Patty Griffin

Patty Griffin comes to us with nothing but her heart, her songs, her voice, and her guitar. How she got through the door intact, well that's a mystery. Big record companies always think they know best taking and shaping an artist, breaking them down to make the marketing just a little bit smoother because, after all, they've got to try to at least break even on the deal.

But here's this woman from Old Town, Maine, and her heart, her songs, etc., making the kind of record only Bob Dylan gets to make anymore. Griffin isn't a waif or a wisp with a gentle hippie song. Count Patty Griffin among the loud and pissed-off, scratching at her acoustic guitar as if it were the guy in the songs, she's a one-woman acoustic-rock juggernaut, her strings and her heart breaking with about the same frequency. Griffin's voice flies clear and hard from some fiery pit inside of her, and she wrapped it with mesmerizing grace around the tortured grunge of "Every Little Bit" and a throw-in-the towel blues "Let Him Fly." Both songs are from her debut CD, LIVING WIH GHOSTS (1996, A&M), which she recorded in a rented room in South Boston and a kitchen in Nashville.

Unlike LIVING WITH GHOSTS -- which was actually a collection Griffin's song demos which featured her accompanied only by her acoustic guitar--FLAMING RED is an album chock full of big guitars, drums, keyboards, percussion, and her stunning, evocative voice. On FLAMING RED, Griffin indulges the restless whimsy and fantasy of her wildly divergent tastes in music, showcasing 13 new songs in as many settings. There are some ballads ("Goodbye" and "Big Daddy"), but there are plenty of rock and roll tunes ("Change,""Wiggley Fingers") and pop tomes ("Blue Sky" and the first single "One Big Love") that extend her aesthetic reach and prove that, as an artist, she can accomplish virtually anything she sets out to.

"I just tried to give myself permission to do things I love to do. I am trying to be myself here and that happens to be a lot of different things. I don't want to be led around by classifications as to what I can and can't do. I'm not a kid and I want to indulge everything, even confusion."

The songs on FLAMING RED range from raw, primal rockers like the tittle track, a song about the famed fairy tale of the Red Shoes, to shimmering pop songs such as "Christina" based on the troubled life of Christina Onasis. The pieces are all of a whole and move in directions to give the album a distinct sound, that, as wildly divergent as it is from Griffin's debut outing, is the first real taste listeners will get of her expansive and passionate musical vision and of her singular interpretive abilities as a singer. Whether Griffin is rocking out while revealing the ironies of desire as she does on "Wiggley Fingers," or exploding spiritual myths as she does on the atmospheric, dreamily-textured "Mary," she successfully evades all attempts at being pigeonholed. Griffin has a busy summer planned, touring with a full band instead of just her CFox guitar. With the release of FLAMING RED likely pushing her into the limelight, the next year will find her headlining her own dates as well as being featured on this summer's Lillith Fair, where she'll be reaching an ever-widening audience while surprising and delighting existing fans. FLAMING RED is a not only a record that challenges and amazes as a singular work, but one that makes LIVING WITH GHOSTS even more fascinating than the first time. It provides the rare chance to glimpse back at an artist's rawest, single-take demo beginnings -- the pure songwriting essence that has metamorphosed into the broader vision she delivers on her first real studio outing, FLAMING RED.

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