The loss of Nanci Griffith on August was tough news to hear for anyone who heard and appreciated both the songs she wrote and those by her contemporaries that she chose to cover. The vocalist and guitarist managed to appeal to fans of both country music and folk music by mixing elements of both into her own sound, winning her a loyal fan base that started in her home state of Texas and extended into Ireland and beyond.
Nanci Caroline Griffith released her first album “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods” on an independent label in 1978, earning her positive reviews from various publications. The title track (featuring the subtitle “Mary Margaret”) would have the most lasting impact for her, as she would re-record it after moving to a major label.
From 1982 to 1986 she released three more albums which helped to expand her fan base and move her music in a more country-sounding direction. (The last of the three, “The Last Of The True Believers”, featured her friend and fellow Texan singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett on the cover.) After she signed to MCA Records, she had her first country top-40 hit with a cover of “Lone Star State of Mind”, the title cut to her fourth album.
The album also featured the charting singles “Cold Hearts / Closed Minds” and “Trouble In The Fields”, the latter of which would also become well-known for a cover by Irish singer Maura O’Connell. It wasn’t Nanci’s only connection to Ireland through this album: she also had a top-10 hit there by way of her cover of Julie Gold’s “From A Distance”.
She followed up that album with 1988’s “Little Love Affairs”, and once again it was a cover that got her a top-40 hit, this time by way of Roger Brown’s “I Knew Love”. She also charted with Harland Howard’s “Never Mind” and her own “Anyone Can Be Somebody’s Fool”. Still, two of its other cuts would yield even greater success over time: her collaboration with Tom Russell on “Outbound Plane” (later a top-10 hit for Suzy Bogguss) and her closing duet with Mac McAmally on “Gulf Coast Highway” (which she co-wrote with James Hooker and Danny Flowers).
In the summer of 1988, outlets like the Nashville Network were showing a little more willingness to showcase artists outside of mainstream country, presenting intimate shows by Nanci and Lyle, among others. Nanci’s set included “From A Distance”, giving the song even greater attention before its covers by Bette Midler, the Byrds, Judy Collins, and Kathy Mattea over the next three years. She also presented her own version of “Love At The Five And Dime”, which Kathy had turned into a top-10 country hit just two years earlier. It ended up as a highlight of Nanci’s live set later that year, entitled “One Fair Summer Evening”.
Still, it was clear that MCA Records didn’t know how to market her, as the same issues about ‘categorization’ kept her from breaking into the mainstream. Three years before k.d. lang’s own successful transition into the world of pop and AC music, Nanci was promoted at VH1, starting with the single “It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go”.
Both 1989’s “Storms” and 1991’s “Late Night Grand Hotel” featured appearances by Phil Everly – while the latter also featured guest vocals from Tanita Tikaram, as Nanci was using the same producers as Tanita at the time. She also joined the Chieftains and Roger Daltrey for a 1991 concert in Belfast that was later broadcast on public television and made available on home video the following year. That led to her cover of the Wexford Carol on the Chieftains’ Christmas album that same year. Still, the efforts didn’t get her any more traction – so she tried a different approach.
After switching to Elektra Records in 1993, Nanci had one of her most successful efforts, in which she paid tribute to her influences. “Other Voices, Other Rooms” featured the works of a variety of writers, and not only did she earn some of her best reviews for her performances, but she won a Grammy the following year for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Some of the writers actually joined her on the recordings, including John Prine on “Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness”.
She followed up that success with 1994’s “Flyer”, but her original material was still not leading to any regular airplay. She did get a little more attention in 1996 for her version of “Well… All Right” for a Buddy Holly tribute album (on which members of the Crickets joined her), thanks to some airplay on video networks for the accompanying clip.
Nanci would later admit to periods of writer’s block at times, and many of her albums that followed were made up of more covers, live sets, and orchestral versions of her previous works. She eventually left Elektra, and a few years after that, signed with Rounder Records. Her most endearing piece from this time was her 2009 song “The Loving Kind”, a tribute to Richard And Mildred Loving, who had won the right in the Supreme Court in 1967 to have their interracial marriage recognized in Virginia. (Nanci’s recording is one of the few by a white artist to be featured during our week of songs focused on Black History Month each February.)
She promoted the album with another tour, including a memorable show at the Ridgefield Playhouse on October 22, 2009 – where “The Loving Kind” was among the night’s many highlights.
We’d learn over time that Nanci had to deal with a variety of health issues throughout those years, including two separate battles with cancer in the 1990s. After her 2009 album, she released one more on her own in 2012 – “Intersection”, perhaps tellingly featuring a tune called “Hell No (I’m Not Alright)” – before essentially retiring from the music business.
The lack of any news about Nanci Griffith in recent years meant that the sad news her fans learned on August 13th was that much harder to take. Even if some had heard about her bad health and her decision to leave recording and touring behind, her passing at the age of just 68 still came as a shock. As often as she’d been championed by fans and critics alike, she had constantly struggled to achieve greater levels of success in a marketplace that didn’t have an easy category in which to place someone of her talent. Still, the outpouring of love for her over the past several days is a clear indication that her songs and recordings have an enduring legacy – and with any hope, there are enough of those ‘true believers’ out there to keep it going.
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