From: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org (mad-mission-digest) To: mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Subject: mad-mission-digest V8 #113 Reply-To: mad-mission@smoe.org Sender: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * mad-mission-digest-request@smoe.org * with ONLY the word unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Patty's tour dates, go to: * http://www.pattygriffin.net/PattyInConcertDB.php * OR * go to http://www.atorecords.com * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: mad-mission-digest V8 #___ gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. * Also, PLEASE do not quote an entire digest when you reply to the * list. Edit out anything you are not referring to. mad-mission-digest Friday, May 7 2004 Volume 08 : Number 113 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MM: BOSTON GLOBE: "The prime of Patty Griffin" [PinkChanel@aol.com] MM: OT beth hart ["Paul Mepschen" ] MM: Patty at Oregon Zoo [Steve Berry ] MM: BOSTON GLOBE: "The prime of Patty Griffin" [TimSharp63@aol.com] MM: OT beth hart [TimSharp63@aol.com] MM: Patty Poster from Ryman Show ["Misty B. Cochran" ] Re: MM: OT beth hart [Mike Connell ] MM: OT Beth Hart [JLHARTMAIL@aol.com] Re: MM: Today's Boston Globe---Patty!!! [sarah martin Subject: MM: OT beth hart I saw an artist called Beth Hart on tv just now -- what do people here think of her?? I quite liked the song, but I'm not sure if I will like her in general. paul ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 15:02:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Berry Subject: MM: Patty at Oregon Zoo Well, I purchased my tickets for the Emmylou Harris/Patty Griffin/Buddy Miller show at the Oregon Zoo in late August! I'm so excited! When tickets go on sale for the Woodland Park Zoo show in Seattle, I'll be getting those too. - -- SteveB Steve Berry scberry@yahoo.com http://www.stevencberry.com http://www.bainbridgehouse.com "Life is short, but wide." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 18:02:59 EDT From: TimSharp63@aol.com Subject: MM: BOSTON GLOBE: "The prime of Patty Griffin" Man oh man!!!! I can't remember the last time I heard a review that was more dead on. AWESOME and thanks for sharing it. The last time was probably 1975 when Bruce was on the cover on Time and Newsweek the same week (the 1st person ever to do that) and there was a quote that said "I have seen the future of rock & roll and it's name is Bruce Springsteen" I was 11 and already had 3 Bruce LP's now I am 40 just like you know who...... Tim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 18:04:07 EDT From: TimSharp63@aol.com Subject: MM: OT beth hart Beth rocks........ Tim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 18:06:16 -0500 From: "Misty B. Cochran" Subject: MM: Patty Poster from Ryman Show Hey everyone. I think "When It Don't Come Easy" is my favorite song... possibly ever. Anyway. I was wondering if anyone had an extra copy of the poster that was sold at the Ryman show last year (in January)... The show that they ended up making "A Kiss in Time" from. I remember seeing the poster for sale at the show and I just didn't buy one, for whatever reason. It is made by Hatch Show Print, with the old school letter press type look. I am starting to collect these posters, and I NEED THE PATTY ONE!! Because I think it was the best concert I have ever attended. Not just best Patty show (and I have seen maybe 10 or so)... BUT BEST EVER!! And so I need the poster to remember it. I will pay you what you paid or even more. I just need the poster. Please contact me if you have one you could part with. - -Misty ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 19:33:05 EDT From: FlamingRed74@aol.com Subject: Re: MM: OT beth hart She's a great live performer. The latest CD is a lot less edgy than the previous 2. Not bad, but I much prefer the older stuff. If you ever get the chance to go see her live, she's great! Dave In a message dated 05/07/2004 6:02:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, pjh_mepschen@hotmail.com writes: I saw an artist called Beth Hart on tv just now -- what do people here think of her?? I quite liked the song, but I'm not sure if I will like her in general. paul ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 19:41:09 EDT From: FlamingRed74@aol.com Subject: Re: MM: BOSTON GLOBE: "The prime of Patty Griffin" It's funny that a horse did it before a person..LOL Secretariat was on the cover of both in 1973. .... just some useless info stored in my brain. :-) In a message dated 05/07/2004 6:03:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time, TimSharp63@aol.com writes: on the cover on Time and Newsweek the same week (the 1st person ever to do that) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 17:26:20 -0700 From: "Bob" Subject: MM: Re: OT beth hart Beth Hart is an amazing singer songwriter. Her new CD "Leave The Light On" is good but I would suggest starting with "Screaming for My Supper". The raw emotion of her songs are almost unbearable. The first time I saw her She opened with "Mama". When she finished the song people just stood there with their mouths open, unable to move. Her "LA Song" was popular a few years ago but the pressure and the drugs took its toll. I am