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<< Grace Griffith
Grace Griffith
About Sands of Time
Singer Grace Griffith has won many hearts and minds, and significant critical praise, bringing her sublime voice to traditional Celtic and folk songs, melding the ageless beauty of these timeless melodies with a fresh passion for the messages in the music. For Grace, singing this music has always been her way to connect with an audience and share with them the warmth and affirmation inherent in these traditional songs.
But much has changed for Grace since her last record, and it’s given her a new perspective, not only in her music, but in her life as well.
“It has been brought clearly to my consciousness what really is important and what endures,” says Grace. “I’ve really come to the conclusion that the connection we have with other people is one of the most important things we need to learn about in life.”
As often happens in life, it’s the bitter that helps us appreciate the sweet. What has brought this new focus to Grace’s personal perspective has been a series of health problems, including a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Yet, despite the debilitating nature of the illness, it has helped Grace to more fully appreciate the good moments in life, and that’s the concept of SANDS OF TIME, her third solo album for Blix Street Records.
The collection is a sometimes melancholy, sometimes spirited, but ultimately uplifting thematic exploration of what’s essential to one’s life, a road of discovery that leads to a greater understanding of what happiness really means, even if it comes in the face of adversity.
It has also led her to break from her standard repertoire of mostly traditional songs to explore different avenues of music to convey the theme of the album.
“You’re never too old as long as you can still see something new when you go out for a walk,” Grace comments. “I felt very much like I was out on a new frontier for myself, but that’s a nice feeling because you need to try new frontiers or you can get kind of numb.”
Grace reached further than usual in selecting songs that encapsulated the range of emotions she was going through, but that ultimately sent a powerfully positive message to the listener. “The core thing is that this music will make people feel more at peace and give them a sense of celebration and remaining young at heart,” she says.
Indeed, from beginning to end, the album is a bittersweet expression of the joys and inescapable sorrows of life.
“Carry You,” written by singer/songwriter Sam Phillips, wife of well-known producer T-Bone Burnett (Bob Dylan, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) honors the support system inherent in friendship, that shared burdens are lightened burdens, and that brotherhood can surmount obstacles.
Similarly, the Leonard Bernstein song “Make Our Garden Grow,” from the musical “Candide,” conveys the sentiment that community can tear down the walls that keep us from happiness.
In “Almost Like Being In Love,” the Lerner and Loewe classic from the musical “Brigadoon,” Grace takes a simple song of romantic love and infuses it with a love-of-life grandeur. “For me, it’s more a general love of being alive, like Snoopy when he gets his supper — he really celebrates,” Grace says humorously.
Other songs will strike the listener with the kind of overwhelming and heartwarming joy and appreciation that can simply bring tears to one’s eyes. With the Kris Kristofferson song “Moment of Forever,” Grace acknowledges it’s in the sadness life often brings that we can find the seed of joy. “You have to learn to let go of things — things change, we age, people die. It’s so important to be glad in the good moments that you have,” says Grace, who calls this song “achingly sweet.”
The album’s title track and cornerstone, “Sands Of Time,” is about reincarnation, but for Grace it represents an ageless connection that changes form, but remains throughout different seasons and different lifetimes. It’s a kind of simultaneously awing and comforting thought.
Other songs express the simple joys of living. The Italian song “Estatι” (pronounced ess-stah-tay) brings an almost samba-like lilt to music that expresses the poetry and sultry mood of a summer day (indeed, the title means “summer” in Italian). “Hold Me Forever” is a beautiful lullaby to love. “’Til They Discovered Music” was, as Grace says, “just for fun.” The playful music highlights the message that through wars, social injustice and personal problems, music can have a healing and uplifting impact on our lives.
Behind the scenes of these wide-ranging song selections was a new production team for Grace. Still with her, as she has been for some time, was Marcy Marxer—half of the Grammy®-nominated duo Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer—who has worked with Grace for as long as the two have been close friends, including on her two previous recordings, GRACE (1996) and MINSTEL SONG (2000). (Grace has also recorded two CDs as part of the Celtic music trio Connemara.)
Co-producing the record were Lenny Williams and Chris Biondo. Both of them were key creative talents behind the emergence of the late singer Eva Cassidy, who was brought to Blix Street’s attention by Grace. According to Grace, all three producers brought unique gifts to the project.
“Bill Straw (president of Blix Street Records) thought Lenny and I would be a good musical mix,” explains Grace, “and Chris was welcoming and encouraging from Day One, coaxing me to come into the studio as often as I could and really putting his soul into the work. I think they both felt gratitude toward me for helping Eva and missed the creative outlet they’d shared with her. I really love these guys.
“Lenny is an incredibly intuitive musician. He’s really got the chops, but he has an uncommon ability to play with sensitivity, from the heart.
“Chris is not only a great player, but he’s an engineering genius. He makes the technical stuff go so smoothly it’s amazing.
“Marcy is dear close friend. She’s a very busy performer on her own, so working on the music is a good excuse to have some time together. Marcy is just a real soul sister to me. She can play anything under the sun.”
A longtime respected physical therapist in the Washington D.C. area, Grace has always viewed her therapy work and singing as two parts of the whole of her life, with both elements allowing her to communicate with, help and, in different respects, heal people. Now, her therapy work has been curtailed by Parkinson’s to just an advisory role, and her own illness has wrought changes in her life that have uprooted her norm and strongly informed SANDS OF TIME.
“(My situation) is requiring a lot of change and has also changed my identity,” Grace comments. She says the song “Carry You” functions as a good example of how her life has been turned upside down in many ways. “I have many times been in the position to support someone who’s faltering and helped them regain the confidence to walk. So I’ve been able to be kind of a hero and helper, and now I have to find other ways to strengthen my people and also myself. I’ve often counseled people on how to accept help from others, and now I have to accept help myself. There are times at the end of the night when I’m really tired, and I can’t pack up my own gear. It’s hard to gracefully let people help, and now I have to practice what I preach.”
