Spotlight Album Review: Various Artists "More Than A Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith"

VARIOUS ARTISTS, “MORE THAN A WHISPER: CELEBRATING THE MUSIC OF NANCI GRIFFITH”

Let us now praise Nanci Griffith. We lost her two years ago, a fragile creature at the time physically, because of her failing health, but spiritually strong. She was one of the country-folk pioneers of the ‘80s, along with Lyle Lovett and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She proudly wore her deep Southern roots on her sleeve, in her songs and in her singing, but she was revered around the world. While she delighted in covering other people’s songs (most prominently on the Grammy-winning Other Voice, Other Rooms collection, and its sequel, Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful)), she was a world-class songwriter, as heard undeniably on More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith.

The album brings together an all-star group to perform 14 songs, some well-known, some less so, that define Nanci’s canon. In Mary Gauthier’s eloquent liner notes, “She was a songwriter’s songwriter in a time when the word songwriter, especially in Texas, was synonymous with male. She was an absolute trailblazer, and more often than not, the only woman in the room.”

As it happens, the majority of the performers, but not exclusively, are female. The album leads off with “You Can’t Go Home Again,” a relatively obscure song from Nanci’s second album, Poet in My Window, performed by Sarah Jarosz and produced in New York by John Leventhal with musicians including Larry Campbell on pedal steel.  The next two tracks are Nanci Griffith favorites, both featuring duets: “Love at the Five and Dime” (a hit for Kathy Mattea) with John Prine and Kelsey Waldon, and “Listen to the Radio,” with two young bluegrass crossover superstars, Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle. Kathy Mattea is featured, along with Lyle Lovett, on the other duet on the album, “Trouble in the Fields,” Nanci’s heartbreaking tale of farming. The song was originally on Nanci’s breakthrough album, 1997’s Last of the True Believers,” produced by Jim Rooney, one of Nanci’s early true believers, and Rooney is at the helm again for this new version.

Other familiar songs include “Gulf Coast Highway,” usually a duet but performed solo by Brandi Clark; “Outbound Plane” (a hit for Suzy Boggus) by Shawn Colvin (with beautiful dobro accompanying acoustic guitar); the sorrowful “Late Night Grande Hotel” by Aaron Lee Tasjan; and “Banks of the Poncharrain” by Iris DeMent, whose twang echoes Nanci’s. Among the male contributors, standouts include Todd Snider’s rocking getaway song, “Ford Econoline” and Steve Earle’s “It’s a Hard Life Wherever You Go,” a song reflecting Nanci’a affinity with Ireland. With Jim Rooney’s production and backing musicians including The Mastersons (from Steve’s band, The Dukes) and Ivan Goff’s uillean pipes, Steve nails the Celtic flavor (but, after all, he had his own with “Galway Girl”).

Emmylou Harris was well-known for her cover of “It’s a Hard Life,” but on the tribute album, she takes on, with production by Buddy Miller, the obscure “Love War a Halo (Back Home Before the War)” from Nanci’s 1988 album, Little Love Affairs.  Other lesser-known selections include “Radio Fragile” by Ida Mae and the title track, “More Than a Whisper” (originally on Last of the True Believers) by Mary Gauthier. Produced by Neilson Hubbard and backed by Jaimee Harris and Will Kimbrough, among others, it’s a perfect fit for Mary.

The album concludes with the only song not written by Nanci, Julie Gold’s classic “From a Distance.” Julie always felt blessed to have Nanci as a champion, and many people feel, Bette Midler notwithstanding, that Nanci’s version, on Last of the True Believers, is the definitive one. Here the husband-and-wife duo of Michael and Tonya Trotter, a.k.a. The War and Treaty, turn it into a stirring anthem, with big production values, including Monique and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings, in a grand finale.

My only complaint with the album is the absence of Pete and Maura Kennedy, who met through Nanci’s Blue Moon Orchestra and stuck with her through her decline (even producing her last album, 2012’s Intersection, with their own gear at Nanci’s home). That omission aside, More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith is a beautifully curated, impeccably recorded homage to an artist who, as Mary Gauthier claims, “was every bit as good as her peers, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt.” Whenever they’re doing song circles in singer-songwriter heaven, they’ll have to save a place for her.