Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Patty Griffin at Mountain Winery


Patty Griffin
is one of those artist's artists. Not everyone knows about her (though they should), however, every songwriter worth their salt does. Highly respected by her esteemable peers, her songs have been cover by the Dixie Chicks and Emmylou Harris, been nominated for a Grammy and garnered her a loyal, ever-growing fan base. Music appreciator extraordinaire Richard gave me and my fellow SF songwriter Jean Mazzei a couple of tickets to last nights show at the Mountain Winery at which we both jumped. Playing songs from her first CD "Flaming Red" ('Tony') to just penned tunes ('Little God' a polite f#*& you to a megalomaniac she once 'did business with," and an a cappella version written in lieu of an asked-for commencement speech) the Austin singer is more radiant and masterful than ever. Her voice powerful & a bit gravelly, her guitar strong and backed by piano, accordion, drums and acoustic bass. Though she did admit to a completing a couple of CDs that 'never came out,' to the public eye she seems unable to write a less-than-fabulous song. The show seemed much too short. In reality Griffin played for more than 1.5 hours-- making the time go so quickly another sign of a really great performer.

2 comments:

RadioMike said...

I still haven't seen her and I am leaving this heat sink soon. But I remember one summer seeing Jimmy Castor, AKA The Jimmy Castor Bunch, play for at least an hour and a half if not more up in Harlem, NYC. No encores, but he and his band played harder than anyone I have ever seen.

He got the whole audience up and dancing, even me. It was amazing.

Bird in the Tree said...

glad you got up dancing. Then ya know it's good.