SHELTER: ME (LORD)

 At times of terror and turbulence we, as humans, often seek solace or succour from a higher power, quite whatever that might be. And, no, this isn't extending a troll to the many millions who hold dear such an idea, certain of the reality. I get the need, sure, I get the need, even often wishing I could accept what I can't fully embrace. But I don't believe, arguably more agnostic than atheist, but fully respect the want of others to have a faith. So much so that I can absolutely love the musical convictions offered by those with belief and surety. Religious music can move me to tears and frequently does. Here, as the ravages rained down upon Ukraine fill our 24 hour rolling news channels, I feel sure, were I in the maelstrom of Mariupol, that it would be songs like this that would be filling my head.

One could easily assume the above, as performed by Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit, to be an ancient spiritual, handed down from generation to generation, even brought over on the slave ships, so earthy, rugged and real the entreaty. I certainly assumed so, Benoit having the knack of uprooting the overlooked and arcane to cover for his repertoire of authentic sounding country blues from the bayous. Having a voice like an earthquake and adept workmanlike precision on his guitar certainly hinders little. Hell, if you forgive the use of the word in this context, he just makes you want to believe in his God. (Or, at least, to take the Marc Cohn option, "Ma'am, I am tonight!")

But it isn't an old hymn, as I discovered, coming from a much more recent source. Here, above, is the original version, as appearing on Buddy Miller's 2004 album, Universal House of Prayer. I sometimes feel an overt Christian faith is deemed as disadvantageous in the world of rock and roll, not least as the Devil is said to have the best songs. Well, if that is the case, someone forgot to tell Buddy Miller, hotshot guitarist and record producer, who has played alongside both Robert Plant and Emmylou Harris, and produced, amongst others, Richard Thompson and Patty Griffin. This is as well as having his own solo career and that as a duet, with his wife, Julie, who actually wrote the song featured. Below is a live version, Buddy with three of his famous friends, Emmylou, Patty and, also a recipient of his production work, Shawn Colvin.

Quite apart from the couldn't be clearer lyrical thrust, is the odd fact that this self same song was used as the theme of a TV reality show in the U.S. Named Sons of Guns, it was about the life and business of a gun dealership. Which sorta sits uncomfortably. So, get rid the thought of it selling guns, and concentrate on applying it to losing the guns, and tanks, and bombs, from Ukraine, or, at least, from the hands of Putin's "military exercise". Maybe offered up as a prayer?

Have a last version, this time from Canada's excellent Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, joined here by no less than Mrs Springsteen herself, Patti Scialfa:

Shelter Tab, Buddy and Blackie's.

Goodbye: Goodbye

Patty Griffin: Goodbye

[purchase]

First time I heard Patty Griffin’s “Goodbye,” it felt like she was channeling emotions and thoughts I had during times of loss and grief -- except her thoughts were more organized and her words more articulate. I've had too many opportunities to revisit Griffin's lyrics in recent years, including this week, as we had to say goodbye to our treasured family pet, who died in our arms, after more than 16 years of companionship and love.

Homonyms: Forgiveness

Patty Griffin: Forgiveness

{purchase]

Luka Bloom: Forgiveness

[purchase]

The Lonesome Sisters: Forgiveness

[purchase]

Single-word song titles are often homonymic, especially those that describe an emotional state; after all, there's a LOT of songs out there, and far fewer emotional states to channel through song. These three favorite interpretations of forgiveness were released within the single decade that took me through my twenties and into my early thirties - through marriage and parenthood, through graduate school and vocational epiphany, through unemployment and homelessness and back again - and each appeared just when I needed it: Patty Griffin's raw debut runs plaintive and deep enough to make my eternal "sad songs" playlist; Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom pays death's tribute with eerie atmosphere and a typically low-strung, high-reverb guitar; the Lonesome Sisters won prizewinning song at Merlefest for their deep holler harmonies on this bitter, truly lonesome song of love gone astray; all gave voice to my heart, at one younger, less confident time or another.

Off-Genre: Wiggley Fingers

Patty Griffin: Wiggley Fingers

[purchase]

Last time I mentioned Patty Griffin's sophomore album Flaming Red here in these pages, it led to an interesting debate between contributors about the value of the album as a touchstone for the singer-songwriter's evolution. And like Nelson's spouse, I agree that there's much to love about the first half of that album, though I find the songs from it more palatable in their live and stripped-down form.

