Just heard that she has died. She doesn’t seem to have done much for a few years, but I liked her a lot.
Very sad
Nanci Griffith
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Just heard that she has died. She doesn’t seem to have done much for a few years, but I liked her a lot.
Very sad
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Oh that’s awful news. I have several of her albums and will play a selection of them tonight.
Oh that’s a shame, for a while i was a big fan. I saw her in Hemel Hempstead, an unlikely venue but she did it because her drummer hailed from there and she had promised they’d play there next time they were in the UK. Some years later she came through. She gave good story too – the One Fair Summer Evening is a lovely album for the curious – funny and heart rending at the same time.
Like @Twang for a while I was a big fan and and have many of her albuns and saw her live too.
Its a hard road wherever you go – thanks for all the songs Nanci.
Oh no, that’s desperate news. Christ, she was no age at all. I am so sorry to hear that; a really lovely songwriter and performer who had a warmth that came across the footlights and drew her audience in. RIP.
A cafeteria line in Chicago
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
He’s the only trash here I see
And I’m thinking this man wears a white hood
In the night when his children should sleep
But, they slip to their window and they see him
And they think that white hood’s all they need
From It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go – a song that never fails to move me.
Like some others are saying – I listened to her a lot over the years. Never saw here live though. Really sorry to hear this news.
Oh bugger – one of my favourite singers. Tomorrow I’ll tell the tale of meeting her in Aberdeen. Oh bugger.
“Hi, Mum. I’m in Aberdeen on business next week. I see Nanci Griffith is playing The Music Hall – fancy coming with me?”
“Is she the one with the whiney voice?”
“Yes, Mum”
“Only if you take me to The Caley beforehand for early supper”
“Deal”
Six o’clock, we’re in The Caley and Mum is tucking into her Haddock & Chips. In walks Nanci and a couple of minders. She orders a pot of Earl Grey tea. Ten minutes later I walk over and mumble “Always liked you, er you’re great, er…”
Nanci replies “And who’s that beautiful woman with you, your girlfriend?” Mum comes over and for a few minutes they chat away like they’ve known each other for years.
Later that night Nanci introduces Gulf Coast Highway. “My great grandparents came from around here. Today I went out into the country, found their cottage and asked if I could plant some Blue Bonnets I had taken all the way from Texas. So now Aberdeenshire also has the world’s most beautiful flowers.”
Cue thunderous applause.
“Oh, and by the way this song is dedicated to a lovely old lady I met today, Evelyn.”
Lovely story Lodes.
Cheers
What a fabulous story
Gritty air this morning.
That’s lovely and exactly how you would imagine and hope Nanci would be.
As if Gulf Coast Highway (aka Blue Bonnets) isn’t already a wonderfully tear inducing song anyway!!
Apparently, at soundchecks back in the 1990s, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa sometimes performed a duet of Nanci’s “Gulf Coast Highway”. They never recorded it. Pity. I’d love to hear their version.
Lovely story. Out of curiosity, what was your mum’s name?
Kenny
Boom Tish
I think you mean Dalglish
Great story, though I think your mum was a bit unfair about Nanci’s singing voice.
My first wife couldn’t stand Nanci’s voice either – one of the (many) reasons we went our separate ways
Nanci was an Anglophile (Scotophile?). I saw her with my tall chum when our chum Clive Gregson was in her band (1996-2007) and went to the Green Room afterwards. Possibly not what you think of backstage – Clive (teetotal) and Nanci making us pots of tea. She wanted to know exactly where in the Cairngorms the future Mrs F was born.
Sir had this to say on his FB yesterday:
“I met Nanci Griffith several times. I was a huge fan right from There’s A Light Beyond These Woods. She was brilliant. The last time we met was in Belfast. It was late and we had both been gigging and she was in the hotel bar. She said she wanted fish and chips. I offered to get her some and I asked if she wanted mushy peas. She was intrigued. Mushy peas are harder to get at midnight in Belfast than you might think. Her leaving us is very sad news.”
