RECORDINGS Quick Spins
RECORDINGS Quick Spins
(By Allan Messer)
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CHILDREN RUNNING THROUGH
Patty Griffin
Reviews of Patty Griffin's records tend to spend less time talking about her music than they do cataloguing which of her more celebrated colleagues (including Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks) admires her or has performed her songs. The result: She is often portrayed as someone who has yet to arrive as an artist, an assessment that, as her bracing new album attests, couldn't be further from the truth.
The fifth studio recording of Griffin's career, "Children Running Through," is the work of a gifted singer, songwriter and, for the first time, producer (with Mike McCarthy of the band Spoon) at the height of her powers. In terms of emotional and musical reach and of vocal and orchestral dynamics, the record brings to mind "For the Roses," the fifth studio album by another consummate singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell.
Mitchell's work was grounded largely in folk, classical and pop idioms at that point; here, Griffin draws more on the wellspring of gospel and R&B. With maybe one exception, this affinity is less an overtly sonic one than a sensibility. It has more to do with the resilience and uplift in Griffin's by turns flinty and soaring alto than anything else.
The empathy and candor of her writing no doubt will move others to want to record some of these songs. As with the previous likes of "Let Him Fly" and "Top of the World," though, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to hollow out the marrow of originals like "Stay on the Ride" and "Getting Ready" the way Griffin does here.
DOWNLOAD THESE: "Stay on the Ride," "Getting Ready"
-- Bill Friskics-Warren