But love it or hate it, there's no denying that late-album track Wiggley Fingers is a full-blown departure for Griffin, even more than the rest of the heavily-produced album in question. If it weren't for that distinctive voice straining to come clear through the sonic haze, and the oddly, dischordantly Catholic-schoolgirl-esque lyrical impressions under all that bombast, it would be easier to imagine this driving, heavily electronic, beat-heavy track in the hands and voice of a blazing country rocker in full-blown light-show prance-around encore mode. Or even in the sexualized, radio-ready hands of a modern poprock diva, like Pink, Madonna, or Ke$ha - wherein it would sound just right, come to think of it. Check it out, yo.

There's Something About Mary: Mary

Patty Griffin: Mary

[purchase]

Hands down, my favorite song for this week's theme. Patty Griffin's smooth, atmospheric pop paean to her grandmother is utterly gorgeous, perfectly touching, eminently sad - a stunning tribute to the secretive, strong Catholic mother figures that haunted the fifties and sixties.

Its emergence on the otherwise terribly overproduced Flaming Red, perhaps the most flawed gem in Griffin's canon, saved the record from total obscurity in my own collection and others. But ultimately, this song is exceptionally well served by its echoey high-pop production. Indeed, despite the bombastic tone of so much of the rest of its album, the song's success aptly demonstrated Patty's adeptness in songcraft far beyond just stripped down folksinger mode - which is to say, though both takes share the same eminently recognizable harmony and slow heartbeat drums, the acoustic version off her live album just doesn't have the kick that this one does.

Ghosts and Zombies: I Thought I Saw You Last Night

Steve Poltz: I Thought I Saw You Last Night

[purchase] (One Left Shoe CD)

I will go on the record (no pun intended) now as admitting that I loved Pieces of You, Jewel's first album, when it was released in 1995 - one of our local radio stations (WHSE, 103.5) was sponsoring her South Florida concert and, as a marketing ploy, selling tickets for $1.03 - I bought seven (a minivan full) and my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening (complete with Duncan Sheik as the opening act!)...

From what I recall, I bought Steve Poltz's first CD because of his Jewel connection - he "discovered" her, they co-wrote You Were Meant for Me, they were romantically entwined... and he toured with her as her opening act and a member of her band...

I love this catchy, upbeat song... about a guy who purports to be brave except when it comes to the idea of facing an ex-love - he imagines her everywhere, conjuring metaphors of ghostly apparitions from obviously still-haunted past memories (and yes, that is Jewel on harmony vocals)...

Here are two more Ghost songs I posted for our Duets theme in late-January, should you be interested: Conversation with a Ghost by Ellis Paul (with Patty Griffin)... and Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer - enjoy!

Poverty: Poor Man's House

Patty Griffin: Poor Man's House

[purchase]

The first folk album I truly fell in love with was Patty Griffin's rough-hewn, living-room recorded 1996 debut Living with Ghosts, a gift from my father and folkmentor in troubled times. I was back in college again, newly married, desperately in need of music as an emotional outlet but too broke to afford CDs, and from the very first note, I treasured that album like nobody's business.

This song, which appears alongside the equally powerful track Forgiveness, provides an aching centerpiece of despair to a haunting album. The rise and fall of its dustbowl strum and wail, delivered on the low, shaky end of Patty's breathy, slightly twanged vocal range, speaks of growing up as a child of the exhausted and sorrowful poor in ways that - although devoid of hope in the moment - still manage to anticipate the life of inner strength which will ultimately come to those who survive it.

The exceptionally well-grounded emotion of Living With Ghosts would set the stage for a long and happily still-growing career as a songwriter's songwriter, equally adept at loss and longing, hope and hopelessness, resigned determination and anger, celebrated in Americana and folk circles for an unparalleled sensitivity to the ways in which raw, intimate music and a confessional narrative can best reach a listener's heart. But I always return to this, her first, when I am in need. Thanks, Patty, for helping me find myself in the dark hours.

One: Fun with One

These songs have no real connection except that they all contain "One," and they they're all just a lot of fun.

Ben Folds Five: One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces
[purchase]

I bought Whatever & Ever Amen on a recommendation from MTV's Matt Pinfield back when I still thought MTV was cool. Yeah... it's been a while. This was the first song on that album and the first Ben Folds Five song I ever heard. It's angry and bubbly all at the same time. It's a perfect example of Ben's self proclaimed "punk rock for pansies" style. Bonus points for the GI Joe reference.

Patty Griffin: One Big Love
[purchase]

No anger here... just Patty Griffin getting funky like a monkey. This song is all about swimming in the high tide and walking on air. Let your hair down and enjoy this one from Patty's Flaming Red album.

