But there definitely was a sadness about her that was not so evident in the performances I saw on tape earlier when her career track was on the upswing and the future seemed to hold more promise. For some reason your note here makes me remember a time, way back in the mid 80s, when a music associate of mine left a phone message for me. If I was a woman, I would champion NG as a role model for the ages of strength and perseverance. From that point on, Griffith named every band she fronted, big or small, The Blue Moon Orchestra. Much love Nanci girl! Griffith referred to her backing band as the Blue Moon Orchestra. Nanci, you have nothing to ever feel sad about. She had the words. It shows Griffith not only in prime form, at 49, but also fronting a phenomenally talented version of her long-lasting Blue Moon Orchestra. On the great song Daddy Said, the titular character advises, Youll never learn to fish on a borrowed line / youll never learn to write if youre walkin round cryin / And its a pity your lover died young / but youll never get tired of living alone., That may have proven true of Griffiths hit-and-miss romantic life. It was a great show. This article dates her loss back to 2006. Daddy Said is one of my favorites. I was aware that Nanci had a hard time in life revealing private history. Ill miss her. Thank you for this wonderful article about Nanci Griffith. I just found out today 10/03/2021 that Nanci is gone. I turned the show just as she was singing Last of the True Believers, which I think was her finale. Why is there so much mystery around her cause of death? After all, the courage to sing about the neurotic feelings of the heart is uncommon. She began writing songs and performing in nightclubs when she was 12. I think you have to be to send so much wonderful music out into the air. A true story teller that always drew me in.. December 28th, 2021. This is the most comprehensive and compassionate remembrance of Nanci that I have seen. In 1978 she released her debut album, There's a Light Beyond These Woods, on the local Austin label BF Deal. According to the outlet, Griffith said, "There has always been a certain amount of pathos within artists who leave their sacred bountiful homes of birth for the benefit of preserving their own belief in their art especially in cases such as my own where my native soil that I have so championed around this globe has done its best to choke whatever dignity I carried within me.". Nanci Griffith performing in Finsbury Park, London, in 2011. She died Friday in Nashville at age 68. I found her an inspiration as a musician and as a woman, as back then I felt some backlash as a woman trying to be a musician in my own right. I was sure she was singing just to me and I was completely smitten by her ethereal and sometimes raunchy voice, and by the lyrics which made me think that she must be a short story writer besides. The album included several new original songs and was released in April 2012 on Proper Records. It happens. I will miss her the way a dying man misses the air and she will always be with us. Local Correspondent I would add that Ive read many articles about her including those in the Texas press with who she had a contentious relationship. I think of it sometimes when I am working alone at night and feeling blue. I felt like I let her down that I didnt know right away that shed passed For weeks now, I cant stop thinking about her and grieving her like I would a friend. Covid? "Im going to spend the day reveling in the articulate masterful legacy shes left us.. Writing in The New York Times in 1987, Stephen Holden hailed her signing with MCA Nashville as a positive harbinger for the country-music industry, calling her among the most gifted writers to carry forward a Southern country variant of the confessional singer-songwriter mode that dominated Los Angeles rock in the early and mid-1970s., She assembled a band, the Blue Moon Orchestra, which would stay together for over a decade, and beefed up her finely wrought songs with country-pop muscle, a blend she called folkabilly.. If I might mention another of her often-overlooked recordings, its her cover of Jimmy Webbs If These Old Walls Could Speak. The song was Nancis contribution to Kathy Matteas AIDS benefit project, Red Hot + Country. She recalled being strongly affected by seeing her fellow Texan Townes van Zandt perform, singling out his song Tecumseh Valley, the kind of finely drawn narrative that would become a trademark of her own work. That song sustained my spirit through 14 months of frustration and anger. I almost feel she is now a close friend. I dont know about her fights with the Texas press. The Associated Press reported that the Texas singer-songwriter was known for "From a Distance," which would later become a hit song for Bette Midler. She was hurt. All of that must have stuck in some Texan craws. Her best-loved songs were closely observed tales of small-town life, sometimes with painful details in the lyrics, but typically sung with a deceptive prettiness. Thanks so much, Brooks. No insight. Im asking the same question. In fact, she had been married to Eric Taylor. Her next label, Elektra, brought about two triumphs: her Grammy-winning Other Voices, Other Rooms (named after the Truman Capote novel) and The Dust Bowl Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra. But it left me confused thinking for a bit (wrongly) that the death announcement was a week old. There were no performers who possessed more talent than singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith in the 1980s and early 90s, when she was at her remarkable best. She was awarded a Grammy for the album Other Voices, Other Rooms in 1994. But thats it isnt it? That meant MOR, Middle of the Road. Vietnam was the subject of several songs on her last Elektra album Clock Without Hands (2001), named after a novel