happy to report that she is clean and sober and happily married now. I know that all of her fans have been waiting for her return. Bob ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 20:41:21 -0400 From: Mike Connell Subject: Re: MM: OT beth hart At 06:01 PM 5/7/2004, Paul Mepschen wrote: >I saw an artist called Beth Hart on tv just now -- what do people here think >of her?? I quite liked the song, but I'm not sure if I will like her in >general. Two or three years ago she had a mild hit called "L.A. Song" that I was totally obsessed with for about 6 weeks. I mean obsessed too. In general though, her stuff didn't do much for me (neither did her LARGE dragon-fly tatoo stretching from her (most likely) buns to the mid-back) Mike Mike ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 21:31:59 EDT From: JLHARTMAIL@aol.com Subject: MM: OT Beth Hart I saw her early March, she opened for Michael Frante and Ziggy Marley at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville. Good guitar player, great singer, kind of Janis Joplinesque..........John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 18:36:49 -0700 (PDT) From: sarah martin Subject: Re: MM: Today's Boston Globe---Patty!!! oh gosh, just picked up the paper and there I am in the crowd....well about half of me because I'm right behind a speaker - and my mother behind me. Funny. I think I'll include this picture in her mothers day gift, she'll get a kick out of that. :) If you were in the front, you're in the picture! Pick one up before they're off the shelves. Sarah "Luca, Joseph" wrote: Howdy--- Forgive me if this has already been posted... Today's Globe has a big feature article on Patty on the front page of the Living/Arts section, including a big color photo. Inside, there's another photo of Patty playing at Tower; many fans (and MMers?) are clearly visible. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner. Here's the link, good through tomorrow night. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/05/07/the_prime_of_pat ty_griffin/ I'll also attach the text below. Enjoy! Ciao, Joe P.S. Jen, did you ever get that photo I emailed you? The prime of Patty Griffin Now 40, the singer-songwriter exhibits a far more searching sound on her new CD By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | May 7, 2004 Patty Griffin turned 40 last month. This is not the sort of information most women in the entertainment world offer unsolicited. But Griffin is not most women. While others tend their waistlines or mutual funds or children, she extracts slices of her heart and turns them in her hand to catch the light. When she finds the right angle, the little slivers begin to glow and Griffin calls them songs. A woman who can do this has no trouble naming her age. Griffin has just released her fourth studio album, called "Impossible Dream." It wouldn't be wrong to say that this collection is mired in them -- an old man who longs to change the past, the lover who can't let go of what's already lost, "Useless Desires," to quote one song. But there's a rough, homemade snippet of an old Broadway tune that arrives unannounced in the dead center of the album. It's Griffin's mother and father crooning a soft, haphazard duet: "To dream the impossible dream/To right the unrightable wrong/To bear the unbearable sorrow/To run where the brave dare not go. . ." Suddenly the album's title, and trajectory, takes on a whole new meaning. "That song speaks courage," Griffin says. "Even if you set aside the lyrics, you still have this melody where the heart's trying to push itself into another place. I've already done some digging. But you get this now-or-never kind of feeling around the middle of your life. You have to stand and face yourself." Griffin, who performs at the sold-out Berklee Performance Center on Sunday, has never been a lighthearted tunesmith. She's pretty much always on the outside looking in, except when she's on the inside dying to get out. A deep loneliness infuses her songs, which slip elegantly between the cracks of folk, pop, country, and now gospel. Griffin's 1996 debut, "Living With Ghosts," was a raw acoustic wonder. The next year she released a rock album, "Flaming Red," followed by 2002's Grammy-nominated "1000 Kisses," an eclectic mash of stripped-down gems. The music is invariably gorgeous, the words unflinchingly honest. "Impossible Dream" is her most desolate and wistful yet. There is, Griffin notes, no ear candy. "I was always drawn to the last sad song they tucked on the end of the album," she says on the phone from Austin, Texas, her home of five years. "I guess that's my preferred way of expressing myself. And when people are going through more tumultuous times, then your work's going to reflect that. It's the world. And my age. I'm not a kid anymore. There are some things I need to pay attention to." Indeed, there's an exquisitely measured and purposeful feel to the album. Griffin's voice -- the sort of intense, nimble instrument that's capable of scaling massive emotions in a single bound -- is lovely and weary here. It's as if she's traded youthful aggression for a less dynamic, but far more searching, sound -- one that suits the time of life and tenor of her art. "I think when you're talking about real songwriting, most of us have to