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When Nanci asked me in January of this year if I would like to help her make a new album, I immediately said, “YES”, but I must admit that I was apprehensive.
In 1984 and 1985 we produced two wonderful albums together which were blessed with more than their share of magic.
I knew that we couldn’t go back and recapture that magic, so what would we be doing?
Nanci conquered my fears with her clear vision.
She had in mind to bring together in an album many of the voices, words, and melodies which had entered her soul starting as a young girl growing up in Texas and continuing this day.
My own soul had made a similar musical journey starting in Boston and Cambridge in the ‘50s and ‘60s up until the present.
This album is full of the musical voices of friends old and new.
It is a true collection of the “folk” spirit which speaks to us constantly in a voice that is personal and compelling.
It has been my privilege to share in the fulfillment of Nanci’s vision and my pleasure to listen to all of the voices gathered here together.
JIM ROONEY
Nashville, 1992
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Other Voices, Other Rooms is the title of Truman Capote’s first novel published in 1948.
It marked a time of new voices in literature and coincided with a rebirth of interest in folk music with the added twist of focus on the singer/songwriter.
Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, The Almanac Singer, Alan Lomax, The Weavers, The Carter Family and Odetta among others were true pioneers in passing on the passion of the singer/songwriter to the next generation.
Folk Music has had a couple of revivals since that first wave they generated and the spotlight has remained on the brilliance of the voice of the songwriter who captures lyrically and musically a panoramic view of the social climate and the writer’s sense of place for the next of us to hear and sing in the voice of our own time.
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While completing work on my last record, Late Night Grande Hotel, my producer of the project, Rod Argent, commented that it was such an honor to have Phil Everly sing harmony on that album as The Everly Brothers were not just a musical duo to him but a time in his life.
He said their music was the reason he became a songwriter and formed the band, The Zombies, and without the Everlys his youth would not have had a musical score...Time of the Season would never had been written and he wouldn’t have a clue as to the true definition of vocal harmony.
His Comment reminded me of the importance in influence other songwriters have made in both inspiring and shaping me into the songwriter I have become.
Rod planted the seed of an idea in my mind for this project which has become a full grown family tree of the songs, voices and writers whose music so firmly gave me roots and strength to branch out in my own as writer.
On New Year’s evening of 1992, Emmylou Harris and I spoke of the beauty of the late Kate Wolf’s music.
We spoke of both the sadness in her passing and the lack of new voices singing Kate’s songs.
Emmy said songs need new voices to sing them in places they’ve never been sung in order to stay alive.
So it was with Emmy’s words of wisdom and her encouragement that the seed Rod Agent planted was nourished and grew into this project.
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As a young child in Austin, Texas in the early 1960s, folk music became my first love.
Carolyn Hester’s voice through my transistor radio gave me wings to fly and a place be and while radio was then dominated by Rock and Roll, it still had an innocence then which allowed for a child in Austin, Texas, to hear Carolyn Hester back to back with the Everly Brothers and Nat King Cole followed by a Weavers song.
Music didn’t need a neat category to fit into them in order to be heard.
Without that open ear of us individuality of all the songwriters in this collection.
I harbor great hopes that those who hear these songs for the first time, and discover a genre of music they’d like to hear more of, will go out to the record store and search through the bins to find the original works of these writers and artists.
There are so many writers whose songs I wanted to record for this album that I am at loss as to how I can express my gratitude for their work.
My producer, Jim Rooney, was most patient with me and instrumental in helping me choose the songs I could interpret best from my incredibly long list.
Missing are songs by John Stewart, Loretta Lynn, Don Everly, Phil Everly, Paul Seibel, Mary McCaslin, Joni Michell, Ian Tyson, Phil Ochs, Harlan Howard, Rosalie Sorrels, Michael Murphy, Bill Staines, Paul Kennerly, Leonard Cohen, Dan Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Richard Leigh, Butch Hancock, Robert Earl Keen, Jr., Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Paul Simons, Jackson Browne, Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, Bob McDill, Richard Dobson, Pete Seeger, Richard Fariņa, Joe Ely, Emmylou Harris, John Gorka, Greg Brown, Mike Scott, Lucinda Williams, Tracy Chapman and so many more... perhaps someday...
Kind thanks to all these generations of singers, players, and songwriters who made space in their busy schedule to gather together for this project and lend their voices to these songs.
Carolyn Hester said it best in that she felt she’d arrived with Arlo Guthrie into a very special private folk festival.
It was an incredible honor to be in the company of my heroes of such enormous talent whose mutual love of this music gave this project heart and wings to fly.
And to all the artists Jim Rooney and I felt belonged on this project and who tried their best to get here but whose schedules simply would not permit, Billy Bragg, Norman and Nancy Blake, Patty Larkin, Christine Lavin, Julie Gold, The Chieftains and Dolores Keane to name a few... thanks for trying, we missed you and thought of your voices and perhaps someday...
Last but not least, to Iris DeMent and Lee Satterfield who so remind me of my own self as a young woman songwriter out driving myself around America to play music.
This album is for my sister, Marlene... through the wall between our bedrooms and our ages came the voice of Bob Dylan in 1963.
And to my godchildren, Aaron Heffernan and Julia Carlson so that they might get to hear some folk music... and Bill and Bonie Hearne who play the best darn folk music I ever heard.
This recording project has been the dream of a lifetime come true for me as both an artist and a songwriter.
No other Producer could have lent the knowledge and the compassion to this music with the patience and dedication Jim Rooney has put into this body of work.
Nor do I feel we could’ve found two engineers, Mark Miller in Nashville and Brian Masterson in Dublin, who had better ears for acoustic instruments and instinctively knew that the secret to capturing Folk Music, if indeed it can be captured, is to let it roll and keep your hands off the wheel.
NANCI GRIFFITH
Nashville, 1992
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