Rich pleasure

Patty Griffin's haunting Living with Ghosts

by Chris Flisher

Given the apparent prerequisites for recognition in the world of American radio -- drums, catchy riffs, memorable refrains -- it seems completely out of synch that an unknown singer/songwriter with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a stark production could garner critical praise and chart action. Even the best established artists have tried this approach and failed.

Surely Bruce Springsteen rarely heard cuts from his acoustic outings, Nebraska or The Ghost of Tom Joad, on the radio. And Roseanne Cash hardly broke the airwaves with her country-flavored efforts. So how does a young upstart from Old Town, Maine break into the charts against all odds?

"It is very odd," admits singer/songwriter Patty Griffin. "You know 50 years ago no one would have even imagined that you'd need a drum kit, an electric bass, and guitar to make a record and get played on the radio. Back then people just got up and sang. So, in that respect, I am really breaking some norms here, but I have really been lucky because certain disc jockeys picked up on my record and played it to the chagrin of their program directors. That at least got me and the story rolling."

Once you're rolling, momentum usually takes care of the rest. As a result, Griffin is getting airplay and succeeding where others, of much more visible stature, have failed. Even odder is the fact that Griffin's songs are largely angst-ridden confessionals that relate to her past. No bright-eyed ditties here. Her powerful delivery and personal revelations further augment her ground-breaking phenomenon.

"I think people recognize honesty and truth in an artist," she says. "And in that sense these songs bring them to a similar place where they become more honest and truthful, and that's a lot of the appeal. Although, I have to admit, there have been times when I've tried to listen to my record and wonder why people want to hear it."

That's not hard to understand. The songs are personal reflections of events or times that were anything but cheery, and to that extent they cut too close to the bone for Griffin. "It's kind of like therapy to have to do this. It is a form of a healing process. But I also know that I love it, and I know that people want to hear it because it frees them up as well."

Griffin's songs are filled with personal heart-wrenching vignettes. And whether they are completely personal or simply the witnessed events of friends or acquaintances, it is the underlying sense of honesty that runs through them that prevails. It's almost primal. "I started doing this to express myself," she admits. "So I work hard everyday at trying to do that. There are lots of times when it doesn't happen, but it is the process that is most important; to just get it down and be as honest and truthful as you can be. A lot of it depends on how constructive you can be with what you're saying and how you're saying it."

Living with Ghosts, Griffin's major-label and trend-breaking debut with A&M Records, reeks with honesty at every turn. "Sweet Lorraine" bears witness to the abusive railings of a father and his strong-willed daughter, while "Poor Man's House" tackles growing up in abject poverty, and "Every Little Bit," the radio "hit," offers a venomous attack of unrequited love. "Friends have told me that they thought I was too angry sometimes; that I scared them because of it, but I'm not trying to sound angry, it's simply how I do what I do."

What she does is fairly clear. The president of A&M Records was so impressed with her rough demo that he issued the order to release it as is. "When I first signed to A&M, they hooked me up with a producer who tried all kinds of things with my songs," she remembers. "But nothing worked, at least nothing that I felt right about. I thought I wanted a rock-and-roll sound because that's what I always thought of myself as and because that's what I listened to. But I never had experience at it so it didn't work."

Griffin paid her dues working the coffeehouses of Boston, offering her songs in sparse, acoustic settings. That was what she did best. It's how she learned and in the end it's what won her the attention, the recording contract, and the airplay. As a result, trying to fit into a slick production mold, was a wasted effort. The raw emotion was gone, the veneer too smooth. "I can remember sitting on the edge of bathtub in Jamaica Plain, writing these songs alone. And then the next day going to the studio to record them. And now here they are on the radio in the exact same form. So the experience has been pretty rich, but it also presents a whole new set of challenges, but that's kind of true of everyone's life, or why bother."

Patty Griffin performs at the Bull Run Concert Series, in Shirley, on May 9. Call 425-4311 for information and reservations. She also performs at the Iron Horse, in Northampton, on May 15. Call (413) 584-0610 for more information.