by Carson McCullers. I, too, followed Nanci from back in the eighties. The albums Storms (1989) and Late Night Grande Hotel (1991), produced by the rock producer Glyn Johns and Rod Argent and Peter Van Hooke respectively, provoked some criticism from purists for aiming for a more mainstream audience. Thank you for this tribute and for allowing the comments. X, Nice to hear from a Liverpool singer-songwriter. Griffith was known for her skills as a story-telling songwriter, producing memorable songs like "Late Night Grand Hotel" and "It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go." The other reporters were asking rather stoic questions to the assembled artists when I finally summoned up the courage to speak. It was Nancis wish that no further formal statement or press release happen for a week following her passing, Gold Mountain Entertainment said. But my guess is she would be delighted to know that Trouble in the Fields is being used in classrooms. I always thought she would get over what was ailing her and was so saddened to read of her death. Fans around the world are mourning Nanci Griffith's death. I didnt know much about her but I showed up that evening with the other employees and was greatly impressed at the end of their short show. I sure know Working in Corners. A couple of the papers published her letter. One of the reasons I am in Nashville," he wrote. While no official statement has mentioned her cause of death, there are unconfirmed rumors that Nanci Griffith had health problems recently which might have led to her sudden death. Griffith suffered health problems. Over a decade later, Griffith was still making a name for herself and in 2008, the Americana Music Association awarded her its Americana Trailblazer Award. The song Love at the five & dime ,was written by David Samuel Pardue while stationed in Germany 1970, The original name of the song is Rita !!!! The core of the band stayed with her for the long haul." But now I wouldnt. Thanks for the note, Jeff. Like, how do you even turn around to get back off the diving board? I just have one thing to say, she announces, looking at her friend. After early albums on esteemed roots-music labels like Philo, Griffith moved to Nashville in 1985, where she found success during the 1980s and '90s on major labels like MCA and Elektra, and collaborated with artists like John Prine, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett. When she had the audience lights turned on for From A Distance, I swear that night she smiled at me in the second row. Her songs were fictional artistic revelation. The song was a country hit in 1986 but for Kathy Mattea, not for Ms. Griffith. Boots of Spanish Leather better than all the others. Yours is the first article that shed light on her sadness and perhaps loneliness. And, to be straight up, seems Nanci lost her voice after he cancer bout(s), and, naturally, pulled away and was miserable about that. Harris walks up to the mic with a grin as wide as it is authentic. The influential jazz innovator died at the age of 89 on Thursday in Los Angeles. I find myself perusing the internet The songwriting felt quite personal on that album. It was pretty obvious to Nanci (and all others) that I was not a reporter, but rather a diehard fan who could barely contain his excitement. Feel happy and sad after reading this. She was a truly gifted artist. I agree completely. I can still hear her gorgeous voice finishing with, Going Up It breaks my heart that she was never truly appreciated. But knowing what the real lyric is has saddened me more than I can say. She sounds positively exultant that the creative forces come from outside herself. I discovered Nancis music at a particularly hard time in my life. It was very sad news to hear of her passing. It was a haunting and nostalgic saga of two childhood friends pursuing different paths through life, and included a reference to a boy called John, who had been her high school sweetheart but died in a motorcycle accident. And yet thinking about it, a part of me is not amazed. both physical and emotional, and cant fathom why she wasnt a mega star. When she talked, at long last, about her former husband, a drug-addicted Vietnam vet, for example, it was a breakthrough for her. The 'Love at the Five and Dime' singer's cause of death was not provided . I started to cry during the last song,Love at the Five and Dime. Imagine that, a critic being needlessly negative . Her arrival there coincided with a boom in so-called 'new country' artists, including Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett, though she insisted that she did not belong to that category. Even rumors of her not being nice to subordinate colleagues over the years. [8] Nanci's debut album, Theres a Light Beyond These Woods, was released in 1978, with a cover designed by her father. She played in clubs while finishing her academic qualifications, and armed with a degree in education from the University of Texas, she became a kindergarten teacher. Her music has touched me over the years like no other singer-songwriter. I loved her music, have 14 of her albums and that concert in Aug of 2005 was pure joy. In my assessment it was unwise of her to write letters to these critics. Grammy-winning folk singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith has died at age 68. Nanci reached a lot of people, despite her lack of super-stardom. Rumors mind you. A piece of my heart gone with her leaving us. She put aside finger paints when she won a songwriting award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas; she released her first album, Theres a Light Beyond These Woods, in 1978. My favorite songs were the ones with the simplest and most heartfelt delivery, though I knew that the ones with big production were things she felt she had to do to solve the riddle of success which I had to respect.