Thankfully, the disease has not yet affected her singing voice, which remains a supple and subtle instrument that creates its impact from nuance and heartfelt emotion.
And if there is in fact good to be taken from Grace’s recent bouts with adversity, it’s that it has made her more willing to stretch, to reach out further for the best in her, to seize the opportunities for musical exploration while she has the strength to pursue them. And though Grace insists that the traditional and Celtic music for which she has become much loved will always be an integral part of her life as a musician, SANDS OF TIME has turned out to be a very successful chance to spread her wings.
“Singing songs like these is a form of affirmation that really does help me,” she points out. “They’re not just melodies and words. Singing a song that has a message has always had a sense of fulfillment for me.”
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About Minstrel Song
Grace Griffith has long shown a knack for selecting the best in contemporary and traditional folk and Celtic music and a voice to bring out the subtly powerful emotions behind those songs. Her new MINSTREL SONG, from Los Angeles-based Blix Street Records, marries those two strengths in an ambitious song cycle that celebrates the enduring eloquence and energy of both the songs and the singers who, through the centuries, have revealed the passion, warmth and vitality of the music.
Taking its lead from the Graham Pratt tune "The Minstrel," the album - some four years in conception and completion - honors "the role that singers have played in society throughout time," according to Griffith. Whether it's soothing troubled souls, rousing political or social consciousness or simply providing entertainment, MINSTREL SONG acknowledges that music and its performers have always had a powerful impact on our lives. And the album does so with no small impact of its own. Griffith's pleasingly silky voice - drawing from inspirations like Judy Collins, Sandy Denny and the English vocalist Polly Bolton - glides over ten perfectly-chosen songs that capture her theme with their articulate imagery and hushed strength.
"Bound By The Beauty," written by Canadian singer/songwriter Jane Siberry, "is an ode to the enduring beauty of the earth, where usually we think of beauty as something very fleeting," says Griffith. "But the appreciation of beauty that's within us can be something that overcomes the uglier times." Griffith's spirited reading of the song seconds that thought.
Iris Dement's "My Life," a lovely piano and voice track highlighting Griffith's reflective vocals reminds us of our daily opportunity to add beauty to the lives of those closest to us: "I can give comfort to my friends/When they're hurting/I can make it seem better for awhile." The traditional Irish "Kind Friends and Companions" toasts the timeless quality of fellowship and acts of kindness, while John Martyn's song of conciliation, "May You Never," Bruce Cockburn's "Wondering Where The Lions Are" ("I'm thinking 'bout eternity," Griffith sings) and Dougie MacLean's anthem to kinship among people and nature, "Feels So Near," also follow the theme.
Gerry O'Beirne's "Half Moon Bay" (the bittersweet memory of unfulfilled love) and Richard Farina's "Swallow Song" (the sheer wonder of the eternal forces of nature) join in the theme of endurance, as does the other traditional song Griffith has chosen for the album - "Searching For Lambs" - if for no other reason than the indestructible life force that such a long-standing song represents.
"Music is an alchemy that transforms life experiences - good or bad - into a beautiful form," says Griffith. The shimmering beauty and understated intensity of each track on MINSTREL SONG is testament to that ideal.
Griffith particularly relates to music's ability to "soothe the fretted brow," as she says. As a full-time physical therapist, she is truly a two-career woman, singing and making records by night, weekends, or any free time while working a day job traveling around the Charles County area visiting homebound patients - mostly older people who have yet to regain their mobility after an acutely debilitating illness or injury. That she splits her time between a demanding professional vocation and the singing and performing she loves proves her own endurance.
"To tell the truth, it's a big challenge," Griffith admits, "but I find pleasure in helping my patients regain strength, confidence and freedom. This schedule definitely affects my personal life, and I absolutely hit the wall sometimes in terms of energy, but I feel very lucky to be involved in two occupations that are so rewarding. In both, I have the opportunity to connect with people and help them feel better."
Griffith was raised on a small farm in Maryland, where she spent her childhood tending the garden and animals, and singing. Her Irish-Catholic family of 12 sang folk songs around the house. Griffith joined the church choir, and before long, an older sister introduced her to the active Washington D.C. coffeehouse scene. She quickly gained popularity with audiences, but never really viewed music as a career option. "Coming from a family of limited means with pragmatic parents, we never saw the arts as a reliable way to support yourself," she says.
She attended the University of Maryland on scholarship, channeling her keen interest in helping others into her work as a physical therapist. After college, Griffith began singing in an all-female Celtic group called the Hags. From 1987-1991, she performed in the duo Hazelwood. She also continues to perform with the group Connemara (her Connemara recording, BEYOND THE HORIZON and SIREN SONG, are also available on the Blix Street label).
MINSTREL SONG represents her second solo effort (Blix Street released her first, GRACE, in 1996), one that, in addition to the thematic and practical, is special to Griffith on a personal level too. The record was produced by Marcy Marxer half of the GRAMMY®-nominated duo Fink and Marxer. "It was a pleasure to work with a producer who's also a close personal friend," says Griffith. Similarly, all the photography in the package was done by another friend, renowned photographer Irene Young, who has photographed musicians ranging from Laura Nyro to Suzanne Vega, Mary Black and many more.
But mostly MINSTREL SONG reflects a maturing singer's first thematic, most accomplished solo album and an opportunity to hear Griffith ripen into an assured and beautiful performer, giving us all a soothing and special gift: her music.
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