Trollheart

It's fair to say that really, there are few albums that really changed my life. You may be the same. Some albums speak to me more than others, and some got me into a certain band I ended up loving, or a genre perhaps, but I can probably count the ones that I could say actually changed my life on one hand: Maiden's The number of the Beast, Floyd's The Wall, Jeff Wayne's Musical version of the War of the Worlds and of course Script for a jester's tear by Marillion. Most of these I have already reviewed, and there may occur to me at some point others that fall into this category that I have not yet expounded upon, and if so I'll write about them. But although this did not change my life, per se, I can say without any fear of contradiction that it definitely changed my mind about a certain genre, and so in one sense could be said to be one of the

Up until I heard this, I had generally dismissed pretty much all Country music as generic, laughable trash. Cowboys sung about lost loves and getting drunk, railroads and tractors were in a lot of the lyrics, and every single Country song had to have a steel guitar and a harmonica in it. So thought I, naively. Then, one night while doing my usual stint on the local radio back in the late eighties I was lefing through what was laughably called our record library when I came across this album.

Lone Star State of Mind --- Nanci Griffith --- 1987 (MCA)

Nothing attracted me to it: it's just that it was about the best out of a bunch of really bad local Irish artists, old fifties songs and some albums by bands I had never heard of, so in total boredom I decided to give a track a spin. I was rather surprised, to say the least, by how much I liked it and whether my two listeners thought the same or not, I was impressed and decided to borrow it so I could listen to it through at home. Having done so, I had to admit that it was time to re-evaluate my view of Country Music, and I began collecting the rest of her albums. Most were as good, some even better, the odd one didn't chime but I can't really say that I bought a Nanci Griffith album that I did not like, or regretted buying. When she came to town I made sure to buy a ticket and it was a great gig, even if the announcer did tell us at the intermission (yeah we had intermissions back them; it was an indoor concert, very swish) that we should move back to our seats as “Nanci Griffin” was about to return to the stage. It's a mispronounciation of her name I've seen extended over the years to “Nanci Griffiths” and even “Nanci Griffins”. But I'm sure she doesn't care.

This is her fifth album, but the one to break her commercially. Oddly enough, though it contains what would become her best-known and most-often-played song, it was not a hit for her as it was only released as a promotional single, and therefore did not qualify for chart placement. But more of that later. The album opens with the title track, a bouncy, Country rock number that concerns reflections on times gone and loves lost. There's some great banjo and fiddle that really helps the song trip along, even a nice short guitar solo. I love the double meaning in the title too, and Nanci's voice really sounds quite young, although she was thirty-four at the time (fun fact: she was born on the same day as me, ten years earlier); you really would think you were listening to a teenager. The youthful exuberance, the excitement, the starry-eyed optimism that shines through her music even if the lyrics are downbeat and even defeatist at times, all speak to a much younger soul in perhaps a slightly older body.

There's a sort of false ending before it kicks off on a really cool guitar-and-banjo finish with her crooning the last lines, then “Cold hearts/closed minds” is certainly morose, slowing everything down as she prepares to leave her lover, bringing in cello and viola, and yes, there's pedal steel, but you would expect that and it fits in really nicely. It's not to be fair my favourite on the album and something of a comedown after the title, but it's an example of how she can write bitter ballads with the best of them as she sings ”Came by here just to tell you goodbye/ But I can see it in your face/ You don't wanna know why.”

That song of which I spoke, which should have been a massive worldwide hit for her but never made it into the charts via a technicality is the gorgeous “From a distance”. Written by Julie Gold, it's been covered plenty of times, and no wonder. Driven mostly on piano with cello accompaniment it's a superb little prayer to peace as she sings "From a distance you look like my friend/ Even though we are at war/ From a distance I can't comprehend/ What all this war is for.” Not an original sentiment, certainly, but a valid one, and the idea of everything looking different “from a distance” is telling. A beautiful piano solo, understated but firm, just makes this song better somehow. It's a mid-paced acoustic then for “Beacon Street”, with a sort of handclap beat driving the percussion, orchestral accompaniment provided by cello, violin and viola. It's a nice song but a little light, then “Nickel dreams” is a real standout with its Country waltz, swaying along with a lovely dreamy feel, some sweet pedal steel and violin, with a sad, bitter idea in the lyric: ”It's a dollar a wrinkle/ And less than a nickel a dream.”

The album is full of reflections on a life, real or imagined, semiautobiographical or not, and it is crammed with regrets of chances not taken, lives not lived, bridges not crossed. There is also time however for a good old-fashioned hoe-down, like when she tackles Robert Earl Keen Jr's “Sing one for sister”. It's a pretty much shit-on-your-boots Country song and a real generic one I guess but it's okay. Again, not my favourite. But then we hit a real rich vein of form, in fact paydirt as the rest of the album absolutely blows it out of the water. Kicking off on “Ford Econoline”, a fast-paced song of freedom and escape, driven on a pounding guitar rhythm, a life-affirming, female-empowering ode to the open road as Nanci sings ”She's salt of the earth/ Straight from the bosom of the Mormon churches/ A voice like wine” and archly observes of the woman's drinkin' gamblin' husband that ”His big mistake was in buyin' her/ That Ford Econline!” A great song that just gets your heart pumping, and cheering on the escaping wife, until we slow right down with one of her Dust Bowl tales, telling the story of the famine in midwestern America in the '30s in “Trouble in the fields”. With a slow violin and guitar line, it's a song of despair but also hope as she declares ”If we sell that new John Deere/ And we work these crops with sweat and tears/ You'll be the mule/ I'll be the plough/ Come harvest time we'll work it out.” Very moving, and a great steel guitar solo too.

The mood stays slow and bleak for “Love in a memory”, with one of my favourite instruments driving the song, a gorgeous turn on the mandolin from Mark O'Connor in a song that speaks of more cheating men as she sings ”The ring on his finger/ Grows cold to the bone/ His sons are young dreamers/ Who cheat on their own wives/ He still dreams of St. Paul/ When he's cheatin' alone.” Great piano line too, superb song. Another standout. And a fiddle solo to die for, taking us into a faster “Let it shine on me”, driving along at a fine lick. Sort of starts off a little like “Lone Star State of mind”, but it's slightly slower and then develops its own identity on the back of pedal steel and electric guitar. There's a suggestion of gospel in the lyric and the melody, and we end on the reflective “There's a light beyond these woods, Mary Margaret”, which I have to admit would not have been my choice for a closer, but it's a decent enough song and holds its end up enough not to ruin this good feeling I've been getting from the last few tracks. I guess in some ways it bookends the album by starting with a fast track and ending with a slow one, both featuring memories and a sense of innocence lost, this one actually encapsulating an entire life from childhood to full grown and older woman.

TRACKLISTING

1. Lone star state of mind
2. Cold hearts/closed minds
3. From a distance
4. Beacon Street
5. Nickel dreams
6. Sing one for sister
7. Ford Econoline
8. Trouble in the fields
9. Love in a memory
10. Let it shine on me
11. There's a light beyond these woods (Mary Margaret)

Sure, it's not an album that is going to shatter anyone's worldview or make them suddenly become a fan of Country music, and it has its flaws, but for me it was quite a revelation, and as I said I made a point of collecting all the albums of an artiste I had never to that point even heard of, much less dreamed of becoming a fan of. In recent times, Griffith's output stalled a little for me, and her last three albums did not impress me the way those she put out in the eighties and nineties did. But I still remain a fan, and it's all thanks to that one night when I had nothing to play on my radio show, took a chance and thought “what the hell”?

What, indeed?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018