 Playing a style she has called folkabilly herself but living on a bluesy highway- commercial failures, musical sell-outs and mostly other people having success with her songs- Nanci Griffith had seen and heard it all before so she decided to quit writing new songs. The world she sung about for almost thirty years was the exact reason she stopped writing; misery used to be her inspiration and misery took it all away too. Inspired by Dee Moeller, who’s ‘Party Girl’ and ‘ Tequila After Midnight’ she covers here, Griffith reunited with her inner self and pen and started writing songs again, ultimately resulting in her new album ‘The Loving Kind’. ‘The Loving Kind’ is both a comeback of Griffith the socialist and Griffith the country music fan. Though ‘folkabilly’ might be the right word to summon up the inspirational and straightforward lyrics on this album, musically it’s one hundred percent slick, mainstream country. Even the few songs without the presence of fiddle and pedal steel breathe classic Texas because her typical American country voice overrules it all. With the exception of ’Across America’ where Nanci Griffith shows the true beauty of her voice that she sadly hides on the rest of the songs. Based on all of this there is no denying her solid background as a Texan country singer. Lyrically Nanci Griffith obviously never stopped caring about the dark side of her home country; title song ‘The Loving Kind’ for instance is about Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who got arrested in the late fifties because a marriage between a black and a white person was against the law in their state. Another man suffering and being given eternal life in music by Nanci Griffith is Philip Workman, who was sentenced to death and executed despite the evidence of his trial being both controversial and, as turned out later, wrong. Even the musical and presidential side of American history has been covered here with Griffith respectively singing about Townes van Zandt (‘Up Against the Rain‘), Lyndon Johnson (‘Cotton’s All We Got’) and George W. Bush (‘Still Life‘). Nanci Griffith might have needed another singer to get back on the right track but considering the quality of ‘The Loving Kind’ she couldn’t have been that far away in the first place. Forty-two years in music, fifty-six years in life; the United States of Nanci Griffiths dreams might have gone by now, but her spirit is still alive.
Last edited by Floris Stoter : September 1, 2009 at 09:10 PM.
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| | | | Overall Rating | | 7 | | Vocals / Lyrics | | 7 | | Musicianship | | 7 | | Production | | 7 | | Creativity | | 7 | | Lastability | | 7 | | Reviewers Tilt | | 7 |
70% | |
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