Patty Griffin – Children Running Through

Perhaps, even after a half-dozen well-regarded albums, a good handful of high-profile songwriting cuts, and regular reminders that Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller and countless others think well of her work…perhaps we haven’t properly been introduced to Patty Griffin yet.

Children Running Through opens softly, muted bass strings plucked against brushed drums, and then she eases into the microphone: confident, gloriously self-assured, bold and subtle all at once. She soars. The song is called “You’ll Remember”, and you will.

It is as if, for the first time in her career, Griffin is ready to stare her listeners straight in the eye, square her shoulders, and say, “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am damn good. Let me show you.” And then blow the room away.

Every other record she has made — and most of them are quite good — seems now to have been a preamble to this work, by leaps and bounds the best of her career. It is possible, in hindsight, to trace all the elements back to other songs, other experiments, other producers. Other times. But even if everything she has done before seems to lead directly to this album, it still arrived as a shock. Even wincing against the danger of hyperbole, if somebody makes a better record in 2007, it will have been a spectacular year.

Leaps and bounds better, and yet a completely logical progression. It’s not the songwriting, long Griffin’s easy strength, though sure enough these dozen tracks betray the careful hand of an accomplished writer. And it’s not even the varied musical settings, the strings, the horns, the near absence of electric guitar (though there’s plenty that rocks).

It’s her voice.

Maybe this is simply a matter of co-producer Michael McCarthy’s microphone choice and placement, or of mixing preferences, or of some other studio magic. Perhaps, even, it’s simply that, for the first time, Griffin is co-producing herself. Nah, probably not. Children Running Through is all about Griffin reveling in the suddenly — startlingly — enormous power of her singing.

Power she uses judiciously. “Railroad Wings”, the latest in a series of childhood memory pieces, is tenderly sung, hushed, as if performed in the quiet of a very solitary place. So is its mate, “Burgundy Shoes”, set mostly against Ian McLagan’s understated piano line. “Stay On The Ride”, the newest among her bracing and sensitive songs about old age (the Dixie Chicks covered one) works into a joyous, nearly gospel lather. By contrast, “Heavenly Day” is close to full-blown pop, complete with strings. “No Bad News” (possibly an anti-Bush tongue-lashing, and as easily not) is carried by firmly stroked nylon strings and vein-popping vocals.

Power she controls utterly. What could be a pro-forma kiss-off, “Getting Ready” (“Oh baby, I’m getting ready/I’m getting ready to let you go”), quickly turns from an uptempo crowd-pleaser into an elegant and brutally honest dissection of a failing relationship. And yet remains a crowd-pleaser.

Power she shares, singing easily with Emmylou Harris — neither of them drawing attention to their voices, only to the song — on the circus short story “Trapeze”. Throughout, she leaves abundant room for her ensemble (regulars, including Doug Lancio on guitars, Michael Langoria on percussion, and J.D. Foster or Glenn Worf on bass) to propel each song forward, striking exactly the right mood, framing each song — and her voice — with exquisite precision.

And her voice… She could always sing, of course. But this…this is singing.