with Down syndrome.