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Nanci Griffith has passed away
https://variety.com/2021/music/news/nanci-griffith-dead-dies-1235041416/?fbclid=IwAR3CxZFcjnO6gloKQnOXJJZfSWFklnr7KeLI1g2tvbbaFekMvX90ItuHPuMGrammy-winning singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith died Friday morning in Nashville, a rep for her management company has confirmed to Variety. No caused of death was announced; she was 68.
“It was Nanci’s wish that no further formal statement or press release happen for a week following her passing,” Gold Mountain Entertainment said in a statement. Griffith survived cancer twice in the 1990s.
While a powerful singer in her own right, Griffith was arguably better known for her songs like “Love at the Five and Dime” (which was a country hit for Kathy Mattea) and “Outbound Plane” (ditto Suzy Bogguss) and as a collaborator: She recorded duets with Emmylou Harris John Prine, Willie Nelson, the Chieftans, Darius Rucker, and many others over the course of her four-decade career. Her Grammy was for an album consisting of classic country covers, “Other Voices, Other Rooms.”
et that circle of collaborators speaks both to her vast influence and the respect she commanded in the country, folk, Americana, singer-songwriter and other multi-hyphenate musical communities — she called her style “folkabilly.” Possessed of a sweet yet seasoned voice and an incisive songwriting style, she recorded some 18 studio albums, beginning in 1978 with the independently released “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods,” recorded when she was 24.
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She will be missed.
Love them both
personal favourite Nancy Griffith song is Once in a Very Blue Moon
TEXAN SONGWRITER Nanci Griffith released her debut album Lone Star State Of Mind in 1987 and made an immediate impact when it peaked at number 23 in the US charts.
She had originally trained to be a kindergarten teacher but when she started doing some open mic nights to earn a few extra dollars she was drawn into the world of music. Over the next two decades she would dominate the ‘folkbilly’ genre and win a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album with her Other Voices, Other Rooms album.
Nanci returns to Galway to play the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday August 7 and Friday 8 at 8pm. Indeed Ireland is a country she has had something of a love affair with since scoring a number one hit in Ireland with her interpretation of ‘From A Distance’ in 1988.
She has spent a lot of time in Ireland over the past decade and at one point in the 1990s owned a house in Dublin.
“I still think of Ireland as my home away from home,” she tells me. “The leader of my current band James Hooker is actually living in County Tipperary right now and I’ve got such good friends in Galway such as Jim Rooney and John Prine.
“I played with the Chieftains for a while in Dublin and they are such characters. It was so much fun to work with them because you just get up there and it's such a wild abandon and you just lose yourself in the music.”
Last year Nanci Griffith released Ruby’s Torch, an album of torch songs where she was backed by a 13-piece string section for songs by Jimmy Webb, Tom Waits, and Frank Sinatra. Although she toured Ruby’s Torch in Ireland last year she didn’t get a chance to make it to Galway but she is excited about the prospect of returning this time around.
“I’m really excited about this current tour because we haven’t been to Galway - a place I dearly love - in several years,” she says. “I hope to meet up with my friend Dolores Keane when I’m there because she’s one of my favourite singers in the world.”
Ruby’s Torch was a dramatic departure from her country and folk roots but she clearly found the experience liberating.
“This record was great to make because these are songs I’ve known all my life,” she tells me. “It was a joy to walk into the studio and just sing and not have to play guitar or sing harmony vocals. It was also a bit nerve-wracking because I was singing ‘When I Dream’ and that was a hit for my good friend Crystal Gayle.
More at
https://www.advertiser.ie/Galway/article/698/nanci-griffiths-long-love-affair-with-ireland