Keller Williams: One Hit Wonder
[purchase]

There have been a few one hit wonder artists featured here on Star Maker Machine. Keller Williams wishes he was one of them. I don't think you can classify Keller as ever having made a hit himself. He laments that fact here on this track from Laugh.

Duets: Conversation with a Ghost

Ellis Paul: Harmony (poem)

Ellis Paul and Patty Griffin: Conversation with a Ghost

[purchase]

I know there's a longer, more detailed story behind Ellis Paul's song Conversation with a Ghost (the lyrics reflect what emerged via a Ouija board interaction with a recently-deceased friend)... but it's in his book... which I own... which is at home... where I'm not - so... I'll follow up with a comment when I return in a few days...

I do, however, have in my possession a Duets mix CD I made for myself at least five years ago - Ellis' poem perfectly describes the magic when two voices combine and elevate to a sum substantially greater than their parts... then just as perfectly illustrates that alchemy... with Patty Griffin joining him on achingly beautiful harmony on the tune from Say Something, his first (although the version I've included is on his Live CD).

Hope & Change: Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)

Patty Griffin: Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)
[purchase]

Solomon Burke: Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)
[purchase]

This week's topic is a tough one for me.

Ask me to come up with songs that find fault with the outgoing administration and their policies and decisions, and I would have no problem. There have been many songs written over the last eight years that find fault with the past. I could come up with ten or fifteen right off the top of my head.

For some reason, however, songs of hope and (positive) change seemed harder to find...

...Until I thought of the events that are actually taking place this week. On Monday, we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. On Tuesday, America inaugurates its first African-American President.

I chose a song that honors a man who personified hope... a man who dreamt of change. Forty-six years ago, Dr. King asked us all to share his dream and climb with him up to the mountain. On Tuesday, Barack Obama will stand at the summit. That should give us all reason to hope.

Adjective Noun: Silver Bell

Patty Griffin: Silver Bell

[purchase]

Patty Griffin's ill fated Silver Bell album has been mentioned here before, but I felt the need to revisit it this week.

Going into the year 2000, Patty Griffin was seemingly on an artistic high. The Dixie Chicks had recorded her song, "Let Him Fly" on their Fly album that sold 10 million copies. The Chicks then took Patty on tour with them and told anyone who would listen that she was their favorite songwriter on the planet. It seemed Patty would have a ready made audience for her third studio album when it was released later in the year. That's when things turned south.

Griffin's A&M label was swallowed whole by Universal Music Group in 1998 and she was shifted off to the Interscope imprint. She was now label mates with Snoop Dogg among others. Then, in 2000, UMG was gobbled up by Vivendi just weeks before Patty was to turn in her new album. Regardless, Griffin recorded, mixed, and mastered the songs that were to make up Silver Bell and delivered them to the new label heads. The label's response was to ask her to record a brand new album, with brand new songs, and a brand new band... something that would be more "radio friendly."

Rather than do that, Patty negotiated her way out of her contract with Vivendi/UMG. She was free... Silver Bell was not. She was unable to buy back the masters of the album. It has still never been properly released.

Fortunately, the music has found its way out into the open, as good music often will. Bootlegs of the album are openly traded on the official forums at pattygriffin.net, and several of the songs have seen official release in alternate versions. Patty rerecorded "Making Pies," "Top of the World," and "Standing" for future albums, and The Dixie Chicks released "Truth No. 2," and "Top of the World" on their 2002 release Home.

The song featured here is the title track to Patty Griffin's album that never was. It's a rocking number that really makes me wonder why the suits at her label thought no one would buy this album. It has never been released in any proper form, but I was lucky enough to see Patty perform this song live at The Ryman a few years back.

The purchase link above goes to the results of a search for Patty Griffin at amazon.com.

School Days: Tony

Patty Griffin: Tony

[purchase]

I know everyone is probably looking for the peppy little "rah rah" high school songs here, but I'm going to get a little heavy with Patty Griffin.

The story behind this song goes that "Tony" was a high school classmate of Griffin's who took his own life when he was in his early 20's. In hindsight, Tony is remembered as a quiet kid who kept to himself. Maybe he reached out for help, maybe he didn't. High school being what it is, everyone else was so wrapped up in their own problems that they barely noticed Tony's.

There is some strong language in this song.

