I’m a Patti Griffin fan. I first encountered her passionate and mournful voice when she opened for Shawn Colvin at the 9:30 Club in 1996 during Shawn’s “A Few Small Repairs” tour. The more I listened, and the more live performances I attended, the more her music and commitment touched me and I’ve been an avid follower ever since. She is one of America’s greatest musical treasures winning the the AMA’s highest honor as “Artist of the Year” in 2007.
Her newest album Downtown Church is a collection of Gospel style songs produced by her longtime friend and producer Buddy Miller at the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN. Downtown Church brings to life Gospel songs that have influenced contemporary music in a way that only Patty Griffin can do.
Andy Whitman of Christianity Today recently talked with Patti Griffin about the album and asked her this question:
I love “Coming Home to Me,” one of two original gospel compositions on Downtown Church. You sing “When you’re lost and you’re found and you’re found and you’re lost / When you’re dancing with no one around.” What does it mean to be lost and found in the context of the same gospel song?
Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it? Look, we can talk about beliefs and doctrines and what have you. But when you get older, my experience has been that it’s not that simple. People are complicated. That song—like a lot of my other songs, I suppose—is trying to get at what really goes on inside, deep down. It’s about feeling alone and abandoned, and simultaneously aware that there is something or someone bigger and outside of you, and feeling connected to that. Both those things are true. It’s not one or the other. I don’t want to put a label on it. (Laughs). I guess that’s sort of a recurring theme with me, isn’t it? But both those things are true. That’s what I wanted to communicate. You’re lost and you’re found. Both those things are true.
The songs mix traditional standards (“Wade In The Water,” ”Move Up”) with country and blues spirituals (Hank Williams’ “House Of Gold,” the blues classic “If I Had My Way” and St. Francis of Assisi’s poem set to Ralph Vaughan William’s arrangement, “All Creatures of our God and King” ) and originals written by Griffin, Julie Miller and others. It would be a powerful to have Patti sing one of these songs at Holy Comforter some day. Episcopalians might leave their pews. Watch out!