do it for a long while to get that good," says Steve Earle, who's taken Griffin out on several of his tours. "It takes having written a lot of songs -- and having something to write about -- to do it at a world-class level. I've had about three midlife crises in my life, and I can tell you there's some fear attached to it. Real writers write about what's going on around, and Patty's the real deal." Griffin is one of those rare souls who finds her conviction not in resolution but in bravely embracing its absence, taking solace in a twisted path if only because it's a shared one. In her hands the line between the personal and the universal vanishes. Two songs on the album, "Florida" and "Mother of God," form a double meditation on a theme of dashed hopes, in which a hopeful young girl segues into a bitter inhabitant of middle age. Neither gets what she expected of life. Griffin leaves their futures uncertain because, she says, that's the truth. She grows pointed, however, when her attention turns to a more pressing need for human connection. "Love Throw a Line," an organic soul tune, chronicles "a war and a plague, smoke and disaster/Lions in the coliseum, screams of laughter/Motherless children, a witness and bible/ Nothing but rain ahead, no chance for our survival . . . Love you better pick up your pace if we're going to win this race." The song was inspired by the Staple Singers, whom Griffin discovered a couple of years ago. No matter how out of sorts she was, Griffin says, their music made her feel happy. "It deals with the darkest of the dark, but at the same time it's got a great groove and lifts you up. I'm wary of the word `politics.' I'm trying to get to the human side of this, to get the guts out if it." Griffin is uniquely suited to the task: a humble woman with an outrageous natural gift. She grew up in a large family in Maine. Her early music education began with AM radio (as proof, Griffin launches into a few spontaneous bars of "Rock the Boat" by the Hues Corporation) and was further schooled by her brothers and sisters, who brought home albums by Bad Company, the Bee Gees, and Bruce Springsteen. She wanted to play saxophone, but the school band didn't have one, so she took up the flute for a few years. When Griffin was 16, she bought a guitar, "one of those guitars where the strings are about two inches off the neck. It took real courage, cause those strings hurt like hell." In 1985 Griffin moved to Boston, where she spent 10 quiet, diligent years becoming a singer-songwriter. "I was teaching at Cambridge Music in Porter Square, and she came in for guitar lessons," says John Curtis, a teacher and studio musician whom Griffin thanks affectionately on each of her albums. "I said, `What do you know?' She was shy as can be, a total wallflower. But she sang a little song, in this 8-by-8 room, and I had to peel myself off the wall. When she sang, there was no doubt. No doubt at all." Griffin says she didn't feel connected to the local music scene in Boston, preferring to spend her time taking lessons with Curtis, working odd jobs to pay for them, and writing songs. "It was a real inward-focused time for me," she says. Griffin's recording career, which began toward the end of her years in Boston, has been something of a roller coaster. Her Nile Rodgers-produced debut was shelved by the label, A&M. Griffin's next two albums, "Living With Ghosts" and "Flaming Red," were wonderful successes, earning her critical praise and a devoted following. The follow-up, "Silver Bell," was buried by Interscope, which had acquired Griffin's contract in a corporate reshuffle. Salvation came in the form of ATO, Dave Matthews's fledgling label, for which she recorded "1000 Kisses" and now "Impossible Dream," which includes several reworked tracks from "Silver Bell." "I can't think of a more beautiful singer and a better songwriter alive today," says Matthews. Granted, you wouldn't expect the label head to say otherwise, but there's a long list of artists who genuflect at Griffin's altar. Her songs have been covered in recent years by Emmylou Harris, the Dixie Chicks, Martina McBride, and Bette Midler. ATO has recently released a double-disc package of "Impossible Dream" and "Renderings," a collection of Griffin's songs performed by other artists. Earle says that the mere fact that Griffin is in a seemingly happy marriage with an artist-centric record label is cause for celebration. "It's been pretty frustrating for Patty. So I'm really happy that she made a record and then another record and that it's actually coming out," he says. "That will be huge for her, because it's like her life's not on hold." Griffin's life may not be on hold, but it seems clear that no amount of forward motion or hard-won wisdom will help her find her balance. It's more like figuring out how to stay standing even when the ground is trembling. "It's a little dance you do. You push your comfort level quite far in strange directions," she says, "But I'm also finding that the older I get, the more the chances I take pay off. When I listen to the voice in my head screaming `Do that!' it tends to be the better way to go." Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs ------------------------------ End of mad-mission-digest V8 #113 *********************************