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Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back To Bountiful) is my fifteenth album,"
writes Nanci Griffith in the liner notes to her new album. "I borrowed
the latter part of the title from Horton Foote's Academy Award-winning
film, A Trip To Bountiful. It is the story of an elderly woman's
journey alone through Texas to return to her hometown of Bountiful.
She believes her birthplace to be the place that will bring her life a
joyous return to times of happiness with the fondness of her memories.
Her belief in the beauty of the soul of her home is passed on to the
strangers she encounters along the journey. She changes those strangers'
lives just with her passion for a time and a place and her propinquity
for the destinies of her loved ones created there.
"Recording these Other Voices projects truly has been a trip to Bountiful for me as an artist." In 1993, Nanci Griffith released Other Voices, Other Rooms, a landmark achievement that featured Nanci with many of her musical heroes in a celebration of the timeless songs and songwriters that shaped her musical imagination and forged the modern folk tradition. The album was an instant classic and became one of the year's most acclaimed releases, winning Nanci her first Grammy and remaining a strong seller five years on. Nanci makes another personal journey through folk music's rich heritage with Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back To Bountiful), her new album and the sequel to Other Voices, Other Rooms. Other Voices, Too features Nanci's interpretations of classic songs by many of folk and folk/pop's best-loved writers, and includes appearances by 67 guests of all generations and genres -- an all-star cast of folk, country and pop collaborators including Emmylou Harris, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Richard Thompson, John Prine, Lucinda Williams, Rodney Crowell, Bela Fleck, Iain Matthews, The Crickets and her longtime band the Blue Moon Orchestra. Like the film whose title Nanci borrowed, Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back To Bountiful) is a pilgrimage in its own right, nineteen stories about life's many passages -- from one instant to the next, from one town to another, from love to loneliness and back again, from this life into the hereafter -- with the joys, sorrows and bittersweet moments so eloquently captured by the songwriters brought together here. "This is very much a second volume of Other Voices, Other Rooms," Nanci begins. "There were so many wonderful songs that we couldn't fit onto that album, songs I've wanted to sing for many years, songs that are too often overlooked. And for this album, we also were interested in bringing it up to modern times, covering the area where folk and rock merge, without having to worry about the labels." Long a fan of great songwriting, Nanci's song choices are always interesting, but never more than on Other Voices, Too, where her focus on songwriters is so much a part of the album's spirit. The writers whose songs Nanci has selected range from the well-known, like British folk-pop artists Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny, early American rocker Sonny Curtis, American folksingers Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and country legend Johnny Cash, to lesser known writers like John Grimaudo, Saylor White, Ian Tyson and Texas songwriter Mickie Merkens, to Stephen Foster, perhaps the greatest American songwriter of the 19th century. "We started with several songs that spilled over from the last album, like Richard Thompson's 'Wall Of Death' and Stephen Foster's 'Hard Times Come Again No More,' then we went back to the list of songs I felt weren't sung enough," Griffith explains. "Like 'If I Had A Hammer' -- that can never be sung enough! And one of the nice things about these records has been that, along with all of this traditional folk, I've been able to slip in modern songs that might otherwise be heard only rarely, like Mickie Merkens' 'Yarrington Town,' which is such a special song." The highlights are many, and the many guest appearances fill the album with warmth and sparkling energy. The album opener and first single, "Wall Of Death," is one of Richard Thompson's best -- an extended amusement-park-ride-as-life metaphor. Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" is a melancholy ballad featuring Dolores Keane. "You Were On My Mind" (with Richard Thompson on guitar) and "Walk Right Back" (featuring the Crickets) are deceptively jaunty pop-rockers by Sylvia Fricker and Sonny Curtis, respectively. Guy Clark's "Desperadoes Waiting For A Train," featuring Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Eric Taylor and Jerry Jeff Walker, is one of the great epics of Texas storytelling. The joyous, gospel-tinged "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" and the never-sung-enough "If I Had A Hammer" are exhilarating, optimistic shouters. And Nanci duets with Ian Tyson on Tom Russell's "Canadian Whiskey," with Lucinda Williams on Bob Ferguson's "Wings Of A Dove," with Rodney Crowell on Johnny Cash and Roy Cash, Jr.'s "I Still Miss Someone," and with John Prine on Harlan Howard and Tompall Glaser's "The Streets Of Baltimore." Taken together, the songs Nanci has chosen for Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back To Bountiful) demonstrate profoundly how the best songwriting simply tells truths familiar to all of us. "Folk is about storytelling," Nanci relates. "I'm after great stories." As she recounts the experience of making the album and working with so many friends, Nanci's enthusiasm is obvious and infectious. "It was amazing. We had a great time in the studio," she declares. "Other Voices, Other Rooms