Lovely stories. I read that Nanci’s mother was of Scots descent which may explain her interest in the Cairngorms and future Mrs F. Incidentally her mother was called Ruelene which sounds less of a woman’s name and more like a petrochemical, but then she was from the South!
And how evocative is this for a song opening, especially when delivered by Nanci’s warm and wistful voice:
Rita was sixteen years
Hazel eyes and chestnut hair
She made the Woolworth counter shine
And Eddie was a sweet romancer
And a darn good dancer
And they waltzed the aisles of the five and dime
And they’d sing
Dance a little closer to me
Hey, dance a little closer now
Dance a little closer tonight
Love At The Five And Dime was the first thing I listened to on hearing the sad news.
I listened to Last Of The True Believers and Little Love Affairs a great deal in the late 80s.
I am also very fond of Nanci’s cover of Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness on Other Voices Other Rooms.
She does a good Wall of Death too.
Here she is singing Love at the Five and Dime, and also showing that warmth I talked about and why audiences just loved her. I’m still struggling to take in that she is no longer with us.
Her covers albums are great too, and at the high I bought the accompanying book which is excellent.
Yes, they are.
I just saw the follow comment that someone had put on an Amazon review of Other Voices, Too, which made me smile:
“Personally, I’d buy an album of this woman sneezing cuz there just isn’t anybody else that can touch her.”
Sad news. I saw her at the Albert Hall in the early 2000s. Funnily enough I was introduced to her via a Best Of compilation from the Woolworths bargain rack. One Fair Summer Evening is great.
I was there too. The way that slight figure just took possession of the Albert was astonishing. The Guardian was less impressed…
https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2004/oct/21/popandrock1
I’d completely forgotten about the Crickets.
That’s very sad news. Nanci Griffith was one of the artists who got me interested in alt-country and Americana in the mid-80s. I still listen to her albums, particularly those from the early part of her career from There’s A Light Beyond These Woods onwards. I remember the late Roger Scott playing her music on his Saturday afternoon Radio 1 show – it just wasn’t the sort of thing that got played on Radio 1 at the time. She will be much missed.
Very sad news.
It’s a bit of a shock as although she was a few years older than me, I’ve always considered her to be a contemporary and it’s always a bit of a jolt when that happens whatever their walk of life. Her early albums formed a strong basis for my getting properly into country music after NME’s second country tape had ‘Ford Econoline’ on it and I investigated further. I think she was the first of those big stars that I saw live as well, her shows (2 or 3) at the Mean Fiddler were especially memorable.
As others have said, she hadn’t released anything for years and I felt that she moved a bit too far from the sort of thing I like over the years but her last album was a bit of a return (without re-treading it) to the sort of thing that made the first few albums so special.
Blimey, that’s sad. I knew she had had recurring issues with breast cancer, so possibly that came back a third time to bite her. Very fond memories of her in the 80s and 90s, frequently touring the UK and putting on great shows. With, always, a strong Irish presence in her band, she always played B’ham’s Irish Centre. Her run of albums from 84 from 91 was stellar. I sort of lost interest as she retreated to (very good) covers territory, ahead of just losing sight altogether. An endearingly gauche presence with her ankle socks, cardigans and swirly skirts, her squeaky voiced anecdotes a delight between songs, she will be missed in this house tonight.
Saw her at Cambridge in 1992. It wasn’t “my kind of thing” then but she was strikingly good, holding a sweaty drunken audience spellbound. A proper star.
So it was a private show just for you? 🤔
Best singing telegram ever.
Oh gosh. I’m choked by that news. Have loved her albums since the eighties, when my boss made a tape for me of one of her early albums called ‘There’s A Light Beyond These Woods’. I was captivated, saw her play live, such magical performances, bought almost everything she did. I’m so sad to hear she’s passed. Thank you Nancy, for all your sensitivity and the marvellous music.
Very sad news indeed.
Like johnw above, I first heard Nanci on an NME country tape, and also in an interview on Andy Kershaw’s show.
I bought There’s a Light Beyond These Woods, Once in a Very Blue Moon, The Last of the True Believers, Lone Star State of Mind, and Little Love Affairs. Five wonderful albums from a greatly gifted songwriter.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a fine covers record.
