2022-06-19 23:59:58
I am really quite shocked to discover that Nanci Griffith, the American singer-songwriter, died last year. I never heard until now.
In the early 1990s, my mother began collecting music of her own liking. It was always "woman-y" stuff - Suzanne Vega, Emmylou Harris, Beverley Craven, Mary Chapin Carpenter, etc. - so I probably wouldn't have much fondness for it, except that it was so much a part of my childhood. (In those days, albums were played again and again in a household, so one became very familiar with them.)
Out of all the CDs, perhaps my mother's favourites were albums by Nanci Griffith. She had just released the
Late Night Grande Hotel album, which was played God knows how many times in the house. Then my mother got her previous album,
Storms. A couple of years later came
Other Voices, Other Rooms and then
Flyer.
Late Night Grande Hotel in particular was full of songs that brought my mother a lot of happiness. Whenever I think of her these days, this album immediately springs to mind. I remember how innocent and happy she seemed whenever those songs played. She would often sing along. I just looked the album up, and the track-listing brings back lyrics and melodies which are painful now for me, but very impressive in how they are so vivid after so long. It must be 25 years since I heard the beautiful title song, or One Blade Shy, or The Power Lines... but there they are, and there is my mother.
I don't know anything about Nanci Griffith as a person, and her music isn't the kind of thing I would seek out... but it is good music, and it touched a very pure soul and made her happy.
RIP Nanci Griffith, 1953-2021.
2.2K views20:59
M
