Emmylou Harris said that 'songs need new voices to sing them in places they've never been sung in order to stay alive,'" writes folkabilly darling Nanci Griffith in the notes to her tenth album, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Like a sonic scrapbook, Other Voices is a collection of seventeen songs written by Griffith's own musical idols, from the obvious – Bob Dylan, John Prine and Jerry Jeff Walker – to covers of more obscure works by New York folkie Frank Christian and the late Kate Wolf.
A gifted songwriter herself, Griffith has written tales about romantic incongruities on albums like Lone Star State of Mind, Little Love Affairs and Late Night Grande
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Hotel. Vocally, though, she often does disservice to her own work. With its trademark reedy twang, Griffith's voice can weigh itself down with a preciousness that falls emotionally flat.
Although she doesn't do a complete about-face, Other Voices, Other Rooms presents a palatable alternative direction for Griffith. Her fragile playacting is not so much a liability on this album but a reverential nod to old friends. Lassoing an all-star cast of singers and musicians – Harris, Arlo Guthrie, Guy Clark, Chet Atkins, Carolyn Hester, John Prine, Indigo Girls, John Gorka and even Dylan himself – Griffith and producer Jim Rooney assume their roles as archivists with efficiency and warmth.
Whether childlike and transcendent on Frank Christian's "Three Flights Up" or cheerfully smartass with Guy Clark on Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi," Griffith takes inordinate care with each track as if restoring a worn masterpiece. Recorded in Nashville, Los Angeles and Dublin, Other Voices resonates with layer upon layer of full-bodied acoustic arrangements. There are lovely surprises – Griffith's pairing with Arlo Guthrie on Townes Van Zandt's "Tecumseh Valley" and a luminous duet with Iris DeMent on Cook and Roland's 116-year-old lament "Are You Tired of Me Darling" are marvels of spare grandeur. Sadly, her cover of Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather" pales next to previous covers, not to mention the original.
Ending with a gimmicky but goodnatured throwaway of "Wimoweh," Other Voices, Other Rooms comes full circle for Griffith and her friends. These days on the pop charts the songwriter often seems a marginal figure, quietly following the footprints of a perfectly coiffed artist and a producer – and maybe a remixer, too. For songwriters like Nanci Griffith and her cronies, the lyric is still as mighty as the groove or the guitar riff. And to seek out mislaid words and breathe new possibilities into them, as Griffith has done on Other Voices, Other Rooms, is a sublimely generous gesture. (RS 654)
KARA MANNING
Nanci Griffith's second volume of covers, Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful), is a kind of fantasy Newport Folk Festival, with more than seventy-five accomplished participants and the requisite corny finale ("If I Had a Hammer"). Like its predecessor, 1993's Other Voices, Other Rooms, the new album pays homage to the singer-songwriters who have inspired Griffith's own country-folk oeuvre. The twist is that Other Voices, Too features lead vocals by several of its guests. Griffith has assembled an astounding crew of singers and players to bring to life a rich body of British, American and Canadian songcraft. She trades lines with a virtual who's who of maverick Texans – Steve Earle, Jerry Jeff Walker, Rodney Crowell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Eric Taylor and Guy Clark – on Clark's "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train." "The Streets of Baltimore" finds Griffith dueting with John Prine as Darius Rucker harmonizes and the song's composer, Harlan Howard, contributes a spoken bit. On the 1960 Ferlin Husky hit, "Wings of a Dove," Lucinda Williams' bruised vocals add sorrowful depth to Griffith's lilting soprano. Large, hootenanny-style ensembles spotlight folk legends such as Odetta, Dave Van Ronk and Jean Ritchie.
Instrumental virtuosos abound, too, including guitarist Richard Thompson, multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin and button accordionist Sharon Shannon; on two tracks, Griffith is backed by Buddy Holly's Crickets. Surrounding herself with pioneering rock & rollers, veteran folkies, iconoclastic stylists and today's upstart individualists, Griffith has forged an extraordinary bridge between folk tradition and the contemporary acoustic scene. (RS 792)
HOLLY GEORGE-WARREN
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