Winston-Salem Journal, 10/18/91
by Ed Bumgardner
Nanci Griffith and the Blue Moon Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Stevens Center. Tom Kimmel will open the show.
Back in the '60s, the Hole In the Wall had the dubious distinction of being the roughest honky-tonk in Austin, Texas.
The aptly named club was a nocturnal bleeding ground for two-bit operators, crusty characters and wannabe cowboys. The house specialized in drunken brawls, a nightly ritual that inevitably climaxed in a shower of glass, wood, blood and bone at closing time.
It was in this blackguard's den that Nanci Griffith began her musical career -- a precocious, headstrong 14-year-old searching for musical identity and creative stimulation in hell's waiting room.
Moved to perform by the assortment of country, folk and rock 'n' roll she heard on border radio, Ms. Griffith talked her liberal parents into letting her perform at the Hole In the Wall on Sunday nights. Undaunted by the unsavory nature of her audience, she ventured demurely on stage and, week after week, tried to soothe the combatants with wispy versions of songs by the likes of Loretta Lynn and the Everly Brothers.
Years later, Ms. Griffith told a writer that the only time she had ever stopped in midsong was at the Hole In the Wall, the intimacy of her music shattered by the clamor of an agitated cowboy trying to deposit the head of a fellow patron in the coin slot of a Lucky Strike machine.
Her Sunday night shows were a weekly education that she adored. Rather than yearn for the safe harbor of home, Ms. Griffith found the bar's precarious environment exhilarating, its colorful clientele and cinematic atmosphere intoxicating.
She had discovered her muse.
By the time she graduated from high school, Ms. Griffith was writing remarkable songs: literate short stories defined by rich melodicism and literary grace, crowned by the enveloping gentleness and warmth of her voice.
Her bittersweet tales of independence and adventure were rich in detail and character. She examined love and life in an intimate observational narrative that balanced wry reflection and deep introspection.
Her protagonists spanned generations, a collective of old friends who personalized the social and the political: the fading appreciation of life's pageantry and values; the sacrifices necessitated by love and motherhood; the struggle for individuality and spiritual survival; and the difficulty of balancing the realities of romance with the idealism of romanticism.
As Ms. Griffith began making records, she started traveling farther afield to perform, eagerly exploring the ways of the world to better inspire her life-tales.
Proud of her musical and personal independence, she used her music to offer the world a feminine voice that was strong and sensitive, insightful and introspective.
And she thrived on performing. She was a woman in love with the nomadic existence and mysteries of road life.
Now after 18 years of wanderlust and milliions of hard miles here and abroad, Ms. Griffith has bought a house in Franklin, Tenn., and is ready to settle down.
"I have been on the road all my life," she said during a phone conversation from Nashville. "I have put in more road time than anyone I know.
"But I am tired of that military type of existence. I am tired of going home after a nine-month tour and being unable to relax. When you see dirty dishes in your kitchen and your first instinct is to leave them outside the door for room service, you know it is time to come off the road.
"So this tour is my last world tour. I am too old and crotchety to keep this up. I will still perform on occasion and make records now and then, but this is really my last big tour."
The intimate, revelatory nature of Ms. Griffith's last two albums combine to reflect the shifting tide of her life and career.
Storms, released in 1989, was a dark and brooding album -- musically, lyrically and emotionally fragile, a marked departure from the largely upbeat, country-tinged folkabilly that she had developed over the years.
"That album reflected a very difficult period of time for me," Ms. Griffith said. "I was on the road, and I really wanted to be off. But I couldn 't get off, because if I didn't tour, I believed that no one would know that there was a record out there.
"Unlike Tracy Chapman or Suzanne Vega, I have never had the big corporate promo machine pushing my records. As a result, I have had to constantly tour, which eventually brought on severe exhaustion, and in turn, severe depression. All of that came pouring out into the 'Storms' album."
Ms. Griffith's splendid new album, "Late Night Grande Hotel," although considerably more upbeat than "Storms," is nonetheless a work of quiet intensity and emotional nuance that underscores another period of personal transition.
"I am an intense person who is in a contant period of transition," she said. "I have come to the conclusion that the secret to my art is perpetual movement, the act of constantly turning myself over and checking under rocks to see what pops up."
Produced by Rod Argent and Peter Van Hooke, the textural album, filled with lush orchestration and sophisticated arrangements, is Ms. Griffith's most ambitious and atmospheric work to date, a twilight summation of mood, music and change.
"I do see it as a dusk record," she said. "I also think it consolidates all the different styles and sounds of my career into something altogether new. We went in determined to create and sustain a certain atmosphere, which I think we did. So I guess you could say that this album is ..." She paused and laughed. "Kind of a mature thing."
Thematically, most of the album examines and debates the pros and cons of a stable life and the possibilities and probabilities of sustained relationships.
The freedom of rootlessness ("The Power Lines") is weighed against the lasting values of well-nutured roots ("Hometown Streets").
"It's Just Another Morning Here" is a startling portrait of fear and the onset of maturity. "Late Night Grande Hotel" weighs independence against stability.
Through the course of the album, Ms. Griffith asks hard questions that require introspective honesty and frank response.
Can a loner sustain love? Can a confirmed gypsy thrive on a diet of hearth and home? Does stability mean suffocation?
Raised in a bohemian atmosphere, Ms. Griffith said that she was brought up to be self-sufficient. She was taught that there were possibilities for women outside of motherhood. Anything was possible as long as she believed in herself.
"I realized early on that I had to make some big decisions," she said. "Once I decided that I wanted to play music for a living, I also decided against having children at that time, as I knew I could not devote myself fully to both music and children. And that was tough. It is very difficult for modern women to realize that things have not changed enough for them to have it all. I have many friends who became housewives and raised their children, and I respect them for being so unselfish. And I admit to having tinges of jealousy.
"That our generation was raised to believe that we COULD have it all makes things doubly difficult for women. So many of us wake up in the morning and ask why we are here and what are we supposed to do. Many of us simply don't know who we are.
"As a result, the transition to adulthood has been really difficult."
Now, in her late 30s, Ms. Griffith is optimistic about her future. Her career is in grand shape. She has released nine critically acclaimed records, all of which remain in print.
She fronts the Blue Moon Orchestra, a remarkable band of dear friends and versatile musicians that is anchored by keyboardist James Hooker of Amazing Rhythm Aces fame.
And her ever-shifting music, though too stylistically broad and singular for radio, continues to hold a loyal audience that includes fans of folk, country and pop.
As a result, she can rest assured that each new album will enjoy healthy sales -- even without the benefit of airplay or heavy touring.
Still, the prospect of commitment, be it to house or spouse, instills Ms. Griffith with some trepidation.
"I think that I still harbor a certain fear of commitment and of settling down," she said. "That line in 'Late Night Grande Hotel' -- 'living alone is all I have ever done well' -- well, sometimes I REALLY feel like that, because I have always lived a fairly reclusive lifestyle.
"But I have been divorced once, so I understand that you have to make time to have someone else in your life. If you are not willing to do that, a relationship can become a dreadful thing. And I think I will be ready to settle down, once this tour is finished and life returns to normal."
She laughed, "At least I hope so, for everybody's sake.