Cars: The Bruce Springsteen Songbook

Patty Griffin: Stolen Car [purchase]

Townes Van Zandt: Racing in the Streets [out-of-print; purchase]

Ani DiFranco: Used Cars [purchase]

Bruce Springsteen: Pink Cadillac [purchase]

Those who listened to the Woody Guthrie original-and-cover set I posted yesterday may have noted the spoken preamble to Bruce Springsteen's version of Riding In My Car, in which he makes a brash, universal claim of primacy to the automobile as a topic for song. Though the challenge to Guthrie which Springsteen brings borders on the overly smug and self-inflated, it is not wrong to note that automobiles are a central image in the urban poetry of Bruce Springsteen.

For Springsteen, the car is a perfect metaphor, encapsulating the dual motifs of escape and commitment to family obligations which pepper his own songbook. And for a guy who has always come across in persona as a shy mechanic who is embarrassed to have accidentally found himself a spokesperson for American culture's blue collar underbelly, the idea of the car, and all it represents, is an especially apt vehicle for greatness.

Cataloguing the entire set of Springsteen's carsongs would be not so much an exercise in futility as a swamp of songs far too broad and long to legitimately fit within the boundaries of ethical blogging. But since I'm a cover blogger at heart, here's a representative sample of some favorite Springsteen covers, from Patty Griffin's slow, sparse take on the spinning wheels and tiger-cage pacing of Stolen Car to Townes Van Zandt's stellar live take on the young man's freedom of Racing in the Street to urban alt-folkie Ani DiFranco's fluid interpretation of the struggling middle-class arrival dreams of Used Car. Plus a single undersung original, just because the brash hillbilly rock of Bruce B-side Pink Cadillac, an Elvis tribute which was performed plenty in his Born in the USA tour in the mid eighties but has since been dropped from the general performance repertoire, is, under all it's top forty sound, a thoughtful narrative of what Bruce himself has called "the conflict between worldly things and spiritual health", especially apt in today's world of shrinking gas reserves and soaring prices.

Any of these, or a dozen more, would make a fitting spokes-song for our aging American troubador, and his ongoing exploration of our cultural fascination with all things vehicular. Feel free to add your favorite Springsteen carsong, cover or original, in the comments.

Footwear: Burgundy Shoes

Patty Griffin: Burgundy Shoes

[purchase]

The hot weather has finally hit SoCal - I find myself unable to sleep and writing a post about Patty Griffin. In Burgundy Shoes, she sings about her mom - since I'm in the throes of heat prostration, I'll let her describe it:

"'Burgundy Shoes' was really trying to find a moment in my memory that I could really feel joy in and I went back to one of my earliest memories of waiting for the bus in the town that I grew up in. It was a big, exciting trip to the big city that was Bangor, Maine with my mom on a really beautiful spring day. When you grow up in the Northeast, you have to wear big boots for the whole winter and then suddenly your mom says it's OK to take your boots off and you feel like you're walking on air 'cause your feet are in these shoes. And they’re pretty shoes, not ugly boots. It was just that simple moment - having that time with my mom and thinking about I used to think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. When you start digging back into being really little, you find all these memories that are very pure and aren't crowded by anxiety or anything like that. I was trying to write that song from the point of view of who I was then." - Patty Griffin

From NPR: "Griffin's songs are often shot through with a big streak of melancholy — so much so that a friend challenged her to write a 'happier song.' That challenge resulted in 'Burgundy Shoes,' a song on her new CD." Hear all about it in the interview.

I know "advice" was last weeks theme, but let me tell you, if someone gives you a free air conditioner in November, for god's sake, put it in before a high pressure system parks itself over your burgh and you find yourself posting to the Internet at 2 ayem. I think my next move is mixing up some saline solution. Damn you, global warming!

City Songs: Boston

Patty Griffin, Boston

[purchase Flaming Red]
[purchase other Patty Griffin CDs]

I went back to Boston, back to the city you were lost in...

Silver Bell was supposed to be singer-songwriter Patty Griffin's third album, but it got lost in the shuffle when A&M got bought out by Interscope. Shame, that. Many of the songs on Silver Bell were subsequently rerecorded for other albums, and a few became hits for such luminaries as the Dixie Chicks, but this never-released song is one of her hardest rockers; it is both a tour of my childhood haunts and a tour of my adolescent rock-and-roll angst.

Purchase link goes to Flaming Red, Griffin's underrated (if overproduced) second album, which shares the same diverse grungefolk sensibility as much of Silver Bell. You can find a half-dozen folk and country covers of Patty Griffin songs here.