took about two years to do -- no one had done anything like it, and people didn't quite get it. But by the time we were almost finished, people had started calling us. So on this one, people just came together. At times, we had so many people in the studio -- like when we had 37 for "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" -- and they wouldn't leave! The beer was free, the food was good, everyone got to meet their heroes. It was just so exciting to bring people together. "Having Richard Thompson play was perfect," she continues. "Dolores Keane, the queen of the soul of Ireland, has a sacred voice. Having her sing on 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' was like having the spirit of Sandy Denny in the studio with us. When we did 'Wasn't That A Mighty Storm,' my dad got to meet Odetta, one of his idols. Emmylou Harris and Carolyn Hester brought their beautiful, sweet daughters to the studio for 'Yarrington Town.' "On 'Desperadoes Waiting For A Train,' we had the whole Texas brat pack -- Guy Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Jerry Jeff Walker, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle and Eric Taylor. They actually got into a half-kidding argument about who would sing the line about being called sidekick," Nanci laughs. "These big tough guys argued until Guy finally just assigned everybody a line! Jerry Jeff won, by the way." Although Nanci's acclaimed 1997 album Blue Roses From The Moons was intended to be both a celebration of ten years with the Blue Moon Orchestra and a closing of that chapter in her career, the Orchestra appears whole or in parts on every track of the new album. "Blue Roses From The Moons was special because we were celebrating the end of a great run, and we're good friends," she says. "But they turned out to be a major part of this project, too. On this album, they're the bed on which we all sleep. And they're also coming on the Newport folk festival, which I'm doing this summer. I don't think we'll do any more world tours, but as long as we want to play together, we will. It's just so comfortable." Nanci and her friend and co-producer Jim Rooney have captured these songs with passion and vitality in studios in Nashville, Dublin and New York. Nanci happily points out that "the songs recorded in Nashville sound like Nashville, the songs we did in Dublin sound like Dublin and the ones in New York sound like New York." Originally from Austin, Nanci began her career at age 14, when her "West Texas liberal" parents chaperoned her on the Austin club circuit. In the late '70s and early '80s Nanci brought her self-described "folkabilly" music to Nashville as one of the new generation of folk/country/pop artists which also included Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, and Steve Earle. During nearly twenty years of writing and performing, Griffith has gathered fervent admirers among legendary artists (Bob Dylan specifically requested Griffith perform at his anniversary concert) as well as the millions of fans she"s reached through relentless touring, playing everywhere from Texas honky-tonks to Carnegie Hall. Rolling Stone dubbed Nanci "the Queen of Folkabilly," while Telegraph Magazine called her "the torch-bearer of American folk music." Griffith"s body of work includes some of country music"s most enduring hits, including Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris" version of "Gulf Coast Highway," Kathy Mattea"s "Love At The Five And Dime" and Suzy Bogguss" "Outbound Plane," as well as over a dozen wonderfully inventive, literate and acclaimed solo albums. Career highlights include five Grammy nominations, her first nomination coming for The Last Of The True Believers in 1986 and her first win (for Best Contemporary Folk Performance) coming in 1993 for Other Voices, Other Rooms. She also has received two Grammys for her performances on albums by Irish artists the Chieftains. Nanci has enjoyed superstar status in the UK and Ireland since her take on Julie Gold's "From A Distance" became a #1 hit there, five years before Bette Midler's version. In September, Nanci will publish her first book, entitled Nanci Griffith's Other Voices -- A Personal History of Folk Music. "I just finished it recently," she says. "It's fun, full of interviews and photos. It's about how I found folk music, centered around this album project. It's really the companion book to the Other Voices albums." Nanci may not tour the world anytime soon, but she certainly doesn't plan on taking a break. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nanci's 1998 tour schedule includes this summer's Newport Folk Festival, scheduled to begin July 30 in Atlanta and running through September 20 in Los Angeles. She's also putting together a special performance in London, as part of a program called The Making Of America. "It's a show with gospel, soul and hillbilly music, and featuring many of the performers from the record," she says. And she recently worked with the Nashville Ballet and the Nashville Symphony on a modern ballet featuring Nanci's music, entitled This Heart, due to premiere in 1999. Since seemingly countless songs would be worthy of appearing on an Other Voices album, it's natural to wonder whether we might expect a third volume somewhere down the road. Alas, Nanci informs us it's not to be. "I've loved doing these albums. They've been great fun, and it's some of my favorite work. But I think two is enough. I'd like to appreciate them and have them be appreciated as the special moments they are, and not spoil it by turning it into something regular." Which is fine, of course -- we'll always be able to find Bountifuls in Nanci's own unique voice.
The Songwriters:
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