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captainsblogBy 1-something this afternoon, we were back from Eleanor's procedure. We got there early, it took a little longer than expected to get started, but I ran an errand and she was ready to go when I got back, and by all reports it went well. I also turned in all my paperwork for four weeks from now. She grabbed lunch on the way home, chilled a bit while I actually napped after being up since 5, and I then came out to the living room, checked the ol' Facebook feed,....
and found we'd lost a longtime friend.
Never met her. Only saw her perform once. But Nanci Griffith was a singer, a songwriter, a survivor, and a saint of causes we believe in. She just passed, at the too-young age of 68; at her wishes, details and memorials will wait for at least a week.
That one time was not long after we moved here, late August of 1995. I remember her LBJ campaign button on her guitar strap. Eleanor remembers her talking about trying to keep a squadron of midges from divebombing her mouth the entire night on the outdoor Artpark stage. We both remember a setlist of old favorites that had been part of our together life for years, and probably some new beloveds from Flyer, the last album she released before that show, with a shoutout to where we had just moved:
He was a flyer for the Air Force
On a plane from San Antonio
I was traveling to London
He was going off to Buffalo
Changing planes in Pittsburgh
We got grounded in a storm
Now, I would give anything
To be on that flyer's arm...
God bless the flyer
Who would be flying home tonight
I would give anything
To see that flyer, flyin' tonight
Also on that album is the song that remains my all-time of hers. It didn't make the early obituaries, mostly cast in terms of Other Voices, Other Rooms- the far more famed artists she sang with or who covered songs she'd sung. Bette Midler and Bob Dylan have gotten the most mentions. But here, she's backed up by a couple of Girls in Indigo, who no doubt are mourning their loss today as well:
But there's an earlier song- "Love at the Five and Dime"- that will always be a personal anthem for us. That Youtube is of the live version, from a 1988 album she recorded at Houston's long-beloved and still-active club Anderson Fair. It is prefaced by a long spoken intro about her fascination with the Woolworth stores of her youth. She outlived that chain, at least the North American ones, by a good couple of decades. It was their London store that she encountered only as a touring musician, the first one she ever went into with an actual lift within it. She ends her live version of the song with the two words most fitting to where her soul has passed in these times:
Going up!
and found we'd lost a longtime friend.
Never met her. Only saw her perform once. But Nanci Griffith was a singer, a songwriter, a survivor, and a saint of causes we believe in. She just passed, at the too-young age of 68; at her wishes, details and memorials will wait for at least a week.
That one time was not long after we moved here, late August of 1995. I remember her LBJ campaign button on her guitar strap. Eleanor remembers her talking about trying to keep a squadron of midges from divebombing her mouth the entire night on the outdoor Artpark stage. We both remember a setlist of old favorites that had been part of our together life for years, and probably some new beloveds from Flyer, the last album she released before that show, with a shoutout to where we had just moved:
He was a flyer for the Air Force
On a plane from San Antonio
I was traveling to London
He was going off to Buffalo
Changing planes in Pittsburgh
We got grounded in a storm
Now, I would give anything
To be on that flyer's arm...
God bless the flyer
Who would be flying home tonight
I would give anything
To see that flyer, flyin' tonight
Also on that album is the song that remains my all-time of hers. It didn't make the early obituaries, mostly cast in terms of Other Voices, Other Rooms- the far more famed artists she sang with or who covered songs she'd sung. Bette Midler and Bob Dylan have gotten the most mentions. But here, she's backed up by a couple of Girls in Indigo, who no doubt are mourning their loss today as well:
But there's an earlier song- "Love at the Five and Dime"- that will always be a personal anthem for us. That Youtube is of the live version, from a 1988 album she recorded at Houston's long-beloved and still-active club Anderson Fair. It is prefaced by a long spoken intro about her fascination with the Woolworth stores of her youth. She outlived that chain, at least the North American ones, by a good couple of decades. It was their London store that she encountered only as a touring musician, the first one she ever went into with an actual lift within it. She ends her live version of the song with the two words most fitting to where her soul has passed in these times:
Going up!
Oh wow
Date: 2021-08-14 11:43 am (UTC)