“I started off by playing flute in the elementary school band,” remembered Patty Griffin with a little laugh during a telephone interview on Tuesday. “But it didn’t have a big enough voice for me. I wanted to change over to saxophone, but there weren’t any more available. So I eventually switched to singing because I needed a bigger, louder voice.” Griffin seems to have found that voice on her debut disc, “Living With Ghosts” (A&M), a voice compelling enough to stand alone without any more accompaniment than an acoustic guitar. The Bostonian-by-way-of-Maine will take her truly “solo” act to Lafayette College’s Kirby Field House tomorrow night when she opens for Central Pennsylvania’s Badlees (whose “River Songs” disc also on A&M).
“I’ve always done solo stuff, more often than not,” Griffin explained. But the stripped-down approach was not her first choice for the recording. “When I got the deal with A&M, I did a recording with a producer and a band, and the label didn’t like it very much. I think it had to do with my having trouble being comfortable with a band. I’m probably a better, or more relaxed, performer solo,” she said. “I lost some of the subtlety of the songs doing that band recording, so we asked if the label would release it this way, and they said, ‘OK.’ We were sort of surprised.” Her proficiency at what is a basically solitary craft might be a bit surprising as well, considering Griffin’s background.
“I actually grew up in a very large family, and got married almost right after that, so I’ve been surrounded by a lot of people most of my life,” she said. “But there certainly has been a feeling of loneliness, too, that probably has to do with not being able to express a lot of things I needed to express.” Griffin would discover a means of doing that in singing, which she picked up from hearing her mother sing around the house. “I loved music and I thought there was a peace in it, and a lot of movement of emotions and feelings,” she said.
Emotion is at the heart of “Living With Ghosts,” most of the songs coming from the period after her 1992 divorce, an experience that also spurred her to quit a waitressing job in Boston and pursue singing/songwriting in earnest. “A lot of fear of doing things goes away when you hit bottom like that. And it also opens up a lot of doors creatively as well, places you wouldn’t have gone before,” Griffin explained. While the mood of “Living With Ghosts” is decidedly somber, Griffin contends that it’s not a one-way street. “I don’t think it’s a total downer. I think I slipped some hope and joy in there too. I’m trying to find a way of expressing more positive feelings, though, without it sounding, I don’t know, lame or something. It’s not easy.” From: https://www.mcall.com/1996/09/27/patty-griffins-solo-voice-comes-through-crystal-clear/
