Late night grande hotel ---- Nanci Griffith --- 1991 (MCA)
One of my all-time favourite country artistes, Nanci Griffith has to date recorded seventeen studio albums, of which this is her eighth. The production is a little more polished than her previous outings, and there are some quite commercial/pop songs on it, but unlike some artistes who started out as country and branched out to other genres, Nanci has never made the crossover to mainstream music of any kind, nor seemed to want to. She has her dedicated following, and is more interested in writing her own music as well as paying homage to the greats of her genre than having a hit single. This of course means that outside of those who listen to country music, few will know her name, except perhaps for the hit “From a distance”, but she is an accomplished artiste in her own right, and while few rockers may number her albums among their collection, I'm sure there are one or two who have a copy of “Lone star state of mind” or “Last of the true believers” squirreled away.
Personally, I have most of her collection up to 1997's “Blue roses from the moons”, but this remains one of my favourites of hers. Less out-and-out country than, say, “Lone star” or even its follow-up, “Little love affairs”, it's nevertheless a great album, with well-crafted and played songs, most of which are her own compositions.
The album starts off with a bouncy number; “It's just another morning here” finds Nanci as ever in fine voice, and can possibly be seen as autobiographical, a portrait of the artist as a young lady, as it were. It gets things going nicely, before the title track slows everything back down with a stately ballad sung with Nanci's characteristic passion and often pathos. The lines
”It's not the way you hold me/ When the sun goes down/ It's not the way you called my name/ And left me stranded on the ground/ It's not the way you say you hear my heart/ When the music ends/ I am just learning how to fly away again” bring to mind a bad love affair, further backed up by the advice
”Maybe you were thinking that you thought/ You knew me well/ But no-one ever knows the heart/ Of anyone else/ I feel like Garbo in this/ Late night grande hotel/ Cos living alone is all I've ever done well.” It's a great song, backed by a full orchestra and has the drama and flair that has perhaps been missing from earlier albums.
“It's too late” is a short, sharp ode to making do, with backing vocals from Tanita Tikaram, while “Fields of summer” tries to recapture those heady days when we were first in love. Nanci asks
”When the night has come/ And I would race the moon across the sky/ Would you chase me through /Those open fields of summer?” There is some great drumwork here, very restrained when you would expect flourishes and flurries, and it works really well. “Heaven” is the first cover version on the album, and it's by Julie Gold, whose song “From a distance” Nanci included on her “Lone star state of mind” album, and which proved her only crossover hit. Sung against a simple piano melody, it's a powerful little ballad, with a very simple message:
”I think I'll go to Heaven/ Cos Heaven is in your eyes.”
“Down 'n' outer” is a terribly touching tale of someone who has fallen on bad times due to circumstances beyond their control. It tries to humanise the beggars we all see, and pass, on our streets every day, to remind us that these are men, and women, who were once as we are, and that “there but for the grace of God go I.” It has some excellent lines:
”Can you spare a dime/ Can you spare the time/ Can you look me in the eye?/ I'm down and out and I am lonely/ Do you ever think of me on Sunday?” and tellingly
”No I don't live across the water/ I live right here on this corner/ I'm just a bank account away/ From America.” Powerful stuff, and sung with real soul.
Nanci has fun with the privileged in “One blade shy of a sharp edge”, in a similar vein to Judie Tzuke on “Sportscar” (huh?), laughing at a guy who thinks his big car and money will attract her, but he had better look elsewhere, as she explains
”I'm a full-grown woman/ And you're lookin' for girls”, while “The sun, moon and stars” is a bittersweet little ballad, a lovely little song, and the album closes on a Tom Waits cover, from his second album, “The heart of Saturday night”; she picked a good one in “San Diego serenade”, and she makes a very good go of it, though of course no-one sings Waits songs like Waits.
Nanci seldom if ever produces a less than excellent album, and “Late night grande hotel” keeps up the tradition set by such albums as “Lone star state of mind” and “Storms”. Somewhat disliked by a section of her fans due to its more commercial/pop sound, it's nevertheless a great effort and a good example of an artiste who is not afraid to spread her wings and fly, if only a little way.
TRACKLISTIING
1. It's just another morning here
2. Late night grande hotel
3. It's too late
4. Fields of summer
5. Heaven
6. The power lines
7. Hometown streets
8. Down 'n' outer
9. One blade shy of a sharp edge
10. The sun, moon and stars
11. San Diego serenade
Suggested further listening: “Storms”, “Lone star state of mind”, “Little love affairs”, “Flyer”, “Other voices, other rooms”, “Once in a very blue moon”, “Last of the true believers”