But neither Griffin nor the label were happy with the results. “[It was] very beautiful, but I felt like I played a really small part in it,” she told a writer. “Fortunately, the record label hated it. But they loved the demos.” Griffin re-recorded some vocals, and the cleaned-up demos became Living With Ghosts.
Though the “band” album was sidelined, the New Orleans sessions were far from a waste of time. For one thing, Griffin met Austin musicians Craig Ross and Michael Ramos (who were in the Crescent City working with Burn on a Charlie Sexton album). Both Ross and Ramos eventually became staunch musical allies and friends.
Griffin also met the woman who would become one of her great champions, Emmylou Harris. “I was taking a break from working on Wrecking Ball,” Harris recalled. “I was going back down to New Orleans to work on the record, and in the meantime Patty had been doing some work with Malcolm.” (Burn also worked on Wrecking Ball.)
“They played me some of her songs, and I could not believe…it was that shock of recognition of hearing a voice you’ve never heard anything like before, but you wonder how you could have spent your whole life and not heard something so extraordinarily beautiful and moving.”
Harris invited Griffin to her house when Griffin came through Nashville on tour. Emmylou not only sang Patty’s praises to others, but also sang on Flaming Red and 1000 Kisses. When Griffin returned to Nashville to record the live album A Kiss In Time in January 2003, Harris was onstage beside her at the Ryman Auditorium. She also sings “ooohs and aaaahs” (as she puts it) on Impossible Dream, and recorded Griffin’s exuberant “One Big Love” on her own Red Dirt Girl album.
For her part, Griffin has appeared in several concerts for and worked on behalf of one of Harris’ signature causes, the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Campaign For A Landmine Free World. Harris and Griffin also appeared together on an Austin City Limits songwriters-circle episode, along with Buddy & Julie Miller and Dave Matthews.
Harris insisted it wasn’t simple altruism or even admiration that has caused her to go to bat for the slender Yankee singer. “It’s pure selfishness on my part,” she said candidly. “I just wanted as much of Patty as I could get. I wanted to hear her singing and I wanted to hear her songs. I wanted to show off to people and say, ‘Have you heard Patty Griffin?’ Everyone that hears her really has a change in their poetic landscape. For my part, it was just a natural thing to try to turn as many people on to her as I could.”
Griffin, in turn, still regards the iconic Harris with something akin to reverence. When she first heard cuts from Wrecking Ball in New Orleans in 1995, Griffin remembers thinking, “I don’t know how I get from where I am to this kind of thing.”
Even after all the miles, she says, “I would never call her my buddy. I don’t think I could ever relax that much around her. Because I’m so in awe of her, I’ll say ‘That’s…EMMY.’ Even when I see her in the morning on the bus with no makeup, I still feel that way. I guess ‘mentor’ would be a good word. I’m pretty impressed.”
Pshaw, Harris replies. “We just haven’t gone shopping for shoes together yet.”
“It’s gonna hurt.”
— Buddy Miller to Emmylou Harris, in anticipation of listening to Impossible Dream
The first notes of 1998’s Flaming Red drove a stake through the heart of any “folk singer” preconceptions that arose from Living With Ghosts. A thrashing howl of industrial noise led into Griffin’s passionate, defiant rewrite of Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Red Shoes”. Songs such as “Tony” (about a gay schoolmate who committed suicide), “Wiggley Fingers” (about a pedophile priest) and “Change” (about a woman beaten in both body and spirit) smoked with sulphurous anger. “Blue Sky” and “One Big Love”, by contrast, were luminous, buoyant pop songs that soared on the wings of Griffin’s unfettered vocals. Flaming Red popped Griffin into focus as an artist, and freed her in the process; suddenly, it seemed, she had the latitude, the artistic breadth, to go in any direction she chose.
Her next album — not counting the ill-fated Silver Bell — was 1000 Kisses. Recorded in a handful of days at Doug Lancio’s home studio in Nashville, it resounds with a seemingly effortless command of the artist’s talents. Songs such as “Rain”, “Making Pies” and “Nobody Cryin'” exhibited such authority that even the tin-eared mossbacks who vote on the Grammys were compelled to pay attention. She even phonetically sang the lyrics of the old Spanish song “Mil Besos” with such aplomb that Michael Ramos’ father remarked, “I didn’t know Patty spoke Spanish!”
Impossible Dream, with its lyrical and musical nuance, its deliberate ambiguity, and its artistic cohesion, could be the vehicle to push Griffin to a new level. On the other hand, in a Britney & Christina world, it’s hard to say what advantage there would be in moving up to the Big Show.
An arena stage, as she noted, is far from her favorite forum to present her music. Still, remember those young girls in the goofy cowboy hats, waiting for the opening act to finish so they could sing along with the Dixie Chicks? It’s a safe bet that a certain percentage of them have Patty Griffin songs on their iPods by now.
Griffin is moving on, too. She will turn 40 about the time this story sees the light of day, and she says she’s looking forward to it. “I never celebrate my birthday in a big way, but I’m making plans,” she says. “I’m making plans to send myself into that part of my life. It definitely feels like a milestone.”
A time for reflection. Ask Shawn Colvin what she thinks is important to Griffin, music aside, as she responds, “As near as I can tell, she’s one of those truly kind people. I think it accounts for their shyness — they’re sensitive to their hurts and the world’s hurts, and they feel things deeply. That’s the way she is.”
Emmylou Harris, asked what she thinks matters to her friend, replies, “I don’t want to speak for her, but she’s concerned about politics in the world, about being a good citizen. She’s not so involved in the stratosphere of the poetic world that she isn’t firmly connected in the moment…”
She pauses. There’s something else, some elusive key. Ah, there it is — the rest of the secret: “…Oh, yeah, and shoes!”
John T. Davis is a writer and music historian living in Austin, Texas.