One Fair Summer Evening is an exemplary live album.
I only saw her in concert the once: 7 May 1988 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. Seats right up the front. She told a few stories and sang her beautiful songs as sweetly as you knew she would, and the Blue Moon Orchestra were excellent. Rest easy, Nanci.
It sounds like several people there., I really loved her late 80s and early 90s albums. And I remember recording a Radio 2 concert which is so great. I can remember the introductions and she would end the applause with a sweet “thank you kindly”.
I enjoyed the folk cover albums but then lost track of her,but then recently spotify has thrown up “there’s a light beyond these woods , Mary Margaret “. I really love that song. And until I read the obituary I didn’t know that the reference to losing John after the senior prom, was a real life incident about a boyfriend who died in a motorbike accident after taking her to the prom.
Little love affairs will always be one of my favourites.
This song from Flyer is reputedly about John.
The Dust Bowl Symphony has always been a bit of a favourite. I heard Terry Wogan (of all people ) play her cover of Tell Me How one morning and picked up on the album and worked out from there. Sad news indeed.
Old Tel had some decent taste on the quiet…he championed Beth Nielsen Chapman, and I think he featured Gretchen Peters quite often also.
Strangely enough, in spring 1968 he had John McLaughlin in session on his after-midnight Radio 2 show (albeit within the Gordon Beck Quartet).
Colin wins the ‘shoehorning my favourite artist into a completely unrelated thread’ award. Now then, did Nanci record Cyprus Avenue or Brown Eyed Girl by any chance? *Awaits Twang telling us about the rare bootleg of her performance of Aqualung*
If she’d done a duet with Fred Durst we’d know about it by now…
That was down to his producer, Paulie Walters. He introduced Terry to all that music, which Terry loved too.
Sad loss
Good people are saying their goodbyes at an alarming rate
I was surprised about how upset I was by this news. Back in the late 80s my musical tastes were evolving and folk, roots and world music was starting to dominate my listening. Country was maybe the last strand that I started to explore – having previously been pretty sniffy about anything too ‘Yee hah’. I remember taking the plunge and buying the first albums by Dwight Yoakam, Lyle Lovett and one of Nanci’s. She was the one that stuck with me and for a period I would buy her alums as they came out. I stopped , don’t know why, some 20 years ago and rarely play her music now but I did today and it sounded just as special as it did all those years ago. Many have mentioned the Other Voices album and this vs of the Ralph McTell song is just a killer.
I saw her at Symphony Hall in the early noughties and she was terrific. Her run of albums in the 80s and early 90s was and is still terrific. Very sad to hear she’s gone.
What a show of affection. Nanci was clearly a much loved artist. Lodestone’s story was magical.
It makes me kick myself I never saw her live. This article refreshed my memory.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/14/nanci-griffith-folk-music-activism
And a short concert home in Texas.
That’s a really nice appreciation from the Grauniad. Thanks for posting the link here.
There’s a good, fairly thorough obit in today’s (Monday) Grauniad too.
Was v sad at the news. I played Little Love Affairs (from Britannia Records, my go-to source back then) endless times in the 80’s and some of her others. Thanks for the recommendations of albums by her haven’t heard yet. I Knew Love and I Would Change My Mind, and of course From a Distance were some of my favourites she sung that she didn’t write, and from the ones she did, Gulf Coast Highway, There’s a Light Beyond These Woods and Trouble in the Fields.
I’ve just watched the superlative Winter Marquee concert from the early noughties, though I had grit in my eye for most of it. Thanks for all the great music Nanci. Sleep well.
Lovely, lovely concert which I’m sure I won’t be able to watch all the way through for a wee while yet.
Thanks for posting
A very readable overview of Nanci’s career
https://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/nanci-griffith-remembered
She was so popular in Dublin that she kept an apartment there for several years.
The comments are interesting too.
On the subject of her popularity in the UK, one comment mentions Ricky Ross’s tribute show which looks excellent.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000yscr
The big question of course is: Does Ricky mention Aberdeen, Lodey and his mum??